This fall’s two acres of beet were a huge success, but my point of view is biased seeing how it is my responsibility to seed, water and help keep bugs and weeds from harming all the crops on our farm. The reality is that the beginning of this crop’s life was quite dramatic.
The population of moths living in the neighbor’s alfalfa field saw the young beets as an ideal location to lay their eggs. I was worried that the sudden infestation of hundreds of thousands of little moth worms would clear cut the entire field before a single beet could mature.
Reaching into our limited arsenal of organic insecticides, we were able to ease the pressure from the worms enough to turn the tides in favor of the beets – victory! The plants are now healthy and ready to make a hearty fall meal, but the remaining bug bite holes in the leaves tell the story of the crop’s early toil.
The harsh reality of our nation’s food distribution system is that the moths may have sentenced my farm’s beet crop to going to seed in the field without ever being given the opportunity to take center stage on your plate. The damage on the leaves left by the worms is purely cosmetic but enough to get the beets rejected from our wholesale buyers. The argument that most people don’t eat the leaves and the part that they do eat is perfect, generally doesn’t work – we have tried it. The other reality is that the organic division of some huge corporate factory farm has a field, larger than my entire farm, filled with beets that are attached to perfect leaves, for cheaper.
A beet in the field does not look like a beet at all. Just the very top of the root shows and the leaves that stretch out from it, like battle flags showing the signs of their fight. The hidden root makes judging the size of the root difficult. Despite the reaction from our wholesale customers and the price of our competitor’s product, our crew will be making their first harvest through the field as they hone their skills at judging the size of the beets before plucking them up from the ground.
Like many small family farms, we have secured a market for our product that bypasses the moody wholesale buyers and sells directly to customers. This is the best way to distribute our handcrafted works of art to customers who care about the quality of food they are eating and the procedure in which that food was grown.
Thaddeus
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