— Nan Sterman
When I dine out, my first choice is always farm-to-fork and farm-to-table. When I cook at home, my first choice is my own farm-to-fork. My little “farm” is the vegetable garden where I’ve grown all kinds of edibles, from artichoke to zucchini, for more than 20 years.
In the last few years, however, I haven’t grown any vegetables, though not for lack of desire or lack of effort. Ever year, I start my vegetable seeds and plant the seedlings as
Arches are connected to metal poles on day two.
the weather warms. But as fast as I plant, the seedlings disappear!
Since my neighborhood is fairly rural, lots of critters visit my garden. In the past, they’d take a bite out of a juicy, ripe tomato or a luscious melon. But we seemed to have reached a point where my produce no longer satisfied those varmints. Instead, they ate whole plants, right down to their roots!
I tried trapping, but there were too many critters for that. I wouldn’t use poison. The best solution, was exclusion.
I decided to build a HUGE cage. I envisioned a wood framed, galvanized, wire-mesh (aka “hardware cloth”) room over my 20’ x 20’ vegetable garden. I talked to my older son who (fortunately) is a contractor. He told me that such a large overhead span of mesh would require a support post in the center of the garden. I looked at the garden layout – the post would stand right in the middle of a raised bed.
I passed on that option.
Next, he offered to cage each raised bed individually. He’d build mesh covered frames with hinged doors I could open when I needed to weed or pick or plant. But I grow
eight-foot tall sunflowers and five-foot tall tomato plants. Cages that big would be unweildy, and smaller cages wouldn’t accomodate my plants.
The wire mesh gets stretched over aliminum poles in my new “greenhouse”
And besides, caging animals out also meant caging me out. It would be really inconvenient. I knew I would get frustrated and the plants wouldn’t get enough care or attention.
Then, one day last summer, I was talking with the general manager of a nearby wholesale nursery. As we chatted, I looked over his shoulder and noticed plastic-covered hoop houses filled with potted plants. Of course I’d seen them before but at that moment, a proverbial lighbulb went off.
Me: “How wide are those hoop houses?”
Him: “Oh, about 20 feet”
Me: “Where do you get the metal ribs to build them?”
Him: “There’s a guy in town who fabricates them for me”
Me: “What’s his name?”
So, on the hottest day of summer, Gilberto and his crew were in my backyard, installing a screen-covered “greenhouse.” They’d built countless hoop houses before, but never
one covered in wire mesh. I special-ordered extra-wide rolls of mesh (the standard is just four feet wide) to accommodate the scale of the structure.
The greenhouse is finished and ready for vegetable seedlings!
The first day, the crew set the metal support poles in concrete. On day two they added arches they’d fabricated in their workshop. Then, they started stretching the wire. On day three, they finished with the wire and added a metal door that Gilberto proudly showed me he’d custom welded for my project.
This year, I started summer vegetable seeds in my annual February seed-starting workshops. Because of a late cold snap, the seedlings stayed small until just a few weeks ago. Finally, they were ready. I took a deep breath, then planted.
Tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, basil, peppers….Every seedling went into a raised bed and so far… nothing has been eaten. Yeah!
So far, the seedlings are doing fine. Each week, they seem to double in size. And I am so excited to be growing vegetables again!
And as excited as I am about growing vegetables, I’m just as excited about cooking and eating them. I’ve finally solved my farm-to-fork challenge!
