The reality is not every cucumber is perfect. Neither is every
tomato or potato. And there is no doubt about the carrots: so
many of them grow extra legs or twist around each other, you start
to think they want to look funny. In the vegetable
garden, and in fact, all over the farm, perfection is rare.
Over-sized, under-sized, bug bitten, rotten spots - there are
endless opportunities for something to fall off the perfection
pedestal. So what is a farm to do? The most common option on
farms in America, even small organic farms, is to leave it in the
field, pick it and drop it. If it doesn't meet market
expectations, it's often not worth the time to do any more with
it. But for us, leaving it in the field is the last resort.
Waste is painful to the bottom line and to the morale of the
farmers. So we farm in a way where things rarely go to waste.
One option is to sell it anyway. While we want to give our
customers really good food, the truth is many imperfections have
little effect on the quality of the product. In a blind taste
test, people probably couldn't taste the difference between a
crooked cucumber and a straight one. So while we put out the
prettiest produce at the market first, if we run out of those,
then we may bring out the others. It's always reassuring to us at
the end of the tomato season when the tomatoes are small and full
of character, how eagerly you all still buy them, quickly
dismissing our apologies and saying "at least they are
homegrown." How it was grown outweighs how it looks, especially
when other homegrown options are scarce. So sometimes we bring
ugly things to market.
We also sell seconds through the preserving share option of the
Full Farm CSA. Through the season, members receive preserving
quantities of produce, typically at a reduced price. These are
often second quality, most often for cosmetic issues. But
sometimes we pass along preserving shares of things just because
we have too much of them. On farms abundance can lead to even
more waste than blemishes. Even with the most careful planning,
you just can't sell everything you grow.
Another outlet, for both seconds and simple surplus, is our
neighbors without whom we wouldn't hardly be able to farm. A bag
of cucumbers at peak season seems a poor offering to say thank you
for countless favors, but that's the way of neighborliness.
But sometimes, things aren't second rate; they are third or
fourth rate, i.e. animal quality. This is where the beauty of
diversity on the farm comes into play. The cobs of poor quality
field corn get fed to the chickens for them to turn into eggs --
if there are a bunch of bad kernels on a cob we're not going to
peck out the good ones one by one, but the chickens don't mind in
the least -- the pumpkins with bad spots get fed to the hog to be
turned into bacon (and also provide balance to acorns, which could otherwise be constipating), and the sweet potatoes that are too small get fed
to the goats for them to turn into milk.
But more than any of these other uses, imperfect produce becomes
what we call "farmer grade," meaning it goes to our kitchen for
our use and especially for us to preserve for later. We
ambitiously eat in season: meal times right now feature some kind
of squash and some
variation of cucumber salad on the side, with other
fresh-from-the-garden vegetables as well. And once on the table,
no one notices/remembers that we're eating less than the best
quality. Even our four year old, looking for a snack, knows to
ask for an "ugly" cucumber. And then when we've eaten our share
and know there's more to come from the garden, we heat up the
kitchen and get things preserved! These days, the odd yellow
squash have been canned for later squash casseroles, the
pointy-end cucumbers are in a crock fermenting, the slug punctured
cabbage has been carved and is turning into sauerkraut, and the
tiny beets were perfect for pickled beets. If it weren't for odd
things such as these, we might be tempted to sell everything we
grow. And that is the opposite of what we're trying to do. First
and foremost, we farm to feed ourselves, both in season and out of
season. We feast on what would otherwise be waste.
