Hurry to Hawley

Field of greens at Pen and Plow Farm

Who would not like to live on Pudding Hollow Road? It is clearly a road steeped in the history of Hawley, a town settled in 1760, and a unique pudding contest which took place in the late 1770s.  Farms and food have always been important parts of Hawley’s history and culture so I could not resist the opportunity to visit the newest farm and an old established garden, both on Pudding Hollow Road, and both a part of Hawley’s annual Artisan’s and Garden Tour which will be held on Saturday, July 10 from 10 am until 4 pm.

When you turn off Route 8A and cross over the new bridge you are on Pudding Hollow Road, Right across from the tiny town hall is the two year old Pen and Plow Farm, so called because the Velazquez family, Sheila, her son Jason and his wife have all been in the publishing/editorial business , but since early last spring have been turning their creative energies to sustainable farming.

Merlot lettuce at Pen and Plow farm

Sheila, who said she had farmed many years ago and has had varied careers since then, was delighted that her son gave her the nudge (push?) to go back into farming. The family found 21 acres, wooded and clear, with a year round stream. They have planted a large market garden, currently boasting ‘greens’ including reds like Merlot, Red Fire and Red Sails lettuces. These can be purchased among other places, at the new Charlemont Farmer’s Market held on Saturdays at the Hawlemont School.

In addition to the mangelwurzel (for animal feed) corn, squash, and other vegetable fields, they have two Scottish Highland Cows. “They are a good breed for the country,” Sheila said. “ They are hardy and eat brush, poison ivy and wild raspberries.”  I can see that would save on feed bills. They also have chickens and recently added a Jersey milk cow to their holdings.

Jason Velazquez

Jason took time out from his chores to show me how to sharpen and use a scythe, and to talk about his pleasure in being able to return to farming. “Values you learn in a rural childhood are applicable to many walks of life,” and this is one of the reasons he wanted to leave Boston and bring his wife and children to Hawley and to make a farm.

As he showed me all the projects, he explained that they want to learn to do more with less. “Everything we do is rooted in sustainability – what the land can sustain, and the amount of labor we can sustain as a family. We wan to provide our own food, but we plan to farm to a living. We have a commitment to being part of a community that sustains itself.”

As they move towards making a living on the farm they are paying attention to the vegetables that customers prefer. They also sell fresh eggs that have the brilliant yellow yolks that are typical of free range chickens.

Paul Cooper

Paul Cooper, retired neurosurgeon and serious cook, and his wife Leslie have been summering in Hawley since 1981, enjoying the magnificent views of the hills, and tending their gardens.

Cooper toured me around his hillside, showing me new fruit trees, apples, pears, a greengage plum, peaches, and quince. Several years ago they planted two copper beech trees which are still young, but already show signs that they will grow into majestic old trees. There is a special thanks due to people like the Coopers who plant trees that will not come into their noble maturity until they themselves are no longer walking the earth.

There are colorful flower gardens that Leslie tends, daylily borders, and pink honeysuckle vines, not an invasive variety. But Cooper’s favorite garden is the fenced vegetable garden which hints at his passion for cooking.  He grows several kinds of tomatoes, Big Boy, Sun Gold, Early Girl, Celebrity and Donna. Yukon Gold, Corolla and Kennebec potatoes, Fava beans, shallots, leeks, garlic, asparagus and eggplant, “but no peppers, because I hate them,” he said.

Mint is grown in its own circular garden where the lawn mower can keep it under control.  A small herb garden supplies much of the common herbs Cooper needs.

The lettuce was lush and Cooper sighed when he said, “It’s been a lettuce summer,” which is to say cool and damp.

Paul Cooper's lambs

Cooper hasn’t forgotten the main course, He also raises lambs – and he has a large collection of lamb recipes.

The blueberry, raspberry and red currant patches suggest that diners at his table do not leave until there has been a luscious dessert.  Maybe he will find one in The Pudding Hollow Cookbook, written by Tinky Weisblat, another Hawley resident.

Akebia covered pergola at the Cooper's

The Hawley tour includes visits to other farms, gardens and a lunch at one of Hawley’s Great Houses, also on Pudding Hollow Road.

This tour, A Collage of Arts and Gardens Throughout the Town of Hawley is sponsored by the Sons and Daughters of Hawley. Proceeds will help fund restoration of East Hawley Meeting House and the Grove Building. It is hoped that the new bathrooms in the Grove Building will be completed by tour day. For more information about tickets for the  tour call Cyndie Stetson 413- 339-4231.

Betweenthe Rows  June 26, 2010

Local Heroes Honored

My bumper sticker

I was so pleased to get this notice from CISA, an organization I support and applaud – not to mention all the Local Heroes in the region, those noted, and those who labor devotedly without applause.  At least not so far.

Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) is pleased to announce that it has selected Belle Rita Novak of Springfield, J & J Farms in Amherst, and Dan Rosenberg of Real Pickles in Greenfield, to receive its prestigious Local Hero Awards for 2010.

“We applaud our 2010 Local Hero Award recipients and we honor their efforts to sustain local agriculture and enhance the unique character of their communities,” says Philip Korman, executive director of CISA. “Our Local Hero awardees are individuals who can serve as role models for all of us and can help us to create and nourish long term change.”

Background on 2010 Local Hero Awardees

BELLE RITA NOVAK (The Farmer’s Market at the X, Springfield):  As market manager of the Farmer’s Market at the X in Forest Park, a busy urban Springfield neighborhood, Belle Rita Novak’s job includes planning and promotion, writing the weekly newsletter, selling tokens to customers, as well as cooking and serving food samples.  Novak’s passion for fresh local food is no doubt key to the market’s success. “It’s a labor of love,” says Novak.  With the support of friends and help from the Department of Agriculture, Novak organized the market in the fall of 1997 opened it in June 1998 with five vendors. At the time, there were a total of ninety-eight farmers’ markets in Massachusetts; that number has since doubled to more than 200. Considered the largest urban market in western Massachusetts, the Farmer’s Market at the X attracts a diverse customer base, including many shoppers who pay with their electronic benefit cards. “Farmers’ markets have become popular because the food is so fresh,” says Novak. “People love the vendors and every single week someone thanks me for having the market – it’s so important to them.”

JOE WASKIEWICZ (J & J Farms, Amherst):  When Joe Waskiewicz was growing up on Meadow Street in Amherst in the 1930s, every household on the street farmed the land. Today, Joe’s farm is one of just two that remain. Joe’s grandfather, Dimitriou, began the farm in 1909. These days, most of the farm work is done by Joe’s sons, Mike and Butch (Joe Jr.), though Joe can still usually be reached in the barn during chore time. The farm grows top quality sweet corn and other vegetables; equally important is its dairy operation, the only one remaining in Amherst today. The farm sells to wholesalers and retail stands, and they have their own farm stand by the road. J & J Farms has a reputation for diligence, quality, and innovation, and were early supporters of integrated pest management.  Reflecting on his farm’s celebration of its 100th anniversary last year, Joe commented that it’s hard to imagine another period in history when farming changed so much — there have been great improvements in the variety of seeds available, as well as crop yields, and mechanization has made farming much more efficient. At the same time, he recognizes that farmers face new challenges and expresses pride that he was able to see the family farm over the century mark.  J & J Farms cultivates their own eighty acres, and rents an additional eighty from neighbors. “It’s important to keep the land productive,” says Joe, “I think it will be essential to food production in the future.”

Dan Rosenberg DAN ROSENBERG (Real Pickles, Greenfield):  How does a 24-year old from northern New Jersey get into the business of making pickles? For Dan Rosenberg, it started with his interests in social change, ecology, and the food system, and his experience on an organic farm. A workshop at a farming conference inspired Rosenberg to try lactic acid fermentation, which is considered the original pickling method. Rosenberg launched Real Pickles in 2001. “It was another way to put up local food so that the harvest could be enjoyed during the winter, and to make available a traditional food that has kept people healthy for thousands of years,” says Rosenberg.  The company’s products, including dill pickles, sauerkraut, and kimchi, have quickly gained a loyal customer base throughout the region. Real Pickles uses only organic vegetables, which it purchases from seven farms within fifty miles of Greenfield. Last year, Real Pickles purchased and renovated a century-old industrial building in Greenfield to accommodate its growing success.  Rosenberg credits his business success to staying true to his principles: investing in the local food system, promoting minimally-processed healthy foods, and being as ecologically conscious as possible, and is proud that Real Pickles has proven to be economically viable, while finding and filling a niche in the local food structure. The Local Hero Award is given to individuals, institutions and businesses that are committed to promoting and strengthening local agriculture, and have demonstrated long-term vision, social responsibility, and/or an environmental ethic in their work. Past recipients include: John LaSalle/LaSalle Florist in Whately; The People’s Pint in Greenfield; Seeds of Solidarity Farm in Orange; writer/activist Mary McClintock; Amy Klippenstein and Paul Lacinski of Sidehill Farm in Ashfield; Gardening the Community, a youth-centered community-based urban gardening project in Springfield; Cooley Dickinson Hospital; Joe Czajkowski of Czajkowski Farms in Hadley; the Franklin County Community Development Corporation; Nuestras Raíces in Holyoke; Doug Coldwell and Dewitt Thomson of Full Bloom Market Garden; Dan Kaplan from Brookfield Farm in Amherst; and the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.

To learn more about CISA and become a member click here or call (413) 665-7100.

