Anna Hewitt, Shelburne Farms

Anna Hewitt is an apprentice in the market garden at Shelburne Farms, a sustainable farm and nonprofit environmental education center in Vermont.

For a while I've had this dream. I imagine a different structure to society: Instead of strip malls and parking lots growing over the land, I would like to see fields and parks and community gardens as gathering places. Instead of weekend lawn care, I fantasize about families working on garden plots in front of their houses, which are roofed with solar panels. I want no more huge cars speeding down multi-lane roads. Instead I dream of narrow paths overhung with trees and worn smooth by bicycle tires. People wave to each other as they pass and the families in their gardens call out greetings and people share and communities evolve ...

It's still just a dream, but while I pedal to and from work I realize that being here I am much closer to this world that I imagine. The roads I ride on are narrow and unpaved, and I wave to people and cars I meet whether I recognize them or not. When I am walking, neighbors stop to offer me a ride. I usually refuse, but I appreciate their friendliness. These roads were built in the days of travel by horse and carriage, so cars pass each other uncomfortably. In 1884, Frederick Law Olmstead visited Shelburne Farms and conceptually developed the farm into spaces of farm, forest, and parkland. With his ideas, the roads were laid out to make best use of the existing land and to highlight scenic vistas. I ride down tree-lined roads, past fields of clover and Queen Anne's lace, and I startle grazing heifers who look up to watch a strange pedaling creature.

The staff of the dairy have been haying these fields all summer. Acres and acres have been mown and rolled into big round bales and stored for winter food for the cows. Shelburne Farms manages a grass-based dairy system, so for a good part of the year the cows are in the pastures. They eat grass and produce milk. The nutrients from what they have eaten are returned to the fields in the form of manure. The cow's milk is delivered every morning to the Farm Barn, where cheese is made. It is not pasteurized, and the cheese makers use the traditional process of cheddaring in their production. The system is a continuous cycle, working toward sustainability in management of the dairy herd and the land.

I ride past the road to the dairy, waving to the driver of a car coming toward me, and head to my day at the garden. We won't be harvesting today, but there is plenty of maintenance to do. Since last Friday, Mark and I have been trying to clear an old patch of lettuce. It has been too big to cut for mesclun for a while and now the weeds have grown up over the plants, which have begun to go to seed. We are always a little bit behind, and after we clear this 100-foot-long bed there will be more weeds to pull. I think the fight against weeds will be a never-ending battle. I am a peace-loving person and I'm not sure how I feel about how much we have to fight to keep control of the garden. Weeds are only unwanted plants, and some of the peskiest are the most ingenious. Purslane is a semi-succulent plant that can stay alive for a while after it has been uprooted. The red-rooted pig weed is an edible type of amaranth. The woods around here are full of burdock and stinging nettle. We could eat all of this instead of salad and we wouldn't have to spend hours weeding and clearing.

But to protect the plants we have chosen to grow there are more battles to be fought. Squirrels are eating our carrots. We caught one this morning, but the other two Havahart traps Mark set were empty. I don't know if it helps to catch them and take them to another home; I have been told that squirrels can find their way back easily. Mark and I have been discussing more drastic measures to protect our carrots. It seems like we walk a fine line -- by practicing organic gardening methods we strive to care for the Earth, but to achieve success in the garden we sometimes have to fight nature. I feel better about these matter-of-fact battles than about all of the destruction of nature that I have caused without knowing it. I don't know if I deserve the carrots more than the squirrels do, but I know I have worked hard planting, watering, and weeding them. I would rather work to shape and sometimes control the environment of the garden for the purpose of growing food than control the environment and cause destruction by thoughtlessly driving a car. I can't help but muse and ramble like this when I have so many quiet hours of weeding to think and ponder.