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Book Review - It's a Long Road to a Tomato
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by Amy Crowell
07/01/06 Organic Producer Magazine
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As a young farmer negotiating the long hours of farm life, the idea of the farmer-writer baffled me. Do full-time farmers really have time to write books? Or perhaps the question is: Do farmers have time to be good writers, to write and re-write, and to capture their frantic, everyday work in words? While farming full-time it seemed that my love for writing and reading was inevitably overshadowed by the demands of my farm. How do Eliot Coleman, Lynn Byczynski and so many other farmer-writers do it?
I am slowly learning that farms take years to evolve and so do the farmer’s books. Keith Stewart’s appropriately titled It’s a Long Road to a Tomato: Tales of an Organic Farmer Who Quit the Big City for the (Not So) Simple Life is no exception. He wrote the essays appearing in his book over the course of eight years while he farmed full-time.
In simple, straightforward prose, Stewart takes us on a journey through day-to-day life on his certified organic farm in upstate New York. His book contains a bit of everything – memoir (of his life growing up in New Zealand), how-to (grow garlic, harvest herbs, or wash mesclun) political commentary (on organics and the USDA), and personal essay. Stewart has an efficient, matter-of-fact way of recording his daily life though his stories sometimes come together like a disjointed day of varied farm work.
Whether writing about the love of his harvest knife, the reasons he has three tractors, or his loyal farm dogs, Stewart gives every aspiring farmer a realistic and enticing glimpse of small farm life. But he does not fool you into thinking that farming is as romantic as other farmer-writers might lead their readers to believe: “It’s nice to think of the farmer,” writes Stewart, “as a natural man (or woman), close to the land, untainted by the ways of the commercial world. But farmers like this live more in the public’s nostalgic imagination than in the real world.”
Not only is this book a treat for anyone interested in the realities of farming, it is also a feast for the eyes. Stewart’s essays are nestled among fantastic black and white farm prints created by his wife, Flavia Bacarella. Each illustration is a beautifully simple rendering of the subjects covered in the book. The pictures complete this book and allow it to be more than just another book on the shelf – it is a work of art that can be enjoyed again and again.
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