Goldthread Herb Farm

William Siff, co-founder of Goldthread Herbal Apothecary

“I have a good imagination,” William Siff told me as we sat in the shade overlooking the new Learning Garden in the midst of fields of medicinal herbs. He said he didn’t imagine the Goldthread Herbal Apothecary with its farm, workshops and national speaking engagements all at once, “But they are all a part of the same focus.

“As a move towards sustainable living herbal medicine is a powerful vehicle. As a society we know a lot about complex things, but we’ve lost knowledge of simple things, like providing health care without running to the doctor or to the drugstore. Herbs can provide one element of our self sufficiency and they can have an enormous ripple effect,” he said.

Certainly the ripple effect is evident in Siff’s life. Trained as an herbalist and acupuncturist, he and his wife Sarah founded Goldthread Herbal Apothecary in Florence seven years ago, then bought a house and land in Conway to grow organic medicinal herbs for the shop.

“When we started growing herbs we just jumped in. Friends and family helped us in the beginning. In exchange we taught them about herbs and health. As that teaching became more popular we developed the Farm to Pharmacy program. Last year we ran it for the first time as a formal entity with a detailed seven month curriculum.  We look at herbs from various perspectives. As grower we look at propagation, cultivation and harvest with some hands on processing experience, but also from the botanical perspective and from the clinical perspective.  We charge tuition for this program,” Siff explained.

Goldenseal in the shade

A tour of the farm includes fields of 150 to 160 herb species. Some, like goldenseal and American ginseng grow in shade, but most others grow in sun. On the day I visited the garlic was about to send out graceful scapes that can be used in cooking, hop vines were artfully arranged on supports and Siff was setting out rosemary plants. “One hundred and fifty in, and another hundred and fifty to go,” he said with a smile. “We treat rosemary as an annual and will harvest every plant in the fall.”

Goldthread Farm Learning Garden

Rosemary and every other herb that Siff grows will be represented by at least a single sample in the handsome large circular Learning Garden that is on the site of a huge dairy barn. The barn was taken down by hand in the fall of 2008 so that the wood could be reused.  Stones from the foundation now take their place as the bones of  the garden.

The rosemary field, like the others, makes use of raised beds. “We use raised beds because it is easier on the back. They are permanent, but we primp them each year – after harvest they are reshaped and reformed. It means lots of work up front, but less work over time.”

Sarah Siff who was active in the business when they began is now concentrating on their two young children, and on earning a Masters degree in education.

Goldthread classroom/herb drying loft/distillery

After taking an intensive herbal workshop Thomas Schieffer stayed on to be Siff’s ‘right hand man’ putting his engineering and construction skills to good use. The derelict garage is now attractive and energy efficient, housing a classroom, a drying loft for herbs and a distillery. Schieffer redesigned the base of the wood fired distillery and noted that “when you’re around fire, it’s fun. This is just another element that makes the whole process more intimate.”

The business in the shop and on the farm now uses five other employees.

Siff hopes Goldthread Herb Farm will be a model for others. To that end he speaks at national conferences, and has instituted three one week intensive workshops, in June, July and August, that focus on fundamentals. The goal is for attendees to take the ideas and information away with them to use in a variety of ways, for their own health care, in the operation of school gardens, or to grow marketable crops.

Siff is currently working on building a consortium of organic herb growers. He is contracting with Conway’s Natural Roots CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), Mountain View Farm CSA in Easthampton, and Nuestras Raices in Holyoke to grow organic herbs for them so they will have a larger local supply.

When I asked him if herbs helped give him energy for all these projects he hesitated. He said he used lots of herbs, but then mentioned ashwaganda withania somnifera which “gives a healthy dose of energy, but keeps you relaxed.”

If you visit the farm, maybe you will see it and learn more about becoming energetic but relaxed yourself.

The Goldthread Farm (www.goldthreadapothecary.com)  is just one of the five unique farms and six private gardens that are on The Franklin Land Trust’s 22^nd Annual Farm and Garden Tour scheduled for June 26 and 27 between 10 am and 4 pm.

Tickets are limited, please e-mail or call to reserve: lalvord@franklinlandtrust.org or 413-625-9151. Tickets are also available from the World Eye Bookshop in Greenfield, and any remaining tickets may be purchased at the registration tent located at the Greenfield Savings Bank branch on Rte 116 in Conway the weekend of the event, which will be open 9:30-4:00 each day. Tickets are $20 for non-members, $15 for members. A pre-paid lunch at the Holly Barn in Conway is also available for $15.

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The Franklin Land Trust Farm and Garden tour will show you the beauties of our landscape.  Together on the Land: Options for Ecological Living in Community is a tour co-sponsored by the Cooperative Development Institute, Equity Trust, Franklin Land Trust, Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust & Valley Community Land Trust scheduled for Saturday, June 12 from 9 to 5. Do you know the difference between a coop, condo, and cohousing? Logon to www.vclt.org for full tour information. Maybe you will find a new way to get your dream home.  ####

Between the Rows    June 5, 2010

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Fantasy – And Reality

Greenfield Farmers Market

Saturday I went into Greenfield to buy plants at the Greenfield Garden Club Plant sale, but also stopped at the Greenfield Farmers Market to buy beautiful lettuce from The Kitchen Garden for Gourmet Club, and I bought a pot of beautiful double white petunias from LaSalles.

