My Trip, to a Farm
Zoë, 余艾蕾, two very close friends from 余艾蕾’s work, and I went to Terhune Orchards yesterday. Now, I’m going to say something bad about it, but before I do I want to say the good things about it so you don’t think I don’t like this place. It was great seeing local farmers doing good business. Zoë saw broccoli, Swiss chard, and tomatillos plants growing for the very first time. She saw a horse, chickens, and other farm animals in a humane environment. She went wild saying “apple” over and over walking through the orchard. In the store they had many locally grown vegetables for sale, the diesel fule saved from getting these rather then most of what is in a mega-mart’s produce section makes it worth shopping there alone.
Around the corner from this place is my organic CSA, Cherry Grove Organic Farm. Not to be confused with Cherry Grove Farm for your locally raised meats, right around another corner. At Terhune Orchards, I thought it was a little eerie, the broccoli and chard rows didn’t have a single weed, nor a bug. It was just a streach of packed dirt with nothing but the crop growing in it. Two and a half miles away, at the Cherry Grove Organic Farm, I’m impressed by the incect and flora biodiversity. Sure, when I’m there picking vegetable the weeds get in the way, but it’s nice to know that other things will grow in the ground. Apart from a yellow jacket or two, the bugs at my CSA don’t bother me, I see them, I also see them eating each other. My CSA does not have any apple trees, so I got same apples, I just have to give them a really good washing before Zoë and I eat them.
Soon harvest will be over. I have some tomato sauce in the freezer and some pototes in a cool place, apart from that I have nothing for the winter. It will be vegetables from the mega-mart until late spring. I hope to preserve some more items next year.
