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.

I have made it to the end of the week, almost. Every week goes by fast here, but I am definitely more tired during Friday's harvest than I was on Monday. Today is my big challenge: Both Mark and Susan are away, so I'm running the show, so to speak. There's nothing really out of the ordinary to do, but it will be a long day.

Happily, I'm not totally alone. Marie, a volunteer, and Susannah, Susan's daughter, are here to help. The inn wants 12 pounds of mesclun, so cutting and washing greens takes up the first part of the morning. When Marie arrives, Susannah and I join her in picking beans. I pick the small green haricots vert until I reach the spot where Susannah started; then I take my tray and move ahead of Marie. We leap-frog down the row, but even with teamwork it still takes awhile to pick all of them.

It feels good to work as a team to accomplish tasks. In a garden of this size we don't need a big crew, but every person makes such a difference. Since our garden is relatively small, we often divide tasks to get more done. Some jobs don't require more than one person, but other times I find myself reluctant to ask for help (even when I am carrying seven things and dropping all of them). There is great value in simply doing the work and learning from that. But I have also learned a lot from working with other people, including things I wouldn't have thought of myself. Not only are two heads better than one, but four arms for rolling out round hay bales, or six hands for picking beans, are definitely better than what I could do alone.

Its great to have volunteers who are so willing to help with anything. By now, Marie and Susannah can pretty much do any of the harvesting. Since I am an apprentice here, I sometimes feel uncertain about teaching them. It's fun, though, to share what I do know and to engage them in the process of growing food and caring for plants and the land. Sometimes I feel bad about leaving them to pull a patch of weeds, but having them here has helped us accomplish so much. Shelburne Farms has volunteers who give tours, do chores in the farmyard, and help with education programs. It's just another great way to learn and be involved in this place and to help keep it running.

We are harvesting lots of onions today -- sweet onions with bright white flesh and light green stems called Super Star; big, round onions called Mars; and long, oval-shaped onions called red tropea. All of these, along with the leeks we pulled, must be washed and have their tops and roots cut off. At noon, I load up the back of our little blue pickup truck and deliver trays full of beets and beans, small bags of turnips, radishes, and cress, and big bags of greens to the inn. After lunch, we harvest sweet corn, cucumbers, and zucchini in numbers greater than the kitchen can handle. I'll eat some for dinner and find someone to take the rest. At the last minute, I cut two pounds of basil and deliver everything else.

Once the buckets and washtub are cleaned, the fence is on, and the water is off, my week is over. I always have a funny feeling leaving the garden on Friday. We had a great week and got a lot of old plantings cleared; amazingly, it seems like we are caught up. Most farmers, though, don't have the luxury of leaving their crops for the weekend.

This has been a unique opportunity to share some of my thoughts and daily life at Shelburne Farms, and I'm glad to have had the chance to do so. I don't usually spend this much time in the office and it has added an element of exhaustion to the week. I like to write, but I prefer to be out there in the sun and rain doing the work, learning, and loving it. Sometimes this feels like such a small pursuit, I wonder what else I could do for the good of the world. I have to think that the small pursuits matter: working in a garden, waving to your neighbor, knowing the person who grows your food, falling in love with a place and protecting it and sharing it and teaching others to do the same.