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Tuesday
March 16, 2010 Since 1922 |
‘You just know’
By Carla Rabalais
Baytown Sun Published July 18, 2004 Signboards are the first clue that I’m getting close to Arthur Davis’ home in Old River-Winfree. The whitewashed plywood announces in bold red strokes that tomatoes and new potatoes are in, for only $1 per pound; this way, points the arrow. Sunnyside Lane is a fitting address for a lifelong gardener.
Three more signs pinpoint Davis’ front porch better than a satellite GPS: “Fresh Vegetables,” “Veggie parking here,” “Self-service.”
This July morning already is steamy, but Davis is on the porch, clad in overalls, bent over a table full of tomatoes. White plastic grocery sacks crinkle in the breeze of a nearby fan, and a life-size resin owl stands guard over tables of produce.
“Keeps the blue jays away from the tomatoes,” Davis says with a smile. “For a few days, anyway.”
Davis and his wife, Susie, have lived in this home on Sunnyside for nearly 20 years. They have been married 38 years, and Davis has gardened every year but their first.
“I like to grow things,” he says, “but I always grow more than we can eat.”
Davis farms tomatoes and potatoes in the sandy land of Hardin County and on an acre in his backyard. His home plot produces tomatoes, bell peppers and okra, cucumbers and cantaloupe, squash and chives, garlic and chili peppers.
The garden is surrounded by fruit trees — most of them hand-grafted to bear Davis’ favorite fruits — June gold peaches, Granny Smith apples, satsumas, juicy purple figs, pecans, plums and pears. Muscadine vines weave through wooden archways between the trees.
“The tomatoes are about down to the end now,” Davis says, eyeing the collection of tennis-ball sized vegetables. “All the rain about ruined them. If you get too much rain at a certain time, the tomato grows faster on the inside than its skin on the outside, and it bursts. You can’t sell burst tomatoes.”
But it is summer, and another earthy fruit always is blushing and sweetening its way to the spotlight. This time it will be okra, Davis says, a long, spineless variety whose prickles have been genetically reduced to, well, peach fuzz.
“Look at this one,” he says. “People are always asking for this okra.”
He shows me a slender piece nearly 8 inches long. I run my finger along its edge, remembering the stings of okra past, surprised at the downy cover.
“Do you know how you can tell if okra is fresh?” he asks. “Like this.”
He reaches for the end of the okra and snaps off a juicy half-inch tip. To my amazement he puts it in his mouth and crunches away.
“You can eat okra raw?” I ask impulsively, unmasking more city-girl upbringing than I care to admit.
“Well yeah,” he says. “You can eat pretty much any vegetable raw. I do it all the time when I’m picking. And you can cook cucumbers, too. I’ve got a good recipe in there.”
Davis describes how to cook the perfect vegetable medley, confirming my suspicion about gardeners: Their mastery reaches all the way through the kitchen door to the dinner table. I guess if it didn’t taste good, they wouldn’t grow it.
As I follow Davis to his backyard plot, I ask him what a typical day is like for a farmer. The answer is there is no typical day for a farmer. Typical season, maybe. Year, sometimes. But the driving forces of sun and rain, wind and frost are bosses in their own right, scheduling a farmer’s days as it wills.
“You just can’t beat the weather,” he tells me.
What Davis can do is watch, and when the calendar and climate line up, he acts. In August he looks for hot, dry days when he can mount his antique International Harvester tractor and unearth last year’s growth, flipping up the plant roots so the fierce sun can play herbicide.
He selects spring days to re-till the sleeping soil, to shape soft mounds and run soaker hoses along their apexes. He lays black plastic over the rows: preventive maintenance against weeds, erosion and drought.
Then there is the art of knowing when to plant.
“How do you know when it’s the right time?” I ask.
“You just know,” he says.
If Valentine’s Day comes and goes without potatoes in the ground, Davis knows he’s running behind schedule. Tomato plants do best if they are in dirt by the spring equinox, and okra flourishes if set by tax day in April.
As the days warm, Davis fertilizes or side-dresses adolescent plants. He pulls weeds, runs support strings, sprays for bugs and pinches suckers. Picking, second to eating, is the reward for his work.
“You’ve got a contest with plants,” he says. “It wants to make seeds, but when it does, it quits making fruit. You have to keep picking, so the plant will keep bearing. If you let it go to seed, it’s all over.”
Davis has sold his abundant crop for three years, and his approach to marketing is almost as reminiscent as the art of gardening. Everything he sells is on the honor system.
Vegetables and fruits are placed on his front porch with grocery sacks, a scale, and a box for money. Charging $1 per pound, or groups for a dollar, eliminates the need for change.
Many of Davis’ Baytown customers are on a call list. When their favorite item ripens, he calls. Davis can bag the customer’s produce ahead of time, write their name on the sack and leave it on the table the designated day, or the customer can pick from the cream of the crop themselves.
Sometimes Davis chats with customers, other times he never sees them come and go. The money waits for him in the box.
“I’ve never had a problem whatsoever,” he says. “The money always comes out pretty close.”
Davis, 63, can’t imagine days without somehow being connected to his land. Though he understands the sweat and vulnerability that are bred into farming, he sees them as part of the bigger picture.
“I don’t have any squawks about it,” he says. “I try not to think negative. Bugs, you expect that. Weather, you expect that, too. I guess I’m just addicted to gardening. Life wouldn’t be life without it.”
