The Outside Life: A visit from Eliot Coleman

Since my last post, I've transitioned into managing and designing improvements at the park headquarters farm. This is a work in progress, and combined with some of the oddest weather I've dealt with has made for an endlessly interesting project. Due to the remoteness of the park, produce only comes in once a week. After a long bumpy journey south down the Carretera Austral it usually is in pretty bad shape. This provides a great opportunity and incentive for local production of high quality produce for lodge and restaurant guests as well as the park staff.

Last week we all had the great fortune of a visit from four season gardening greats Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch. They have a market research garden in Harborside, Maine that produces chemical free vegetables year round in unheated plastic greenhouses (www.fourseasonfarm.com). With the motivation that "anything California can do, we can do better" Eliot has done much for the development of small scale intensive agriculture and I was excited to have a chance to learn as much as possible from him. As we toured the farm I was inspired by his endless enthusiasm; I scribbled down notes as quickly as I could. Eliot quickly made some great suggestions for improvements and drew up a planting schedule for the next year that I'm revising with the lodge chefs, more to come on that later.

While Eliot was here the creek that provides water to the farm went dry, apparently this year is the driest people have seen in 10 years. In my Chacos and shorts I waded into the remaining stagnant mucky water with a shovel to attempt to dig a well big enough to fill the water tank, after a few minutes Eliot walked up and immediately got to work helping to clear the spiny Calafate bushes overhanging the creek so we would have easier access. As he stepped towards the creek his feet plunged deep into the muck. "I almost lost a shoe, no matter, that's why I wear these things" he told me. We made quick work of the well and bushes, and I was reminded of how he got where he is today, by taking that first muddy step.

I've included some of my favorite quotes from the weekend as well as some pictures of happenings in the park., enjoy!

Wise words from Eliot Coleman:
"It's not the biology that makes this game so difficult, it's the damned economics!"

"Barbara calls me Atilla the weed Killa"

On Community Supported Agriculture programs:
"I've stayed away from the CSA idea because I shouldn't need the community to support me, it should be the other way around. Agriculture Supported Community, my product creates community."

On his past as a mountaineer and ski bum:
"Instead of conqueror of the useless, I'm conqueror of the winter salad"

And my favorite:
"People say work is what you do when you would rather be doing something else. If that's true than I've never worked a day in my life!"