This morning I woke to the sound of an owl hooting. It’s message low and insistent. It must be mating season. Imagine calling out across the valley searching for a stranger to create new life with. I listened to the call of the owl a moment more then reached for my phone to check Instagram. Bad idea? Yes, usually, but this morning the algorithm showed me the actor Sean Bean reading a Wendell Berry poem called The Peace of Wild Things; a steadying poem that recalls our attention to the real world, the natural world if you like, in our increasingly digital lives. When the poem ended I put my phone away, but the owl had stopped hooting.
Wendall Berry was one of the most admired American writers of his generation. Perhaps you’ve read his work. If not I recommend his poetry especially. He was an environmental activist against industrialised farming and for most of his long life farmed land on the Kentucky river with his family but without computers, television or telephones. Not that they were against all technology, the family were early adopters of solar panels. Berry passed away recently on 31 August. He was 92. The Peace of Wild Things is one of his most returned to poems. I particularly like the line:
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.
Despite all the terrifying news of late, spring has returned to Ramarro Farm. The orchard is full of frothy blossoms, pink and white like fairy floss. Standing beneath the plum tree, I hear the bees before I see them. I look up and there are hundreds of them which always gives me hope. Perhaps we have almost reached the end of the Hungry Gap. A time when winter crops like cauliflower have finished but spring crops like broadbeans are yet to fruit. It’s a lean time of year, even with the help of polytunnels, but the signs of change are all around us. The elderflower bushes are sprouting, all our perennial herbs (sage, thyme, rosemary, marjoram) are beginning to bounce back. After a few weeks of dry weather we’ve been able to plant our potato crop as well as our pumpkins. The tomatoes are growing a whopping 30cm per week so the demanding work of pruning and trellising has begun.
This week we’re most excited about zucchini flowers starting! We love these bright yellow flowers on a pizza bianca or chopped up into a pasta, or stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies. You’ll find them in our veg boxes from this week and in your favourite restaurants and retail stores very soon.
It’s supposed to be a beautiful long weekend in Melbourne, perfect for leaving our phones inside and getting out into the garden. This is our last week selling tomato seedlings so get your orders in and get planting. The seedlings are beautifully healthy, perhaps the best we’ve ever had. More info on varieties, stockists and online orders to pick up from the farm can be found here.
Enjoy the weekend and until next time … eat well!
Lisa, Oliver and the Ramarro Farm team
Words by Lisa Davis