From Greg Atkinson

For a number of years, islanders in the know here on San Juan Island (Washington) used to line up outside a building supply store on Spring Street, waiting for a truck to pull up in front. From the bed of the truck, and from a trailer attached to the back of it, the Rogers family used to sell homegrown vegetables and flowers. This was in the eighties, still the dark ages for island-grown produce markets, before the farmers on Waldron started bringing peas and other produce from their island to ours, before a Saturday farmers’ market became established, and before the grocery stores started carrying several varieties of island-grown produce. In those days, unless you had a garden or were very nice to someone who did, you simply couldn’t get really fresh produce on the island.

Over a period of a decade, Robert and Louisa Rogers gradually carved a six-acre vegetable garden from a stand of alder on the north end of the island. They called their garden Dragonfly Farms, but most of the eager customers who waited in front of Pope’s Building Supply on Spring Street every Saturday afternoon for them to arrive with their produce called them the corn people.

Dragonfly Farms sold more than corn. Robert and Louisa grew summer squash, fresh herbs, lettuce, tomatoes, green beans, and unusual greens like tricolored amaranth and French sorrel. But it was the corn that made people stand in line.

“We had no intentions of becoming professional farmers,” Louisa once confided. “We bought the land to build our home.” For the homesite, they selected a knoll a few hundred yards back from the road. Their driveway ran along several acres of young alder trees. Dressed in bright green leaves in summer, the white-barked alders wore yellow in the fall and stood bare against the sky in winter.

The Rogers family cut a half-acre of the alder for firewood the first season they lived on the property, and when the trees were removed, they couldn’t help noticing that the soil beneath the trees was rich and black and deep.

“The soil was so good that we started hauling it up the hill to a little vegetable patch we had planted behind the house.” The next year, instead of moving topsoil to the garden, they moved the garden to the soil. Runoff water from nearby Mount Young moistened the ground, and a substrata of clay kept that moisture close to the topsoil throughout the growing season. During the driest weeks of summer, when they did irrigate, it was with unfiltered water from the Roche Harbor water table. Like the algae-laden water that fertilizes Kappy’s berries at White Point Farm, that water is rich in lime, which sweetened the acid soil of what had so recently been the forest floor.

“The first half-acre we cleared was large enough to grow more vegetables than the family could use,” explained Louisa, so they decided to grow extra produce for sale at a stand beside the road. “Since we had no fence, we decided to grow only vegetables that deer wouldn’t eat. Old-timers told us that deer wouldn’t eat summer squash, so we planted four rows of zucchini, four rows of pattypan, four rows of crookneck…” She sighed. “We had more squash than we could possibly sell. People aren’t really all that interested in squash. They asked us, ‘Why don’t you grow corn?’”

To keep out the deer, Robert and Louisa fashioned a fence around their garden with used gill net, and it was fairly effective. “But the deer chewed a few holes in the fence and each time, the damage they did overnight was unbelievable.” The deer nuzzled heads of lettuce and nibbled out the tender leaves at the heart. They tested the green beans and the peas, but like the customers on Spring Street, the deer’s favorite crop was the sweet corn.

“Here it comes!” someone would always say when the farm truck became visible on the main road into town. “It” was, of course, the corn. As the truck and the trailer full of corn pulled up in front of the store, the little crowd often cheered, and immediately a line would form. One Saturday, a woman had been waiting for a long time to ensure a place at the head of the line when the trailer arrived. She frowned up the street half a dozen times, worrying and waiting. When the truck arrived, she went right to work and counted out a dozen ears. Then, as she approached the card table where the pay station had been set up, she hugged her bag and smiled a big, giddy, uncontrollable smile. Every time I eat corn from Dragonfly Farms, I feel the same way.

These days, Robert Rogers sells his corn at the Saturday farmers’ market, and few people realize that he was there before the market ever was. Robert’s son and daughter often collect money at the stand. Louisa, the careful gardener who started it all, died some years ago, but she seems to hover in spirit over the corn.

Organic Herb-Roasted Corn

Serves 6

6 ears organic corn, husked
3 tablespoons butter or olive oil
1 tablespoon crushed garlic
1 teaspoon each dried tarragon, thyme, and basil, or 1 tablespoon each fresh, chopped
½ teaspoon each salt and ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400°F. Have ready 6 sheets of baker’s parchment, each large enough to wrap an ear of corn. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter or warm olive oil; stir in garlic, herbs, salt, and pepper. When mixture is sizzling, remove from heat.

Place an ear of corn on a piece of baker’s parchment, spread about 2 teaspoons of garlic and herb mixture over corn, then wrap parchment up and around ear of corn, twisting ends of parchment to seal. Repeat with remaining ears of corn. Arrange wrapped ears on a baking sheet and roast 15 minutes. Serve hot in paper wrappers.
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See also Dave’s Corn – Traditional Whole Grain Cookery (Organic Recipes)
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Greg Atkinson is author of West Coast Cooking, The Northwest Essentials Cookbook, and others, and lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Greg is Culinary Director of OrganicToGo.
Excerpted from: In Season – Culinary Adventures of a San Juan Island Chef 1997
Image Credit: Corn Crib © Steve Lied | Dreamstime.com
OrganicToBe.org | OrganicToGo.com
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