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“There are other, more established farms or places that could use the help. And they’re not trying to find their place, but if that’s what you’re into, you’re about to live the show.”
“Cool,” I admitted. I totally wasn’t against that, and it was nice to not have to make a decision right away.
She grabbed an electric cart loaded with empty produce bins and led me over to a row of tomato plants. I might not know much about greenhouses or farming, but even I knew what a tomato looked like.
“So people who cook know that marinades tenderize meat along with giving it flavor, but what not all of them know is how that works or what parts tenderize and which is just flavor.” She handed me a pair of gloves before slipping on her own and grabbing a pair of clippers. “Tomatoes tenderize because of the acidity in them.
“And the first lesson on working these greenhouses is we only harvest what’s ripe. Commercial greenhouses or farms that sell their raw produce clipped early so there’s more travel time and shelf life before things go bad.
“That’s counterproductive here where it gets used to be cooked or whatever. Now, some of the fruits I’ll chop and let sit in honey a day or two before using them, but they still need to be ripe.”
“So no green?” I surmised, watching which tomatoes she selected.
“So no green on tomatoes, yes. Firmness is not as big of a deal with the magic and I’ll be cooking them. Personally, I like my tomatoes with a bit of a snap to them, so not overly ripe is where I like them.” She filled two trays before turning to me expectantly.
I nodded and searched the vines, touching which ones I would pick. I checked with her, and after several I felt I could at least handle this. I smiled. “Okay, what else, you prune right?”
“That takes a bit to really get it right, and that’s not being judgy, but people who have had gardens for years can make mistakes too.” She showed me three different leaves. “First thing you check is where the lowest fruit is.” She gestured to the bunch of tomatoes still ripening. “You only prune below that. The middle is more confusing. So of these three, which do you pick?”
“The one with brown on it?” I asked, thinking it was half-dead looking.
“Yes, but the answer is all three. Brown goes. Always. Any yellowingunderthe last fruit goes as it will become brown. Higher up can mean new growth needing more sun.
“And this is a sucker in what’s called the ‘armpit’ of the branches and it’s trying to form a whole new vine. We don’t want that as we have vines and we want to focus the plant to grow fruit.”
She showed me the best ways to clip them and what to be careful of and I was completely fascinated. Not just because it was cool and I liked learning new things, not just dates in school or calculus, but she was an engaging teacher.
Plus, hot and her voice was sexy. Really sexy and sort of musical without that too high of squeak some girls had. Well, she was a woman, not a girl.
We moved on to bell peppers and the pruning was the same, along with picking ripe.
“Now green peppers are actually unripe bell peppers. Bell peppers are always yellow, orange, or red, and green ones haven’t ripened yet which is why they’re not as sweet and have that bite of aftertaste.”
“I never knew that,” I admitted, studying the vines and seeing for myself she was right as there were colored ones on the same vine as green but only one color on a vine. “That’s really cool.”
“I think so,” she agreed. “And there’s an enzyme in peppers that tenderizes meat too. Onions, pineapples, and papaya as well.”
“Sounds like a Hawaiian marinade or sweet and sour sauce which is like my favorite.”
“That’s what I’m making basically,” she chuckled. “Most would add brown sugar or sugar and ketchup, but I have tomatoes and there’s sugar in papaya and pineapples so yeah, it’s a full flavor palate for sure.”
She showed me how to harvest the rest, saying that for now she didn’t want anyone touching the pineapples but her since it was easy to damage the plant and only one grew on a plant so not to waste it.
Fair enough.
“Now I don’t spray anything, and I know they weren’t before I got here, but this is food for eating and people are going to touch it or it’s been in the bins that maybe something touched, so it gets washed.”
She showed me the electric thing to drive that pulled multiple carts and drove fine over the path to the brewhouse. But for now, we just loaded up the van after she showed me where to toss the dead leaves and prunings.
She explained that another witch, Sia, needed loofah, so if I didn’t mind helping her get a bunch of those harvested for the truck coming Monday, that would be awesome.
I nodded. Yeah, I was fine with helping. Klara had everything done always. She had a cleaning lady and there was money to grab food after school and she didn’t want me working and I just felt… Alone.
Spoiled in a way no other foster parent had spoiled me, but it had been boring. And no point making friends when I had no idea what came next and there was that whole I lived with a centuries-old witch.
That made things weird.
This was better. I could have a purpose here. Maybe. I wasn’t signing up for anything yet, but I liked the feel of this place. It felt a little lost still and so did Adrena as she tried to get her footing for her dream.
