It's a Long Road to a Tomato: Tales of an Organic Farmer Who Quit the Big City for the (Not So) Simple Life

Front Cover
The Experiment, Aug 10, 2010 - Gardening - 347 pages
Now updated and expanded, a New York executive-turned-farmer shares his story and the hows & whys of running a small organic farm in 21st century America.

Keith Stewart, already in his early forties and discontent with New York’s corporate grind, moved upstate and started a one-man organic farm in 1986. Today, having surmounted the seemingly endless challenges to succeeding as an organic farmer, Keith employs seven to eight seasonal interns and provides 100 varieties of fresh produce to the shoppers and chefs who flock twice weekly, May to December, to his stand at Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan—the only place where his produce is sold. It’s a Long Road to a Tomato opens a window into the world of Keith’s Farm, with essays on Keith’s development as a farmer, the nuts and bolts of organic farming for an urban market, farm animals domestic and wild, and the political, social, and environmental issues relevant to agriculture today—and their impact on all of us.

Includes a foreword by Deborah Madison and gorgeous new woodcuts by Flavia Bacarella

Praise for It’s a Long Road to Tomato

“Keith Stewart opens this engaging book by transforming himself abruptly from midlife executive into novice organic farmer. The twenty years that follow on an upstate New York farm are sampled here in true-life tales that—without denying the sometimes harsh realities of the small producer’s life—leave the reader in no doubt of the joys that keep this small farmer on the land.” —Joan Dye Gussow, author of This Organic Life

“An enduring pleasure to read.” —Sally Schneider, author of A New Way to Cook

“Stewart has been providing New Yorkers with magnificent vegetables for two decades. Now, as if to prove he can do anything, he provides all Americans with a compelling story about his own approach to farming. And at precisely the right moment, just as millions of people across the country are rediscovering the pleasure, and the importance, of eating close to home.” —Bill McKibben, author of Wandering Home and Falter
 

Contents

Praise
PREFACE to the SECOND EDITION
BUY IT at the FARMERS MARKET
THE UNPEACEABLE KINGDOM
WILD WEATHER August 2000
A GARLIC AFFAIR
ORGANIC CERTIFICATION and the United States Department
FARM DOGS
SUSTAINABLE vs ORGANICWHO LOSES?
INNER SANCTUMan office with a view
A REVERSAL of FORTUNE
FARMS on the BLOCK
THE HEART of WINTER January 2003
ON the EVE of WAR February 2003
THE HIGH PRICE of MILK
WORKING MANS MESCLUN

THE PRICE of MILK December 2002
THE HIDDEN COST of FARMING
GROWING POTATOES
KURI ENCOUNTERS a PORCUPINE
A DAY at the MARKET
BRAVE NEW VEGETABLES
PUTTING IT BACK
THE DRIVEWAY RABBITS
TINY TIM and HIS BOVINE HAREM
FARM POLITIC
perils of the truckfarming life
A BEAVER before BREAKFAST
WHAT WILL HAPPEN to the LAND?
A FARM in PERPETUITY
APPENDIX
Copyright

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About the author (2010)

For 18 years, Keith Stewart has been the proprietor of Keith's Farm, in Orange County, New York, where he grows, with the assistance of 6 or 7 seasonal workers, and under certified organic conditions, 100 varieties of fruits, vegetables and herbs. Stewart is one of the longest-standing purveyors at NYC's Union Square Greenmarket (Wednesdays and Saturdays—he's parked right in front of B&N), where his stand has a devoted following that includes many restaurateurs and food writers (Peter Hoffman, Savoy; Sally Schneider, A New Way to Cook ; Jessie Saunders, Not on Love Alone ), among thousands of others. Stewart has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows, including the Food Channel's "Follow that Food" and the Leonard Lopate Show, has been featured in publications including The New York Times and Gourmet , and over more than 6 years his writing has attracted legions of fans in The Valley Table , the Hudson Valley's only magazine devoted to regional farms, food and cuisine. Illustrator Flavia Bacarella, Stewart's wife, is an artist who teaches at Lehman College in New York.

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