Things are hoppin here at the tailgate market this week. With corn, tomatoes and beans coming in, the folks that have only been circling the market for the last month, have landed, come in to check things out. With ole-timey fiddle and guitar music coming from the jam session going on in the music tent as a fitting backdrop, the business of banter & barter goes on at each tailgate station.

“I’m bad to cook with fat back,” I can hear one customer saying a couple truckbeds down the line, who is buying fresh cabbage from one of the vendors.“I just add a cup of water to the oil in the skillet and throw in the chopped cabbage for a few minutes, and it’s done. Now, you talk about good!”

A large red SUV with Missouri plates pulls up along the curb in front of my truck, rolls down his window and shouts, “You got any peaches?” To his drive-in, drive-by approach I respond: “No, this is NORTH Carolina, South Carolina is down the road and to the right.” He smiles sarcastically and drives away.

Aside from the chatter, there has been a lot of talk today about the importance of growing and buying good food and the mindset of buying locally. I remember my old friend Zoro saying to me some 20 years ago: “Folks are livin’ out of cans and pokes these days. When it’s on the table it’s not fit to eat!"
He was talking about trucked-in, store-bought food and the advantages of a short, legible food chain as being preferable to refrigerated, long shelf-life foods coming from across the country and from other continents in various states of suspended freshness. Zoro believed that the best way to maintain quality in our diet and to keep the flow of currency in the community was to buy what we eat from growers close to home, and preferably to eat what one could grow themselves.

Maybe the best example I’ve ever encountered of the ideas of “buying locally” and community gardening comes from right here in our own community by Ron and Cathy Arps of Vegenui Gardens in the Cope Creek community of Sylva. Since the Arps and I are parked side by side today selling produce, and with a break in the action here at the tailgate market, we have found a chance to chat about their farm.

“If there’s any inherent wisdom to the 60s adage of thinking globally and acting locally, it would certainly apply to the business of truck farming and the farmer’s market,” Ron says, beginning. “But my approach to what we are doing at Vegenui isn’t really a philosophical one, but more a practical one. I am gardening because growing food is something I’ve always wanted to do and because I’ve found that I love this kind of work. It’s a very hands-on approach and designed from the combination of experimentation, trial and error and common sense.

“I’m just doing what I’ve found that works from me. If there is any residual benefit, philosophically or ideologically, it’s not because I’m trying to make a political or social statement, but rather that maybe we’ve hit on some things that seem to work, here."

Ron and Cathy Arps have lived in Jackson County since 1976 and tried a variety of jobs prior to embarking on their organic garden business. Vegenui (a word they’ve created that combines the word “vegetable” and the New Zealand/Maori word for “big”) Gardens is, essentially, a 3/4-acre piece of bottomland fed by an above-ground spring where a brilliantly simple concept is being implemented to give Ron and Cathy a means of support and to provide the community with fresh organic garden produce. Their method is to grow enough food for up to 20 families and to sell that produce in shares — giving a new meaning to the idea of “share-cropping!"”

“Our customers buy either full or half shares ($450 for a full share, $225 for a half share) in the garden at the beginning of each year. In exchange, we grow and harvest the food — rationing it out equally amongst all the existing share holders — and then they come on the designated distribution days to pick up the food,” Ron explains. “In this way, the members of our little cooperative venture share, not only in the bounty of what we produce, but in the risks of possible inclement weather, garden pests, a poor growing season, etc., as well. Having our customers, in a sense, owning a share of the garden, and having them coming to pick up their weekly portions, takes not only the worry out of the process, but a lot of the overhead in terms of having to set up a distribution system and to truck our produce to other parts of the county or region to sell. In this sense, we’ve got the best of all worlds. Some of our customers are so into this collaboration that they want to spend time in the garden themselves, working hands-on, weeding, or doing other sorts of chores. This way, they not only know where their food is coming from, but have the added experience and pleasure of having been part of the process of growing their seasonal allotment of 400 pounds or so of food — which, of course, as we all know, makes the food taste better,” he says, with a wide grin. “And some of our customers even occasionally bring us a cooked meal, so that we don’t have to cook supper after working all day in the garden. This, of course, is a wonderful bonus!”

Happy to have put his book-keeping and income tax business behind him, and with his wife, Cathy, helping with the gardening when she’s not teaching music lessons or performing in various orchestras and ensembles in the area, Ron brings his overflow produce to the Sylva tailgate market on Saturday mornings. This allows him to make a small additional income, but also gives him the opportunity to meet new people in the community who become potential share-holders in his Vegenui enterprise. “It gets me out of the garden and gives me something of a social life,” he says. “Otherwise, especially during the growing season, I’m so busy with the gardens that I don’t have time for much else. I’m pretty much there sun up to sun down.”

Ron waxes philosophically about community, buying locally, and Community Supported Agriculture and the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, of which he is a member.

“My mission is not only to produce good food, but to recycle things in the community. My tools, for instance, are made locally (in Dillsboro), I recycle beer boxes for mulch and horse-manure from Bill Kraus. I use what I can from the community — bottom ash that I get from Jackson Paper, and such. I like the idea of keeping the money here in the community, of re-cycling that as well. This process also puts me in touch with the various members of the community and what they are doing. The cycle of exchange, the sharing, is all a part of this idea of community-supported agriculture. And I suppose that there is even an element of teaching, of education, in this local give-and-take process. One of my customers came recently with one of her children — “What’s that?” the 10-year-old said, pointing to my broccoli bed. She had never seen broccoli growing before and so she learned something that day. So, in general, I believe that people can improve their lives by supporting local farmers. There are health issues inherent here as much as there are social issues. There is such a big difference between what I grow and what people can buy in the store! My customers appreciate the freshness of the local produce. And in terms of the taste, there is no comparison."

“Amen!” chimes in one of Ron’s customers, who has been eavesdropping on our conversation and has come out from hiding behind the cab of my truck. “Have you ever been up to see Ron’s place? Why, it’s a veritable Findhorn! I’ve never seen a more beautiful garden. I just love hangin’ out there, it’s so pleasant.”

Ron smiles as she goes on ... “Have you ever tasted his carrots?” She picks up a bag of beautiful deep orange carrots from the tailgate of Ron’s truck and puts them up to her nose. “And they smell so good! And my granddaughters just love those purple beans. We’re learning things all the time — like the free recipes Ron gives us, not to mention the free herbs and flowers that we are allowed to pick when we come to pick up our produce each week! It’s not only a whole lot more fun than the supermarket, it’s a whole lot better. This is a very special thing to have here, and so close by!"

Ron, now, is blushing, as he hands his share-holder customer a fistful of cucumbers he has taken from the basket on his tailgate. “Here, take a few extra cucumbers with you — we’ve got extra cucumbers today.”

While I know of no one else who is doing exactly what Ron and Cathy Arps are in terms of community-supported agriculture, the idea of buying locally is getting a great jump start here and at other farmer’s markets around the region. What used to be commonplace and an organic part of local communities here in the mountains has been lost to the rush for a quick-fix diet and social habits revolving around various technologies. With community agriculture and buying locally cut out of the social equation for almost a generation, people are beginning to perceive what they’ve been missing and are showing up on a regular basis at the tailgate market — where the conversation and the tales are as puzzling as they are endless, and as interesting as the food is good.

(Thomas Crowe is a writer, editor and gardener who lives in Jackson County.)

 

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