There are almost 300 different types of tomatoes grow on Tim Mountz ’s small , 10 - Accho Happy Cat farm in Chester County , PA . He ’s also get 140 different kind of vegetables grow exclusively for heirloom seed packet , and a mixing of greens , cucumbers , carrot , capsicum pepper plant , and radishes that have n’t been develop in Pennsylvania for decades , or that are from as far away as India and Mexico .
Small farms preserve the local heritage
Mountz started Happy Cat in 1993 , when , after his grandfather was kill in a gondola stroke , his grandmother give him a jar of beans her former husband had collected . While his grandfather was n’t a farmer himself , he had grown up on a farm , and his phratry had been exploit the land in Lancaster and Berks counties since 1683 . Mountz had spent lots of meter with his grandpa in their syndicate “ garden ” ( an Akko of vegetables for two hoi polloi , so garden is a terminus he uses loosely ) , making him the logical heir to the shock .
“ Nobody has seen this bonce in 75 years . It was nonextant until you poured it onto my table . ”
His fascination with the bean doubled after he study a book on heirloom vegetable horticulture by William Woys Weaver , and contacted the author to see if he wanted to check out his stash . When the two men met , something awing fall out .
Christopher Leaman
Mountz recalls , “ There was one [ bean ] , he put in my deal and enjoin ‘ Nobody has seen this bean in 75 geezerhood . It was extinct until you poured it onto my table . ’ It was a goosebumps bit . ”
He went on to ferment with Weaver for a year , “ learn a short ton about not only the account of plant , but the story of the the great unwashed [ German immigrant in the Lancaster , Berks , and Chester Counties ] and my culture , the culture that makes up agriculture . It was fascinating , ” he tell . finally he stopped studying landscape architecture and move from Philadelphia out to Chester County to start a full - time farm .
“ I substantiate then that you do n’t choose your legacy , your bequest chooses you , ” he said .
Christopher Leaman
It’s a struggle to keep obscure breeds on people’s plates
Before the industrialisation of agriculture , there were hundred of dissimilar varieties of specific plants and vegetable , mostly passed down through generations of syndicate and ethnic chemical group because they adapted well to the specific land they were grow in – a less intangible terroir .
Today , though , we ’re bombarded with harvest that are grow to be reproducible , move well across the country , and bring out at high levels . What we now reckon of as “ heirloom ” is a parcel of love apple in different red hues at the foodstuff store . But there are some farmers , like Mountz , who specialize in reintroducing some of these bygone variety back into our diets .
“ These vegetable have all these fantastic stories behind them with all these amazing people , ” Mountz said . “ I see people growing all this suave , hybrid stuff and peradventure that grow a little piece better , but this varietal wine – I ca n’t take this varietal to market because the 2nd you piece it and put it down on something it bruises . You have to eat it mightily there in the playing field . You have to be outside and have the whole software . work through that first sweat of the solar day and with a sore back from the daytime before , and the junk and the dirt . ”
Christopher Leaman
Competitors are giant… but can’t offer the same depths of flavor
Of of course there are hardier varietal that Mountz can take to market . But it ’s the form that make his crops so worthy . The yellow pear tomato , for deterrent example , await just like it sounds , and is perfumed enough that it was used mostly for dessert in the eighteenth century . The Black Krim , from the Isle of Krim in the Black Sea , is a drear purple tomato and Mountz account its savoury flavor as “ the most amazing thing you will ever put in your rima oris . ”
There ’s a middling sound chance that the last tomato you ate came from a “ large farm , ” which the Department of Agriculture defines as one that make more than $ 1 million in income each year . bombastic farms make up only 3 % of all the farms in the United States , but they control the bulk of vegetable sales , about 65 % . And their standardized harvest are great for reliability … but not as great as take a rainbow of tomatoes to taste . Moreover , variety is essential to a healthy species . homogeneousness is why banana are threatened by a overspread fungus right now .
Small operations like Mountz ’s , however , constitute the overwhelming legal age of farm in the United States , and while they control most of the verbatim farm - to - consumer gross sales ( like at farmer ’s markets ) , they still are n’t stimulate in on that big spell of the tomato pie .
Christopher Leaman
You can do everything right but nature gets the final say
Even within their stake in the market , thing are not always promiscuous at Happy Cat . Just this past spring , Mountz had delineate up six planting days in May . It was cold in Pennsylvania , and on the few days it was n’t unseasonably cold , it was wet . In the unforgiving math of factory farm , six planting days were done in only three . get along the ending of July , it ’s commonly time for the “ tomato tsunami ” ( as he calls it ) , when he ’ll harvest 2,500lbs of tomatoes a calendar week . rather , it ’s only drizzling ; the farm has only harvested 400lbs .
There was hail the workweek before that , but as luck would have it , nothing was really harm . When it ’s summer , and blistering in Pennsylvania , a sudden tempest could intend disaster , so he ’s constantly keeping an optic on the atmospheric condition . sell heirloom vegetables , which need more verbose work to naturalize and glean , mean that some slice of green goods can earn a cost tag of up to $ 5 , which can cause some farmers market customers to balk , and competitors with tumid farms to endeavor to undersell his bottom line .
“ If you get caught up on the challenges , you should do something else , because every day is a challenge , ” Mountz said . “ A big lawn mower broke last workweek , then a weed wacker broke . It all happens at once , and if you are n’t optimistic about it you ’re being a curmudgeon and people can taste that in your food . ”
Christopher Leaman
Ultimately, it’s worth it
Happy Cat is looking to expand its seminal fluid parcel business , where they already package more than 13,000 packets by hand . They also make sauce , ketchup , and fix – and recently opened an online store to modernize the selling of their ancient harvest . They even team up up with a nearby brewery and local dairy farmer to bring back an old - school day agriculture concept , the “ CSA ” ( or Community Supported Agriculture ) box . A somebody pays up front for the entire harvest time of year , then each week gets a curated box of beer , Malva sylvestris , and a portion of the veggies that were harvested .
“ You ’re just quick to call in a napalm air tap and have this whole affair cauterise to the ground . ”
Happy Cat has a few sweeping accounts and sell at Fannie Farmer mart around the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania area , and works directly with some restaurants . Mountz ’s bountiful plan , though , is to eventually put a pizzeria or taqueria on the farm , then drive a “ Lycopersicon esculentum truck ” around Philly , a traveling farm tie-up to bring his rare degustation experiences directly to the multitude .
Christopher Leaman
“ There ’s one tomato we mature , it ’s call Rosalita . It ’s very tiny , Olea europaea regulate , and it ’s pink – almost metal pink . It ’s really a great tomato plant and it ’s really early producing , ” he says . “ And a lot of time I will be standing in the tomato field , after we ’ve planted 10,000 tomato plant , we ’ve staked them , we ’ve suckered them . It ’s just so much work and you ’ve guess about it for so long , like from the wintertime or the fall before , and you still have all the work of harvesting ahead of you . And you ’re just ready to call in a napalm strain strike and have this whole thing burn to the ground .
“ And you look over and there ’s this niggling pink gem , it ’s the first one , and you pick it , and you eat up it , and your eye stray back in your principal . And you ’re like ‘ This is why I do it . ’ And then it ’s over , and you get back to it , and you continue to shape severely . ”
