Going green isn't easy for greenhorns

This is why the pickings are both slim and remarkable at the first few farmers markets in May.

Brian and Kelly Smith had hoped to have a van full of beets, baby bok choy, lettuces and fresh flowers ready for Saturday, the first day of the 2009 Village Pointe Farmers Market.

They'd hoped to have a full roost of heritage breed chickens at home by now, laying enough eggs at least for the family.

They'd hoped to have enough mature flowers to sell bouquets by Mother's Day.

They ordered seed. They planted early. They kept the greenhouse above 30 degrees. They sent for chicks when there was still snow on the ground.

Ah, but nature has other plans -- especially for those new to this whole farming thing.

This quirky, earth-conscious 30-something couple -- he's 32, she's 31 -- grew up in Omaha, a few miles from vast commodities farms and at least two generations removed from diversified farming.

The closest Brian got to a farm as a kid was a visit to Boys Town. Kelly's grandparents ran a nursery and she has loved flowers since she was young, but she didn't know or really care where her food came from until she and Brian had a family. They began to worry about all the sugar, corn syrup and chemicals their kids were eating.

The family switched to mostly organic foods in the fall of 2005 and began growing vegetables in their backyard. After volunteering at the Village Pointe Farmers Market one summer and supplying their own farmers market booth last year, they traded their house in Benson for a rented farm in northwestern Douglas County in October.

What they call Black Sheep Farms is based on 76 acres near Bennington that has been farmed in some fashion for a century.

They have one Foursquare house cluttered with toys, a weathered barn and granary full of implements they don't know how to use, a chicken coop, a gasheated greenhouse, a small orchard and about a quarter of an acre of gardens they will sow and work by hand. They'll have help from three sons, one dog, two cats -- and 17 investor families who will share the risk and the harvest of their new CSA (community supported agriculture) business.

They didn't quit their day jobs. (He manages the Web site for an Omaha-based Hawaiian shirt company called Mad Gringo and runs a marketing and consulting business that had him driving a "monster'' car to promote a touring Broadway musical this spring. She was, until funding cutbacks in February, communications coordinator for the Nebraska Recycling Association. She still volunteers with the Green Omaha Coalition and home-schools their three inquisitive, ink-haired boys: 9-year-old Sam, 7-year-old Jackson and 3-year-old Comet.)

They took copious notes during their first run at the farmers market last year. And they have access to what they call the "Bob Steffen Library.'' (The late Steffen was their farm's former owner, a founding member of the Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society, a longtime steward of the farm at Boys Town and a local pioneer in organic farming whose books remain in the house.)

But they're learning as they go. Boy, are they learning.

For example:

Vegetable and flower seeds that haven't been genetically modified do not just fall from the sky. Brian soon finds there's an entangled web of seed sellers: A vegetable catalog might entice with its pretty gourmet varieties but get its supplies from Burpee, which gets some seed from Seminis which is owned by Monsanto. If you want non-genetically-modified seeds and to avoid supporting Monsanto, a giant in the world of genetically engineered seed, you will have to dig quite a lot before you do any actual digging.

Said seeds also do not sprout on their own in the middle of winter. Or in early spring, when the ground is alternately waterlogged or frozen. Or even in a greenhouse with a planting zone the Smiths have yet to determine.

Ants eat some -- like the beets that Kelly has planted three times now or those Mother's Day flowers. The bugs happily hibernated all winter in the chemicalfree greenhouse.

The cinnamon a fellow gardener suggested made the greenhouse smell good but didn't deter the beady little buggers. The ground fossilized seashells she got from a local garden center didn't stick to the ants' skin and shred them as hoped. The greenhouse's lone frog and Kelly's overworked smashing thumb didn't seem to make a dent in the ant army. Nor did putting the most ant-ridden seed flats outside during a frost.

And every time Kelly waters, the seashell stuff turns to chalky gunk.

So she keeps replanting and putting the seed packs atop the warm greenhouse water barrels, which the ants don't like for some reason.

Lost seedlings are one thing; baby chicks are another.

They ordered 33 chickens -- Phoenix, Cuckoo Marans, Red Leghorns, White Wyandottes and others. Despite heat lamps and a makeshift "chicken hospital'' in the living room, half died within two days. So did two-thirds of the replacement order.

The kids weren't as upset as Kelly.

"This one's dead, too,'' Comet, the precocious 3-year-old, said almost nonchalantly as the days and deaths wore on.

By the time an overnight marauder (possibly a weasel) got eight, a daytime marauder (definitely a weasel) snagged two and the Smiths' golden retriever chomped on two more, the Smiths were left with 16 chickens, including one featherlegged Black Brahma they call Legwarmers. Kelly's learned to put the dog on the leash during "chicken recess'' -- when the chickens leave the coop to peck at the grass, the grubs and the wild purple violas and give themselves dust baths.

The hens are still a few months from laying eggs. And though some fellow poultry farmers tell the Smiths they could start butchering the males now, they still seem too small.

The Smiths are not sure how many of the ordered breeds they ultimately got. A handful of unidentified white extras, with red marker on their heads, were tucked in their delivery box "for extra warmth.''

What they do know is that roosters don't automatically know how to crow -- and they don't rehearse just in the early morning.

"I always thought it was just at dawn,'' says Kelly. "But they take turns off and on throughout the day.''

Jackson has taken to imitating the roosters.

Even the outdoor "tomcat'' they got from friends in the city surprised them. They thought Hardy was a boy -- until "he'' had a litter of kittens last week.

This is not easy or certain work even for skilled gardeners and farmers.

It is harder still for two city slickers learning the ropes while raising three children.

Barring pests and pestilence, they think -- hope? -- they'll have some cut tulips, a few bedding plants (tomatoes and flowers the ants didn't get), and some assorted greens ready in time for Saturday's market.

Their first winter and early spring on the farm have been filled with second-guessing: Did we plant enough flowers? Is there enough mache for our family to both eat and sell? How many CSA shares can we really support? Will we have enough to get a good-sized box of produce and flowers to investors each week? Should we fence the chickens? Will pumpkins grow on the other side of the creek? Where on earth will we put all these seedlings as the outdoor garden space fills up? Have we done the right thing?

These first few months also have involved great whiffs of freedom and a sense of carpe diem.

They can work in the greenhouse at their leisure, whenever they need a little warmth, or late in the evening after the kids are in bed. They live somewhat by the weather: They can sleep in on a rainy day, but they have to take advantage of a break in the clouds for outdoor planting and

trellis-building. They can sit on the back porch and listen for the woodpecker or the pheasant. They can take complete joy in the first green onion and garlic tops poking through the soil.

And when they've done all the planning and sowing and watering and ant-squashing they can do, they have only to wait and hope and watch the kids grow while the plants try to do the same.