Washington – The football fans in my family recently put me on to a series of TV commercials for a dating site called FarmersOnly.com.
“Where have you been, Mom?” one of them asked. “Those have been around for a long time.”
Apparently they’re the real deal and a big deal – the site has more than 2 million members, drawn in by hilariously hokey ads complete with talking cows. The theme song trills: “You don’t have to be lonely at FarmersOnly.com.”
I love the idea of inherently isolated farmers who are tied to their work in remote places finding soul mates, though I suspect the site’s slogan, “City folks just don’t get it,” is equally about sharing conservative “rural” values. That’s fine.
But I guess I’m more aware of progressive venues for bringing farmers or wannabe farmers together, such as regional organic farming and gardening groups, farm tours and creative singles events, such as weed dating.
A riff on speed dating, weed dating is a like a dance performed on your knees. On opposite sides of a bed in need of weeding, men and women line up and pair up over the task for a set number of minutes, chatting over the chickweed. Then one side moves on to the next partner. It’s an ingenious way for the host farmers to get their operation cleaned up, for the mere cost of serving refreshments afterward.
You can tell a lot about someone by how he or she weeds.
Does she linger lazily over each dandelion? Or does she get right into a rhythm with her tool – stab and pull, stab and pull?
Does he yank the pigweed’s top, leaving the root behind for someone else to dig up after it re-sprouts? He’d probably leave the dishes to “soak” in the sink and then drift off, never to return.
I met my husband 23 years ago while visiting a neighbour of his down the road. He was helping her tie up her tomato plants, and it was love at first sight. But even when you get that lucky, finding someone with a shared passion is just the beginning, especially when two people like doing things their own way. My strategy, whether in farming, gardening or any other part of daily life, has always been a division of labour by which certain crops, areas or even crew members are your own domain.
When I was a landscape designer, I often felt like a marriage counsellor, mediating a couple’s relationship with their garden. “Where shall we put the path to the lake?” I once asked a pair. “Follow me,” each of them said as they set forth in opposite directions.
Rules do not always stick. I once planted a row of dahlias at our farm, with a big marker labeled “Dahlias.” After that I couldn’t find the spot again, until late summer when suddenly big bright flowers appeared among a planting of Tuscan kale, marked with a new label that said “Kale.” I had to admit the flowers were beautifully set off by the kale’s blue-green leaves, but to avoid competition I eventually pulled out the kale and served it to the gang at farm lunch.
Even the most loving of bedfellows must sometimes defend their turf.
Washington Post
Damrosch’s latest book is The Four Season Farm Gardener’s Cookbook; her website is www.fourseasonfarm.com.