Down to Earth – How my Community Farm Keeps this Writer’s Feet on the Ground

It turns out the best way for me to keep my head in the clouds is to shove my hands in the dirt. I went back to the farm for the first time this year, and now everything is coming up rosemary.

The spring crept up on me, which is … unusual. I stay remarkably in-tune with the weather. I’m obsessed with growth cycles and patterns and monitoring the seasons by their most incremental changes. You might even say I’m more than the guy who stops to smell the roses. I’m the guy that smells them and then tells you how much they’ve grown since yesterday. So to find myself, here, in the first week of May without having noticed it happening? 

It’s strange.

Okay, maybe not that strange. I’ve been distracted. Most of the growth and change I’ve been monitoring over the last few months is internal. As I’ve worked with my editor and publisher to polish up a final draft of the new book, I’ve had to take a hard look at my writing, and what it means—what it takes—to be an author in 2019. I’m not going to go into that today. That isn’t the point of this post. I’ll just say, this process has been all-consuming in the best way, and I know I’m a better writer on this side of it.

But time is finite. Other things—like my intimate observations of the way the environment changes from day to day—have necessarily fallen away. And this world of publishing is so big and vast and wonderful and confusing … I could lose myself to it completely. There’s always something to do. There’s always more to be done.

What I’ve needed—what’s been lacking—is something to ground me in reality. Something tangible. Something to pull my head out of the clouds and out of my story. And I got it, a week and a half ago. And I’m so grateful.

A Verdant Homecoming

Early this year, I signed on for a fourth year as a Harvest Work Share at my local community farm. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know the story about how I got involved in the first place. You also probably know that, for me, it’s about more than just the vegetables. And when I’m away from the farm, even though I remember the amazing things it’s taught me, it’s difficult to apply those lessons or feel their benefits.

It’s the kind of place whose memory doesn’t hold up to its reality. And the memories of these past three seasons are good. Great! But to actually be there again? 

We’ll start harvesting for the 2019 CSA the first week of June. I’ve been looking forward to it since our final 2018 harvest just before Christmas. It’s seemed so far off, so imagine my delight when one of our remarkable farmers reached out a week and a half ago to ask if I could come help transplant some seedlings.

There was zero hesitation. I agreed, and early on a cold, gloomy Friday morning, I returned to the farm for the first time this year.

After so much grey and brown and cold, a greenhouse in April is a revelation. It may be one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Inside, beneath thick walls of semi-translucent plastic, thousands upon thousands of seedlings greeted me with their bright, eager faces of green. Packed into trays of two hundred each, they opened their leaves to me—reaching up for the sun and out to the future. 

It doesn’t get more real than this. I stopped for a moment to imagine the awesome potential of these tiny plants—that given sun, rain, and soil, they could feed thousands for a season.

And the seedlings weren’t my only source of a warm welcome. Within moments, I found myself embraced by some of the most down-to-earth people I know. Our farmers are extraordinary, intelligent, thoughtful, resourceful, kind, friendly, and passionate people. And I’ve missed them.

Respect. Love. Vegetables.

We said our hellos, and it was down to business. Posted up beside a six-foot-high bag of deliciously aromatic potting soil, I started filling six packs and 3.5 inch plastic pots with baby plants. It was rhythmic. A dance. Drive a finger down to the bottom, pull a plug from the set of 200, tuck it in, repeat. Finish the tray. Label with a popsicle stick and carry to the back of the hoop house. Give a little room between trays—we were transplanting tomatoes, and they don’t like to be too crowded. Repeat. Repeat.

It’s the kind of low-impact manual work I love. Easy to measure. To quantify. And every subsequent seedling transplanted meant a little more dirt under my nails. A slightly greater connection to earth and history and nature and that particular kind of love that we cultivate for all three when we tend and nurture these extraordinary photosynthetic organisms we’ve domesticated. Minutes passed. Then a half hour. I finished my first set of 200 and moved on to the next. The farmers and I talked and laughed and looked forward to the season ahead. I told them about the progress with the book. They told me how good the shallots are going to be.

I really can’t wait for the shallots, but that’s a story for another day (thanks Elena).

Two hours and 800 seedlings later, it was time for me to leave. I needed to get home. Back to the dog. Back to my writing and everything else. But I lingered. Took some photos. Drew out my goodbyes and said I’d love to come back soon.

Because two short hours reignited something in my soul that had smoldered for a while before being snuffed out by the long winter. There was a joy I wore on my face too enormous to hide. Born of this place. One of the only places I’ve ever found with no drama, no arguments, no bickering. No unhappiness or negativity. Just respect. Love. Vegetables.

And, it’s not as though I’ve been unhappy in the months since I last visited the farm. Far from it. I experience joy and love and happiness all the time. But it’s this particular flavor I’ve been lacking. This experience of being so close to the earth that I can’t help but feel, well, grounded.

I carried that joy all through the weekend and the week that followed. I was invited back this past Friday, and another two hours was enough to fill me up again.

The Takeaway

Only time (and the farmers) know if I’ll be back before harvesting begins next month. I hope so, but if not, I think the thought alone will pull me forward.

I’m a lucky man. I have a job that pays the bills (the pool). I have a writing career putting out its own buds. And I have the farm work, which feeds my family alongside my soul. I work, in some way, shape, or form, from the time I get up in the morning until I get home just before midnight every day. I get tired. I get stressed. I know I shouldn’t constantly push myself so hard.

But I can, and I will. As long as I have the farm to keep me grounded—and I hope I’ll always have a farm, even if someday it can’t be this one—I can allow myself to spin my head up into the clouds in the moments, days, and months between visits. The soil will always invite me back down. Demand my company and keep my counsel.

So, here’s to a remarkable growing season in 2019. May your chard be vibrant, your tomatoes sun-kissed, and your cucumbers crisp. I know mine will be. The farm and I are going to do some growing together. I wish you growth as well.

Share your thoughts! Do you have a happy place that brings you back to earth when you’re drifting through the atmosphere? What do you do to stay grounded? If you’re planting a garden, what is your favorite back-yard vegetable? Tell me all about it in the comments below.

Thanks, as always, for reading,

Gregory