I think about my time as a line cook at Season’s Family Restaurant as a kid. During a breakfast rush, it was total madness. Cooks arguing with wait staff, orders getting shouted across the kitchen, the electronic order board flashing the time…”That f*#k’n table of eight is at ten minutes! What the hell are we waiting for…?” But, at the end of the day, we disassembled the line, mopped the floor, and cleaned the griddle – steam and super powerful degreaser all over – and the place stood silent. That feeling, right before you hit the switch to walk out, is great. This place that was all chaos and stress and effort now stands quiet, at rest.

I get this same feeling today when I step in to close the co-op and look over the freshly-mopped deli tile and leave the store dark alone with two compressors whirring as I walk out. I certainly have this feeling when we order the packing shed at the end of the day. We spray down the sinks and tanks. Hang knives. Stack wax boxes. Clean crates. Squeegee the floor of the water collected on the cement along with the cuttings of lettuce, stray veggies, and random weeds that snuck in.

As a kid, I just had this feeling of satisfaction. Today, it runs deeper.

Yes, the order is satisfying, but the feeling today is one of gratitude. We grow relationships with the places we work day after day. The place provides our livelihood, and, in return, we care for it. Put to bed for the day, we thank the place for what it has given us, because, together, we did something we are proud of.

In the box:

• Cherry tomatoes
• Red potatoes
• Fresh dill: Try with those potatoes and some sour cream.
• Cilantro
• Green beans
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini
• Daikon Radish(es): 1 o 2 radishes (some are big). Think of a Asian side salad: https://sarahscucinabella.com/2010/02/03/easy-daikon-salad-recipe/ Can be combined with carrots.
• Carrots
• Salad mix
• A few spring onions

Vegetable farming, like nature, provides an array of colors across the season. The reds and yellows of cherry tomatoes and peppers. A subtle yet deep palette of greens and the contrasts of deep blue skies and black soils wet from the morning rain. But, but once a year, I experience the greatest color of the farm season – the magenta of new red potatoes. It’s amazing that my violent uprooting of plants with a 3-ton tractor and digging spade ripping through the soil can uncover these rubies with their thin, fragile skins. Beautiful, but heavy 🙂

With potatoes now coming out of the ground, we’re beginning to tiptoe our way into high season. The greatest hits will start coming again and should we all slow down time a bit to appreciate the bounty. I know that as soon as I hit this great time of year, I only think about how to muscle through it, which I’ll chalk up to a farmer problem.

In the box:

• Norland potatoes
• Mixed cherry tomatoes
• Romaine lettuce
• Broccoli: Had to get this in the cooler last week with the heat…sorry I’m afraid it didn’t hold terribly well as we got some yellowing.
• Green garlic
• English Cucumber + Diva Cucumber
• Zucchini
• Bean mix: Yellow and Green

I’m sure you’ve heard the term, an honest living?

For me the term conjures up some guy in the 1930’s mob-ridden America who puts on his work boots each morning and heads off with a lunch bucket to go mining or pour steel. In his world, a bunch of other guys in the neighborhood make all kinds of easy money through various schemes, drive fast cars, and hang out with fast women. By the end of this storyline in my mind, the mobsters reluctantly acknowledge the working stiff has it right. A moral story run over and over again.

I feel like some mythical honest entrepreneur when leaving a farmers market. I bring vegetables I grew with my two hands, customers and I banter face-to-face, and they hand me cash for the vegetables. It feels good for both buyer and seller, in part due to this being one of the longest-running forms of economy in human history. In our earliest civilizations, we created face-to-face markets. Some, like the Grand Bazaar Maree and I visited in Turkey where I worked 20 years ago, have been running since America was first discovered by Europeans.

Honest living. I feel like we want it more than ever because the world keeps getting more complicated and products become less tangible. People today sell a collection of pixels for millions of dollars. Entrepreneurs make good livings off small fees tacked onto billions of dollars moving from one electronic account to another. Or just have ‘evergreen’ products that you syndicate that provide passive income. Trades. Crypto. Financial derivatives. What are we doing? More ways to get those fast cars but today we videotape ourselves doing it – which, BTW, we can sell as our ‘secret sauce’ to get rich quick.

I’m afraid that I’m now veering off into a rant or turning into the ornery old farmer shaking his fist at all modernity… End of the day, we all want work that is rewarding that contributes to others in a meaningful way. We need to find ways of recognizing that in what we do and it’s difficult to say I know that for anyone else. I only know that, for me, farming is not only honest work, but work that is immeasurably rewarding and also provides some of the best deep sleep the world over.

In the box:

• Green Cabbage
• Broccoli
• Green Garlic: This is simply garlic that has not yet been cured (it’s fresh out of the ground). Pull out the cloves as you would any garlic and use as you would any garlic – just a bit more pungent.
• Green Leaf Lettuce
• 1# of Green Beans
• 2-3 Salad Turnips: White radish-y looking things with green tops. A lot like a radish, but with a mellow flavor.
• Kohlrabi: Green bulb with little leaves. Just peel, salt, and eat.
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers: European types with a thinner skim than your American slicer.

