Today, I’d planned to write the third part in a series of blogs I’ve written to help you overcome overwhelm in the garden with key actions. I conducted a survey a couple of months ago and learned that so many of you struggle with knowing when to harvest from your kitchen garden. This is a topic I’ve learned so much about through my work on farms and in my own gardens, and I’m excited to share some tips with you as we head into spring of 2021.

I’m not going to share those tips today because there’s not much to harvest in Boise right now. I'll hold off on that until it seems more appropriate, perhaps when I harvest my micro greens next week.

I’m actually writing this blog post from the island of Oahu in Hawaii. One of my best friends moved here in September and lives on a cacao farm with her partner and his family. She invited me and our other best friend to come visit her before the spring planting season begins, while we have the time and flexibility. I’m so grateful to have been able to make this trip, and it’s only just begun.

Reunited with my two best friends! on a farm - does it get better than this?

We arrived to Oahu yesterday and went straight to the farm. We had lunch on the lawn and spent most of the afternoon harvesting cacao. Her partner showed us how to lightly scratch the surface of the cacao pods to reveal the flesh beneath. The pods surface didn’t always depict its ripeness, their colors ranging from banana yellow to chocolate brown to the red of the most dramatic sunset. If the flesh below the surface, he said, was yellow, like a squash, it was ready to harvest, if it was green, it wasn’t yet mature.

We moved from field to field with buckets and shears, scratching the surfaces of cacao pods, snapping their stems close to the shoulders of the fruit and loading them into bright red buckets until they were full. We stopped into forests of cacao trees, reached high into branches for hard-to-reach fruit and even got out the “big stick” for the highest pods in the maturest trees.

Every time we moved to a different part of the farm, I marveled at my luck. I felt revived by the verdancy of the ferns, the magnificent height of the rubber trees, the lush softness of the wet, earthen ground. A river rushed through one part of the farm, we drove over a creek in another. The sun moved through the clouds and warmed us as we stood in the cool shade of the trees. Writing this now, I still feel like it was a dream.

Just one of many views of the verdancy of this farm

When I’m on a farm like this, one filled with diversity of plants and micro-climates, it feels like heaven. It feels like the opposite of where most of our food comes from as a nation, the opposite of the monocrop culture of the mainland. On small-scale farms like these, there’s peace, birdsong, sky and sunshine, cool refreshment from rain or the nearby creek. I feel like I have everything I could ever need to live when I’m in a place like that.

When I get back home, I’ll be planting my spring garden in raised beds warmed by the longer days of spring-to-come. Creating green spaces to enjoy and sharing my harvests with community are the driving forces behind the work I do in the garden each season, and gardening always gives me time to reflect on memories like the ones we made yesterday.

I feel so grateful to have this time with my friends in this beautiful place on a farm that’s been lovingly tended for decades. I feel proud to call my friends farmers, and my farmers friends. My hope for gardeners all over Boise is to create a space where they can feel close to their community and to nature. I hope that you’ll call on me to help whenever you need it.

Overwhelm in the Garden: A Detour

Overcoming Overwhelm: Less is More

Overwhelm in the Garden: Part Two