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.

This week has gone from sticky to steamy, but rain seems imminent.

It's harvest day again. Plants have been patiently growing for two days and the inn is ready for another delivery. Once the mesclun is cut, I take a big box and fill it with 15 pounds of swiss chard. Cutting takes almost no time since the leaves, with their bright, almost neon stems, are so large. It's nice to have such a variety of tasks, especially on harvest days. After cutting leaves, I switch gears and make my way down the beet rows searching for red, white, golden, and chioggia beets of the perfect size. The chef likes them about the size of a silver dollar and it's tricky to get them exactly right. After trimming, washing, and counting the beets by bunches, I move on to another task. In the smaller of our two greenhouses, I pick cucumbers from vines that Susan has trellised from the ground up to the top of the greenhouse. Although we picked all of the perfect-sized European cucumbers on Monday, they grow so quickly that today some of them are almost too big. The inn has ordered only 10 cukes, so we'll take the rest to the Farm Barn office.

On Wednesdays we bring vegetables there for the farm staff. We have carrots, eggplants, beans, corn, Swiss chard, kale, and zucchini in abundance. I love sharing the food we grow with as many people as possible. It has been challenging to coordinate our plantings with what the new chef at the inn can use, so we often find ourselves with too much. We have been fortunate to have the opportunity to do a monthly harvest for the local food shelf, but right now we still have more vegetables than we know what to do with.

Every task from harvesting to tilling to weeding has its enjoyable moments and its challenges. I love working in the garden, and the end result, an abundance of delicious food, is a great reward. It's easy to munch on a cucumber or carrot without thinking of where it comes from, but working here gives me a different perspective. Tilling the land, planting the seeds, watering, and weeding all happen repeatedly before we can begin to harvest. It's almost daunting to think of all the work that goes into the four pounds of beans, 30 bunches of carrots, and 40 pounds of onions, among other things, that we'll bring to the inn today. And these are only small amounts of food. I wonder if the awareness of this work continues after the food has been delivered. Do the cooks at the inn take note of what we have done to get this to them? Are the guests at the inn aware of how much has happened to the food on their plates that has been so artfully prepared for this moment?

In my own life I have begun to think this way. I take such delight in bringing home fresh produce that I have grown. In the kitchen I continue my work in the garden by making the vegetables into something delicious to eat. When it is on my plate, I take a moment to give thanks and be mindful of all that has gone into the meal. Thanks to the Earth, the worms, the sun, the rain, the laborers whom I may or may not know, and everything that has contributed to the food that will nourish my body so I can continue the cycle.

The inn, also, strives to promote this awareness. Its menu is built around fresh, locally grown food. Besides what the market garden provides, it uses Shelburne Farms cheddar cheese and some meat that is raised on the farm. Beyond this, it orders as much as it can from other local farmers. Those who dine at the inn can read a list of who provided the makings of their feast. As the patrons satiate their palates, the chef gets to use only the freshest food and small farms thrive. Eating food that hasn't traveled thousands of miles and may have been grown by someone you know is more sustainable and more delicious. The inn is a member of the Vermont Fresh Network, which builds partnerships between farms and restaurants to strengthen local agriculture and communities. It promotes sustainability and deliciousness.

By supporting local farms and bringing an awareness of this to its patrons, the inn takes part in Shelburne Farms' mission of cultivating a conservation ethic. It also brings in revenue that supports the Farm's educational programs. Everything is interconnected -- my apprenticeship is made possible by the food I am learning to grow.