Farm & Garden
By LYNNE IRONS
While sitting in bridge traffic waiting for yet another enormous sailboat to pass through, I was working on a pretty significant resentment against Mr. and Mrs. Gotrocks. Here I was, late for work, hot and feeling sorry for myself, and the boat people were holding me up on their way to a lovely day on the water.
Prices at the West Tisbury Farmers’ Market have long caused shoppers to go into sticker shock when reaching for a bouquet of sunflowers or a bushel of local fingerling potatoes. Bargains have always been few and far between, yet customers continued to arrive before the gates open at nine to snatch up the best of the Vineyard’s hand-picked local produce.
By LYNNE IRONS
What’s up with the salmonella on tomatoes? I have several thoughts on the subject. Bear with me as they are somewhat disjointed. First of all, big farmers are plowing up their fields as the market is so bad and they are trying to get another crop of something else into the ground while there is still time.
Last Tuesday, Janice Perrin stood in her West Tisbury kitchen frantically packing. She had a reservation to leave the Vineyard that evening, but before that she had to dash to Edgartown for an interview and play a game with her volleyball league.
And she had to finish packing.
Deciding what to put in her suitcase was not the problem. It was deciding what to put in her cooler.
By LYNNE IRONS
Nothing makes me more relaxed than a rainy Saturday in July. Last weekend, in my opinion, was perfect for us gardeners. There is a country-western song out of the West Texas cotton fields with the following refrain:
Sow your seed
In the ground below
Fall to your knees
and pray real slow
For the rain to come
And kiss the seed
To bless you with
All that you need.
At first glance, Rick Karney does not appear to be a farmer. He works on the water and is usually more damp than dirty.
But to watch him in action is to be sure that the work Mr. Karney does at the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group is hardly different from the work Island farmers do in their fields and stables and greenhouses every day.