i liked this book because it reminded me of the farm that i worked on. i'm sure this book would have been completely foreign to me had i read it a year ago, but now so many parts were just familiar in a way i can't really describe. i loved the part about the tractor and the cows especially, because i happen to love tractors and cows. it made me really sad to read the little parts that interns wrote, because i just wanted to be an intern on a farm again. what i really loved was when he talked about garlic. and i just have to elaborate on this garlic thing. all summer on the farm i worked on i heard about this famous garlic that a farmer sold at the greenmarket in new york. apparently this garlic arrived in the united states as one clove and has just multiplied since then. anyway, some of this garlic made its way to the farm i worked on, and i helped harvest it and heard this story so many times. it was really exciting when i got to the chapter on garlic and realized that this was the farmer that popularized this variety of garlic. i know this isn't exciting to anyone but me, but i loved it.

anyway, it seems as though this farmer really knows what he is doing and i liked his stories about his farming neighbors and his views on sustainable agriculture and all that. ( )

Keith Stewart's It's a Long Road to a Tomato is an informative and entertaining look into the life of an organic farmer. Stewart describes how he decided to take up farming in his early 40's, the economics of running a small farm, selling his vegetables at a New York City market, and the various trials and tribulations of farming in the late 20th and early 21st century.

I enjoyed Stewart's writing style. He is at once descriptive while economical with his prose - echoing his character as a farmer, I'm sure. Each chapter stands on its own as an individual essay, so the reader can pick up the book at any time to get a glimpse into farm life. Stewart doesn't romanticize farming, but he also acknowledges its special joys. There are several chapters on the politics and economics of farming, which are very enlightening to the non-farmer. ( )