I like to wake up early. There is something about being alone, moving around while everyone else sleeps. You don't really feel alone because you know everyone else is asleep. Sometimes I spend the time writing. Other times, when I have the motivation, I like to go for a run. I never really want to go for a run but when I get to the beach, no one or almost no one else there, I feel the cold sand under my feet, the low tide in the marsh exposes the holes of the ghost shrimp, I am glad I did.
These past days we've started work early and I find myself only a couple of miles from the Mexican border. Tijuana is straight ahead of me on the hills. The ocean is two miles to my right. The sun rises many miles to my left in a mixture of marine layer and summer haze. We've started early to beat the wind. We're laying drip tape, for irrigation, on a piece of earth the size of a football field without the end zones. Each piece of drip tape is long enough to make you cup your hands to your mouth to yell, "Pull it tighter." The day before we started coming in early the wind had a piece of drip tape humming a mix of a didgeridoo and electric wires in a storm. We only have till 10 a.m.. By then the sun has forced us to wear straw hats and heated the land to start the winds. We'll move into planting by 10.
Plugs are just transplants. Plants we started in trays, let grow a little, then move them to the fields. You can poke or do plugs. To poke you walk down the rows, using a chisel or a butter knife to poke through the plastic at the spacing your plugs need. Lettuce is every four to six inches on both sides of the drip tape. Careful of the drip tape.
To do plugs you have a tray of plants in one hand and you push them into the holes that were poked. Make sure the roots are covered. You don't have to be so gentle.
Whichever one you do keep your butt in the air. Higher than your head. No sitting. Keep up the pace. Your back and legs will get used to it. Your big toes never will though. Poke after poke, tray after tray.
"How many rows?"
"Till we're done all the trays."
"At least they aren't beans, beans are the worst."
By 10 a.m. the next day we do 25 rows of beans. Closer then lettuce, you direct seed these - no plants. This means you poke with one hand and drop a seed in with the other. Poke, push the poker forward, drop a seed, pull the poker back to cover the seed with soil, remove and repeat. Your legs and back have turned on you. Keep your butt higher than your head. My hands are too big to dispense a single bean into the hole. You need to become a human Pez dispenser.
"At least these aren't cucumbers. Cucumbers in the wind are the worst! They are so small they blow away." After lunch we plant 10 rows of cucumbers in the wind.
The third day we finish our mock football field. Drip tape marks every two feet. A little more than a line at every half yard. A game played here would go on forever. The second crew needs help thinning tomatoes for trellising. The plants are planted about every 18 inches. Stakes, six feet tall, are in the rows every six feet. The tomatoes are bushy plants nearly two feet tall. We need to thin them to only two limbs. The other crew are all Mexicans. They graciously slow their pace to show us what needs to be done and make sure we don't screw things up.
You are looking for the main stalk. More specifically where that main stalk branches into a green "Y." In the middle of that "Y" will be yellow flowers or at the end of where the flowers were, green fruit. The beginnings of a tomato. All you want is that "Y", the fruit, and any flowers on the "Y." Everything else is ripped off. Pruning is a more descriptive word of the task but ripping is what is done. There's a black, sticky residue that gets on your hands so wear latex gloves. We've gotten the gist so the second crew out paces us. It's a puzzle. "Where's my "Y?" "Where's my fruit?" The other branches just rip off.
"It's like the plant is telling you which one to take," Elle says aloud.
The smell of unripe tomatoes, that chloroplasty, bitter smell, from the ripped limbs. I think of pizza, of basil, of pasta. I miss living in Italy. What interesting paths life has for us. It's Friday and I'm off tomorrow. I won't be getting up early.
These past days we've started work early and I find myself only a couple of miles from the Mexican border. Tijuana is straight ahead of me on the hills. The ocean is two miles to my right. The sun rises many miles to my left in a mixture of marine layer and summer haze. We've started early to beat the wind. We're laying drip tape, for irrigation, on a piece of earth the size of a football field without the end zones. Each piece of drip tape is long enough to make you cup your hands to your mouth to yell, "Pull it tighter." The day before we started coming in early the wind had a piece of drip tape humming a mix of a didgeridoo and electric wires in a storm. We only have till 10 a.m.. By then the sun has forced us to wear straw hats and heated the land to start the winds. We'll move into planting by 10.
Plugs are just transplants. Plants we started in trays, let grow a little, then move them to the fields. You can poke or do plugs. To poke you walk down the rows, using a chisel or a butter knife to poke through the plastic at the spacing your plugs need. Lettuce is every four to six inches on both sides of the drip tape. Careful of the drip tape.
To do plugs you have a tray of plants in one hand and you push them into the holes that were poked. Make sure the roots are covered. You don't have to be so gentle.
Whichever one you do keep your butt in the air. Higher than your head. No sitting. Keep up the pace. Your back and legs will get used to it. Your big toes never will though. Poke after poke, tray after tray.
"How many rows?"
"Till we're done all the trays."
"At least they aren't beans, beans are the worst."
By 10 a.m. the next day we do 25 rows of beans. Closer then lettuce, you direct seed these - no plants. This means you poke with one hand and drop a seed in with the other. Poke, push the poker forward, drop a seed, pull the poker back to cover the seed with soil, remove and repeat. Your legs and back have turned on you. Keep your butt higher than your head. My hands are too big to dispense a single bean into the hole. You need to become a human Pez dispenser.
"At least these aren't cucumbers. Cucumbers in the wind are the worst! They are so small they blow away." After lunch we plant 10 rows of cucumbers in the wind.
The third day we finish our mock football field. Drip tape marks every two feet. A little more than a line at every half yard. A game played here would go on forever. The second crew needs help thinning tomatoes for trellising. The plants are planted about every 18 inches. Stakes, six feet tall, are in the rows every six feet. The tomatoes are bushy plants nearly two feet tall. We need to thin them to only two limbs. The other crew are all Mexicans. They graciously slow their pace to show us what needs to be done and make sure we don't screw things up.
You are looking for the main stalk. More specifically where that main stalk branches into a green "Y." In the middle of that "Y" will be yellow flowers or at the end of where the flowers were, green fruit. The beginnings of a tomato. All you want is that "Y", the fruit, and any flowers on the "Y." Everything else is ripped off. Pruning is a more descriptive word of the task but ripping is what is done. There's a black, sticky residue that gets on your hands so wear latex gloves. We've gotten the gist so the second crew out paces us. It's a puzzle. "Where's my "Y?" "Where's my fruit?" The other branches just rip off.
"It's like the plant is telling you which one to take," Elle says aloud.
The smell of unripe tomatoes, that chloroplasty, bitter smell, from the ripped limbs. I think of pizza, of basil, of pasta. I miss living in Italy. What interesting paths life has for us. It's Friday and I'm off tomorrow. I won't be getting up early.
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