You can taste some of Davis’ homegrown fruits and vegetables by calling 281-576-2878.
Baytown Sun Published July 18, 2004 Signboards are the first clue that I’m getting close to Arthur Davis’ home in Old River-Winfree. The whitewashed plywood announces in bold red strokes that tomatoes and new potatoes are in, for only $1 per pound; this way, points the arrow. Sunnyside Lane is a fitting address for a lifelong gardener.
Three more signs pinpoint Davis’ front porch better than a satellite GPS: “Fresh Vegetables,” “Veggie parking here,” “Self-service.”
This July morning already is steamy, but Davis is on the porch, clad in overalls, bent over a table full of tomatoes. White plastic grocery sacks crinkle in the breeze of a nearby fan, and a life-size resin owl stands guard over tables of produce.
“Keeps the blue jays away from the tomatoes,” Davis says with a smile. “For a few days, anyway.”
Davis and his wife, Susie, have lived in this home on Sunnyside for nearly 20 years. They have been married 38 years, and Davis has gardened every year but their first.
“I like to grow things,” he says, “but I always grow more than we can eat.”
Davis farms tomatoes and potatoes in the sandy land of Hardin County and on an acre in his backyard. His home plot produces tomatoes, bell peppers and okra, cucumbers and cantaloupe, squash and chives, garlic and chili peppers.
The garden is surrounded by fruit trees — most of them hand-grafted to bear Davis’ favorite fruits — June gold peaches, Granny Smith apples, satsumas, juicy purple figs, pecans, plums and pears. Muscadine vines weave through wooden archways between the trees.
“The tomatoes are about down to the end now,” Davis says, eyeing the collection of tennis-ball sized vegetables. “All the rain about ruined them. If you get too much rain at a certain time, the tomato grows faster on the inside than its skin on the outside, and it bursts. You can’t sell burst tomatoes.”
But it is summer, and another earthy fruit always is blushing and sweetening its way to the spotlight. This time it will be okra, Davis says, a long, spineless variety whose prickles have been genetically reduced to, well, peach fuzz.
“Look at this one,” he says. “People are always asking for this okra.”
He shows me a slender piece nearly 8 inches long. I run my finger along its edge, remembering the stings of okra past, surprised at the downy cover.
“Do you know how you can tell if okra is fresh?” he asks. “Like this.”
He reaches for the end of the okra and snaps off a juicy half-inch tip. To my amazement he puts it in his mouth and crunches away.
“You can eat okra raw?” I ask impulsively, unmasking more city-girl upbringing than I care to admit.
“Well yeah,” he says. “You can eat pretty much any vegetable raw. I do it all the time when I’m picking. And you can cook cucumbers, too. I’ve got a good recipe in there.”
Davis describes how to cook the perfect vegetable medley, confirming my suspicion about gardeners: Their mastery reaches all the way through the kitchen door to the dinner table. I guess if it didn’t taste good, they wouldn’t grow it.
As I follow Davis to his backyard plot, I ask him what a typical day is like for a farmer. The answer is there is no typical day for a farmer. Typical season, maybe. Year, sometimes. But the driving forces of sun and rain, wind and frost are bosses in their own right, scheduling a farmer’s days as it wills.
“You just can’t beat the weather,” he tells me.
What Davis can do is watch, and when the calendar and climate line up, he acts. In August he looks for hot, dry days when he can mount his antique International Harvester tractor and unearth last year’s growth, flipping up the plant roots so the fierce sun can play herbicide.
He selects spring days to re-till the sleeping soil, to shape soft mounds and run soaker hoses along their apexes. He lays black plastic over the rows: preventive maintenance against weeds, erosion and drought.
Then there is the art of knowing when to plant.
“How do you know when it’s the right time?” I ask.
“You just know,” he says.
If Valentine’s Day comes and goes without potatoes in the ground, Davis knows he’s running behind schedule. Tomato plants do best if they are in dirt by the spring equinox, and okra flourishes if set by tax day in April.
As the days warm, Davis fertilizes or side-dresses adolescent plants. He pulls weeds, runs support strings, sprays for bugs and pinches suckers. Picking, second to eating, is the reward for his work.
“You’ve got a contest with plants,” he says. “It wants to make seeds, but when it does, it quits making fruit. You have to keep picking, so the plant will keep bearing. If you let it go to seed, it’s all over.”
Davis has sold his abundant crop for three years, and his approach to marketing is almost as reminiscent as the art of gardening. Everything he sells is on the honor system.
Vegetables and fruits are placed on his front porch with grocery sacks, a scale, and a box for money. Charging $1 per pound, or groups for a dollar, eliminates the need for change.
Many of Davis’ Baytown customers are on a call list. When their favorite item ripens, he calls. Davis can bag the customer’s produce ahead of time, write their name on the sack and leave it on the table the designated day, or the customer can pick from the cream of the crop themselves.
Sometimes Davis chats with customers, other times he never sees them come and go. The money waits for him in the box.
“I’ve never had a problem whatsoever,” he says. “The money always comes out pretty close.”
Davis, 63, can’t imagine days without somehow being connected to his land. Though he understands the sweat and vulnerability that are bred into farming, he sees them as part of the bigger picture.
“I don’t have any squawks about it,” he says. “I try not to think negative. Bugs, you expect that. Weather, you expect that, too. I guess I’m just addicted to gardening. Life wouldn’t be life without it.”
You can taste some of Davis’ homegrown fruits and vegetables by calling 281-576-2878.