I’m surprised when some members or customers think I only farm. For the past twenty years, I’ve held down a full time job as an Extension Educator with the University of Minnesota while also running Lida Farm. I thought it was obvious. But it isn’t. People either know me as Ryan Pesch, Farm proprietor, or Ryan Pesch, Extension Educator. While a lot of people think about balancing work and life, I sometimes joke that I’m constantly balancing work and work 🙂

This weekend was a good example. We typically focus on harvesting on Sundays and get the crops done that take a lot of time so we can pack the boxes on Monday. This weekend, however, I had to go roundtrip to Lino Lakes to do a post-harvest vegetable handling demonstration with some new African farmers who are selling wholesale. To allow me to be gone on Sunday, Mason and I had to do harvesting on Saturday – that’s work-work balance!

To some lucky souls with just one 9-5 job, this sounds all kinds of crazy. To me, after 20 years, it’s just normal and really part of a long tradition of farmers who do some kind of work off farm. Hey, even Pa from Little House on the Prairie had a ‘town job’ at the lumber mill. Remember that? Yes, at times, I’m doing some kind of data analysis or report for Extension at 10 pm to meet a deadline and it’s really no fun at all. But, most often, I intersperse time getting physical outside with my Extension work inside and it feels very complementary and productive.

Let me be clear, I don’t want to join this chorus of ‘productivity gurus’ you find online. These guys are all kinds of annoying, forever banging on about just how successful they are taking on the world as a weight-lifting tech bro who just cornered the crypto market. I’d just say my goals are a lot more modest. I like to be able to cook a meal from scratch in the evening and relax. A day made up of some physical labor give you a satisfying feeling at the end of the day that no amount of deals and meetings and moving pixels around could ever approach.

In the box:

• Green Cabbage
• Snap Peas: Edible pod in pint container – no need to shell – just eat them.
• Bunch of Kale: Frilly green with blue band.
• Green Onions
• Bunch of Radishes: Yes, I’ll lay off these after this week…no, I don’t put radishes in every box but these have been growing super well in our cool wet summer so far.
• Lettuce mix: A mix of red and green varieties. Some might have a frilly leaves, others will be butterhead type, but they are all lettuce.
• English Cucumber: Wow, these grew great in the high tunnel this year!
• Kohlrabi: Bulb-like thing with greens on top. For some, this alien veggie is a mystery. Just peel, cut, and eat with some salt.
• Bunch of Parsley: Small bunch with red band.

Farming can be a game of reminders. I need to remind myself sometimes just how difficult planting was without a transplanter. How difficult farming was with little kids. And just how dry and hot was last summer.

I try to remind myself because we can obsess on what’s before us right now. Today the topic du jour is rain. If I so much as say hi to someone, I hear about how the big, bad rain is making their life difficult. From weeds in the garden to moving a kids birthday party inside. I also look at the forecast and say, “Man, I have to get such and such done, what’s with the rain again on Tuesday?”

Before my annoyance grows too great, I remind myself (see first paragraph). I transport myself to July of 2023 and try to remember just how hot was that string of 90-degree days. How we spent hours just pulling hose around the farm to keep plants alive, much less produce well. These little reminders put the annoyances of today in clear relief – they are just small little bumps in everyday life. And, in reality, the rain is a great blessing this year. It comes periodically enough that we have some of the best brassica crops I’ve seen in a long while. I expect great things out of these huge broccoli plants, all green and lush. Cabbages are a nice size and starting to form inner leaves. And those potatoes really have great foliage.

The rain isn’t all bad and these temperatures have made for chill workdays. I’m sure July will bring us the heat we need in time, but, for now, let’s enjoy what’s right before us.

In the box:

• Napa Cabbage: Big thing in box –
• Green Onions
• Snap Peas: These are edible pod, so no need to shell
• Radishes
• Salad mix
• Swiss Chard: I’ve made a swiss chard like this with feta before – https://insimoneskitchen.com/swiss-chard-with-feta-and-pine-nuts/
• Parsley: Small bunch with red band
• Bok Choy: Sorry these don’t look pretty…flea bettles really attacked them in June, but should taste the same even with little holes 🙂 Simple recipe idea: https://www.recipetineats.com/bok-choy-in-ginger-sauce/
• A Couple Cucumbers
• Bunch of Beets: Some got gold beets, but most got a bunch of regular red beets

The contents of this box really lend themselves to tabbouli salad. Yes, you’ll have to pick up some bulger and tomatoes, but you can certainly put the parsley, cucumbers, and green onions to work. See https://www.loveandlemons.com/tabbouleh/ and adjust accordingly.