Words from this Real Food columnist’s pen have welcomed in the Crawfordsville Farmers’ Market season for almost 15 years ... until 2022. This spring, though, COVID-19 laid this household low right when Farmers’ Market had its wonderful, celebratory opening. The Market has now been going strong for a month and more and I sure hope you’ve been down during the last several weeks to chat with our growers and to gather up lettuces, herbs, eggs, jam and ham and the rest of it. May you have imbibed a freshly prepared breakfast treat or two.
These terribly hot days here in June are unsettling. This kind of weather is exactly what the climate models at IU, BSU and Purdue have been predicting for years. A decade ago this summer, we had a couple of months so dry that those digging to remodel our middle school in 2012 were sobered by the fact that 10 feet down the soil was still dry. It began raining again in August and we shelved that concern. Somehow a person knows intellectually about these things without quite believing they are happening here and now: “As our climate warms we will have hotter, drier summers, wetter springs and autumns. Rain will come in bursts and torrents more than in the past …” That’s what those models say.
OK, science is cool, but enough already. Bring on the magic wand and bring back the climate stability of 1950 — or better yet, 1450 when those who were living here then did a better job of partnering with nature and of knowing directly how plants and animals grow and how our lives are deeply intertwined with theirs. There is no dismissing it. As Wendell Berry once said, “I take my stand on what I stand on.” I think he meant the earth not his feet.
So that’s what we’ve got. We need to look down to our soil and know it gives us life. Who better than our local plant/animal growers and farmers to remind us of that? People who know the earth tend not to stand around wringing their hands. Honing in on flowers can ground us and give us reasonable hope. Our Midwest blossoms are never more bounteous nor more varied than in June.
We’ve had a wonderful efflorescence of flower farms here in Montgomery County in the last several years. What a gift to us all. Especially during Farmers’ Market season, buy local flowers. Let me mention just three of our floral forward innovators.
Jamie Smith of Fall Creek Flower Farm has been our pioneer, growing and arranging and innovating activities around flowers nearly since the advent of our Farmers’ Market. She’s not only a green thumb grower but also a symphonic flower designer/arranger. It’s lily season and some of Jamie’s giant cream-colored lilies became centerpiece and table décor for a lovely baby shower last week. I defy any ordinary mortal to take lilies and snapdragons and a bunch of unexpected things like false indigo leaves, lambs-ear, jack-in-the-pulpit, fleabane, and oxeye daisies and create spectacular bouquets. Jamie does this sort of prestidigitation each Saturday at our Farmers’ Market. Come see her brimming flower buckets and appreciate how flowers can brighten your day. Take some home. Give some as a gift.
If you’re out and about in Montgomery County, go visit Shannon Family Farms and experience “Fresh Cut,” a recent operation started by Kelli Shannon. Fresh Cut is a U-Pick Flower Farm Experience located in the south part of MoCo. There you have the opportunity to select colorful local flowers to arrange and enjoy. Kelli is also hosting fun and innovative activities like “Pick N Paint,” “Flowers on the Farm,” and “Flower Power Kids’ Hour”. Kelli also takes orders and creates lovely event bouquets.
Here in Crawfordsville itself, we have an astonishing treasure that has taken shape in recent years. At the corner of Wallace and Jefferson, Sean and Andria Grady have created a wonderland of raised beds, trellises, a little free library, beehives, and more. As self-named “kitchen gardeners and flower farmers,” the Gradys have a fine Facebook presence at Potager and Petals. Check that out. They are also Master Gardeners. By dint of their always-open-to-the-public beautiful gardens, they’ve upped big time the “Livability Quotient” of their neighborhood and our town as a whole. They are neighbors in the truest sense. On the Solstice, Andria posted a recipe for Sun Pasta sauce and offered fresh herbs free to those who wanted some. So walk, bike, or drive by for free views. Andria also sells flowers at reasonable prices. The Gradys recently showed kids and their parents what a beekeeping operation looks like and demonstrated and gave tips on flower arranging at Nature Day at the Carnegie Museum. Crawfordsville is the Gradys’ home but Sean has found a way to make the whole world his purview. Check out his Environmental Transformation podcast for a series of stimulating interviews with some of the world’s most important thinkers about the environment and leaders in the environmental industry.
So have hope: shove your nose into a bundle of lavender and do a rain dance. See you at the Crawfordsville Farmers’ Market on Saturdays on Pike Street from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. For a bigger dose of hope about our earth’s future, take in the free film “Kiss the Ground” on Tuesday. It’s being shown in Korb Classroom in the Wabash College Fine Arts Center at 7 p.m. It’s about the soil beneath our feet.
Dr. Helen Hudson contributes her column to the Journal Review.
