Tonopah Rob's Vegetable Farm

What a week it’s been. A deep freeze, dropping the temperatures down into the low 20′s (-5c for the rest of the world), hit the farm hard. A patch of tomato plants from which I picked last week’s green tomatoes is dead and gone, the remaining green beans froze on the vine, okra turned black and shriveled. We also saw the last of the cucumbers at last weekend’s market. And then the winds hit. Tuesday night at 8:30 the electricity went out and then the wind got really strong. A neighbor told me we were having gusts to over 90 miles per hour (144 km/h). Rather than being aware that it was quickly getting cold (my heater not working without electricity!) and not wanting to be awake if my house was going to fly away I tried to sleep through the storm. Anyway, the winds were blowing towards the northeast and though I’m not sure, my feeling was that OZ was NOT in that direction nor was I starting out in Kansas – who knows where the wind would have delivered me. Just in case though, I kept my red slippers next to the bed. You try farming in the cold without a sense of humor, with cracked fingers, sore back, achey hip, sniffly nose, and red frozen ears, either you must have a good sense of humor or you make everybody else do the dirty work. Problem is, I don’t have enough of everybody else and have to carry my share of the burden from daybreak to sundown, even in the cold.

The storm did its fair share of damage. Out at the farm stand a small refrigerator and small freezer were blown over. The blue tent where my information booth is (was) looked as though Godzilla trampled it. Luckily most of my trees had recently been cut back and so I had minimal tree damage. The citrus trees gave up some grapefruit, lemons, oranges, tangelos, but that probably wasn’t much more than 50/60 pieces. The real damage was that one of my hoop houses that covered the other patch of tomatoes had the plastic cover blown right off. Mind you, holding the heavy gauge plastic sheeting down were 24 oversized 12×12 railroad ties each weighing about 200 lbs. Those mega-logs rolled off and the plastic was set free to land where the cucumbers had just finished their death dance, then got snagged on the rebar that I use to hold the chickenwire fencing in place and thus saved my hoop house cover from flying to New Mexico. Besides that everything has been great. Even better is that this Saturday and Sunday I’ll have the following really wonderful, all-natural, farm fresh, grown by Tonopah Rob, veggies available:

• Carrots – in a multitude of colors
• Broccoli – in a multitude of sizes
• Salad Mix – not multitudinal in any sense
• Spinach Mix – sure, I know multitudinal is not a real word
• Tonopah Salad Mix – a munificent mix of greens
• Mustard Greens – any one know a good 3 or 4 syllable word to describe mustard?
• Turnip Greens – malevolent greens if ever I’ve seen such a thing
• Daikon Radishes – mastodonial in size
• Radishes – this isn’t getting any easier
• Watermelon Radishes – maybe a different theme could have worked
• Salad Sweeties – heck, why any theme at all?
• Cilantro – just a normal list would have been adequate
• Assorted Peppers – yeah, well you try writing this every week
• Assorted Turnips – and feel creative about it
• Gourmet Onions – I’m at a loss about now
• Eggs – did I say EGGS? Sure I have eggs – lots of eggs
• Maybe some Swiss Chard – don’t get carried away, I don’t have in infinite supply of eggs
• Maybe some Lemons – and other stuff, like eggs
• A surprise or two – forget it, this weeks surprise won’t be me giving up the kooky writing

And remember folks, on Sundays I am now out at the ACE Hardware parking lot on Estrella Parkway in Goodyear – That’s like 30 miles closer to civilization. Don’t worry Tonopahites, I’m not going anywhere else on Saturdays and will continue selling direct from my farm from o’dark and cold until almost warm and really tired o’clock. Call 623-386-3033 for any information not covered here or for my address if you’d like to send professional help.