August on the Farm In Pictures (And What Pictures Don’t Show)

I’ve always believed summer to be my favorite month. As a kid, of course it was—weeks-long trips to my favorite places up and down California where life consisted of either lakes and tents, or pools and cabins, and never-ending play.

Since moving to Colorado over a decade ago, summer’s remained my favorite for not so different reasons: long walks through evergreens and high-mountain ferns, dips in cold water, and warm weather that requires little more clothing than running shorts and a swimsuit top.

The thing is, I realized this summer that maybe nostalgia had gotten the better of me. Because no matter how many swims I swam or or sundaes I ate, I haven’t been able to shake a feeling, a hum, of anxiety and overwhelm. Even though I worked twice as hard on the farm during springtime, the juggling of dirt and desk caught up to me, and no matter how many balls or pens or plants I set down, I couldn’t seem to find relief.

In fact, the more I tried to fix my life—organize better, plan more, clean more, track to-do-list items, work out harder, write every day, schedule dinners with friends—the worse I felt.

I’m starting to realize after weeks and months of compounding pressure—as I begin to practice letting go of my expectations, to question and soften against this need to be and do everything—that perhaps I don’t need fixing.

In the welcome series for my email newsletter, I tell a story of how Desk to Dirt came to be: out of burnout, and out of slowing down. I haven’t “fixed” that part of me, and I have a feeling I never will. To be ambitious and inspired is a gift, and it’s one I’m still learning how to receive.

So, as much as this post is an update on the farm during perhaps the most bountiful time of year, it’s also an ode to what’s happening to me, the farmer, beneath the surface, behind the camera. And to you, my fellow visionary.

The peas held strong for a few months. We harvested bowls and bowls of them, blanched and froze them for winter stir-fries, and snacked on them during many a garden pursuing. The plants slowed down on production this month and put out a last round of both bitter, starchy pods as well as some just as delicious as they were in spring.

Winter squash patches started to reach out their arms vines, filling the nooks and crannies between—and down-right smothering—other garden plants.

I started practicing taking up space. Ideally, not by puffing up, and importantly not shrinking either. Simply taking up space in the world so I can soak up the light, just like the squash do.

Summer squash arrived late this year on our farm, which seemed to be a shared experience with other gardeners in our area. We’ve managed to keep up with the harvest, probably in part because they’re feeling more modest this season than they usually do, but also because I discovered a raw zucchini salad recipe that opened up our culinary eyes beyond zucchini bread, grilled zucchini and pasta dishes.

Our broccoli never (yet) seems to form big heads like you find at the grocery store, but we love the brocollini style heads all the same. (Brocollini, I’ve learned, is a different plant altogether; pictured above are broccoli “side shoots” that form when we harvest our small broccoli heads repeatedly.)

A brassica plant here and a brassica plant there are infested with pests. Sometimes I pull the plants and feed them to the chickens; other times I feel the plant is keeping the bugs concentrated, and the bugs are feeding other bugs, like ladybugs, who seem to adore the artichokes.

Meanwhile, I learn to love and respect the parts of me that seem gross, that embarrass, that simply get a bad rap. I learn to welcome them into the broader ecosystem.

Left: I take a mental health day off work and re-situate our new laying hens after a weekend of slaughtering the meat birds with whom they previously lived and grazed.

Right: One evening after work, Cooper and I play golf. They say golf tells you exactly where your head’s at. I played terribly for the most part, but by the ninth hole, I did alright. And anyway, my form is pretty good according to my dad.

Remember the sunflower circle I planted for my inner child? It’s doing great! It’s amazingly cool inside the circle, and sitting on the dirt surrounded by stalks and beans feels about as magical as I remember imagining it.

Useful lessons learned for next year’s circle: Plant beans on both sids! I planted all the beans on the outside of the sunflowers, and in some cases the beans pull the sunflowers down to the ground. Also, next year’s will be bigger with multiple circles planted one inside the other, so that it’s a thick blanket of bliss.

I’m grateful for this gift I gave myself.

The sunchokes are absolutely beautiful in bloom, reaching heights well above our heads. I can only imagine the buckets of tubers we’ll be harvesting next spring…

Before our kitchen was torn apart because of a black mold discovery (a story for another post, or probably many posts, due to the astonishing health implications of such an experience), it was bursting with color and flavor from garden bounties.

For years, I’ve wanted to make deli-style pickled banana peppers and this year we had the banana peppers to do it! And they are delicious. Banana peppers might have climbed to the top of my list this year in the pepper department—they’re bountiful, crispy, and have a nice flavor that’s neither spicy nor sweet.

We also made tasty dilly beans using big, long bean pods of the Great Northern variety. The Great Northern White Bean is designated as a dry bean, but we’ve been sauteeing, grilling and now pickling these big babies and they are yum.

A few surprise strawberries arrived in the heat of summer, our grapevine reached every corner of its trellis, and what turned out to be our first wonderfully abundant raspberry season came to a sweet close as the patch put out one last handful of berries.

The lupine (or tarwi) trials are so far inconclusive. Some of the plants have put out beautiful flowers and good-looking pods, but many have not. We may have planted too late for a good harvest. Meanwhile the Peruvian corn patch is likewise holding me in suspense—having just at the end of the month (after I took the picture above) put out its flowers (or tassels) for pollination. Beneath it, bush beans begin to dry. An beside it, edamame beans quickly grow from thin to overdue. I missed the short harvest window, thinking they’d fill out more. Oh well, more seed for next year!

In my head, I toil with being as best I can be, and with being the best, and with struggling to tell the difference between the two. Somehow, the garden has always been a space where I’ve cultivated permission to fail.

What a gift.

After two years of growing onions that never quite sized up or browned at the tips, we’ve ecstatic about our monster onions!

Flowers are blooming brightly, tender herbs are going to seed. (I used dill seed in the dilly beans.) Annual garden berries are slowly ripening alongside yellow tomatillos and happy peppers.

Cabbage heads are ready to burst, some of them surpassing basketball size.

Some of my most peaceful moments this summer have been at dusk, looking out at a long row of brassicas in the Golden Hour light, or on a few rare nights, kissing the light of a full moon.

This kind of beauty, this kind of Light, can’t be captured in pictures.

These moments are ordinary, and spectacular. They remind me that my joy is flickering, kindred, alive and well.

This kind of beauty… It is growth and decay, it is failure and success, it is bugs that eat plants and bugs that eat bugs, and it is loving all of it.