5:45 pm, and not a cloud in sight. Only the short, straight thread of an airplane marks the sky, a white seam in the pale blue. Evening sunlight spreads a glow over the Sweet Greens hoop house.
After working at desks all day, Carma and Dorinda both head out to the high tunnel to spend the day’s golden hour harvesting tomatoes before the sun disappears. Dorinda drives up in her green pickup with her dog Cavie beside her, and he jumps out, tail wagging, as soon as she opens the door. Carma arrives along with Savannah, one of Sweet Greens’ many young helpers, who loves working with her hands and being able to feel a sense of accomplishment afterward. The three of them are ready to make good use of precious time.
Inside the hoop house, the six long rows of tomato plants tower straight and sturdy, like a column of soldiers. Tall wooden stakes support each row, some of them topped with overturned five-gallon buckets like makeshift helmets. A rubber glove is fitted atop one stake, half-drooping as though it’s just snapped its fingers. The mild tomato scent blends with the keen flavor of basil from the short plants blooming along each row and bursting out at the ends, where bees quietly cluster on the basil flowers.
At this point in the year, most tomatoes have to be picked green and allowed to ripen slowly away from the plant. As soon as all the larger fruits are harvested, the plants must be uprooted, their support stakes pulled out, and the plastic that covers the ground removed. Once the high tunnel is emptied, Dan, Carma, and Dorinda will plant oats and tillage radishes before the first frost, to replenish the soil for next year’s tomato crop.
But tonight, Dorinda and Carma work to collect all the tomatoes worth saving before the plants must be torn down. As they move along the rows, dropping the good fruits into buckets, they break off the stripped branches, piling them to be taken away and burned. Savannah hauls empty and full buckets and takes wheelbarrow-loads of bare stalks to one big heap outside the high tunnel. For the most part they work in silence, listening to the rustle of busy hands through leaves and the light thump of each tomato into its bucket.
As October approaches November, the close of the 2017 season is bittersweet. The workers look forward to a rest from the intense summer labor, but there’s a sadness in the silence as they must remove and destroy the plants they’ve nurtured for months. Their final cart day of the season, October 17, meant saying goodbye for a while to many dear customers. But they look forward to next season as they enter the preparatory winter months, and they’re glad to say, as customers did last week, “See you next year!”
Rachelle Ferguson writes to understand people and why they do what they do. In May 2017, she graduated summa cum laude from Hillsdale College with a Bachelor of Arts in English and classical studies. She teaches Latin and English, writes plays and the odd poem, and blogs at www.kittywhamproductions.com.
Sweet Greens- Salem 