Shoestring Farm Booth

The Farmers Market was full of vegetable starts, flats of annual seedlings, as well as the first greens of the season and huge bouquets of peonies from Hadley where spring has sprung to a greater degree than in Heath. Strolling among the Farmers Market booths my head is filled with fantasy visions of my own garden, equally productive and beautiful.

Shed Bed

When I got home I had to face the reality that I am still weeding and planting madly – and it is not a pretty sight. Some creature is daintily nibbling at the lettuce in the new Front Garden. That will require further investigation and thought.  Somehow the Shed Bed of Roses, next to the henhouse, is incredibly full of weeds and grass this spring. I hadn’t made even one pass through when daughter Diane arrived on Sunday afternoon for  a short visit. I immediately showed her the Shed Bed and we set to. She is such a cooperative and energetic daughter.  I got to use my fabulous West Country Rose Gloves to prune and hold roses out of the way while Diane dug out grass and weeds.  We noticed that the rose Mrs. Doreen Pike, a low rugosa with bright green foliage and pretty very double little blossoms, who had sent runners toward the back of the bed, had totally disappeared to the back of the bed leaving a big empty spot in the front. What to do?  And how to handle that empty spot considering the location of the bed next to the henhouse?

Chickens! There is a fenced chicken yard, but a few adventurous birds  routinely fly the coop for a day eating grass and bugs and taking ‘dust’ baths in the cultivated soil of the Shed Bed. Since I fear the dread ‘rose disease’ that spells certain doom for any rose planted where a rose lived before (at least for a couple of years) one solution to that empty space is a patch of annuals. Not good design, but functional. The problem is those chickens and their dust baths. I’m wondering if I can make a kind of cage out of chicken wire to put over the annual seedlings. The chickens won’t be able to dig them up and the annuals (maybe cosmos?) will grow up through the cage and pretty much hide it. It’s my only idea so far. What do you think?

Local Lunch at The Academy

Jeannie Bartlett

Jeannie Bartlett, a senior at The Academy in Charlemont, has many interests including “farms, food, the environment, health and community” which she put together in a delicious way. Local Lunches, her Independent Senior Project, fed Academy students a monthly lunch composed of local ingredients all year.

Jeannie Bartlett and Todd Sumner

Todd Sumner, Academy Headmaster, explained “Senior projects are intended to extend a student’s classroom learning to provide service, and to apply and implement their learning. Students have to be responsible for a project over a long period of time, breaking tasks down, planning logistics and then actively getting resources.” Students check in with their advisor every week or so, but the projects cover a large range of topics.

Bartlett lives in Leyden and worked at Dancing Bear and Silk Purse farms during past summers,. When she called Tom Ashley of Dancing Bear and chatted about her project ideas he suggested Local Lunches. “The idea resonated with me immediately because it linked so many of my interests, and meant involvement in the community,” she said.

It takes a wide variety of skills to pull off a project like this beginning with making up menus that students will enjoy, finding sources for the ingredients, contacting farmers and arranging prices. Bookkeeping, too, as well as educating students about the farms and the benefits of fresh local food.

Calling strangers on the phone was difficult, she admits. “The first time I called a farmer I was so nervous that I was going to forget to say something or that I was going to say the wrong thing that I wrote a  script for myself.  I guess it must have been an okay script, because  he didn’t take me for a telemarketer!  Thank goodness it quickly became much easier and more comfortable for me, so that now I don’t have to gear myself up before dialing!”

Tom Ashley and Peter Tusinski

Dancing Bear Farm is known for its greens which are available even in winter, and heirloom tomatoes. Peter Tusinski’s Silk Purse Farm specializes in onions and shallots. Both are organic farms; both have cooperated on marketing for years, taking each other’s produce to the big markets in Brookline and Newton. Nowadays they do a lot of business with local restaurants and at the smaller local markets.

Tusinski said Jeannie worked for him for the past three summers ”and then Tom stole her,” he said with a laugh. “She does everything well. You don’t have to look over her shoulder. And you get to know a person, talking about religion and philosophy and everything while we are working and weeding.”

Anna Hanchette

Anna Hanchette of Manda Farm in Plainfield was also on hand with Ashley and Tuscinski to talk to the students about their farms before Tuesday’s Local Lunch with a menu that included chicken or egg salad, green salad with asparagus and shortcake with blueberries and raspberries (frozen).

Manda Farm raises rare breed and heirloom animals, “partly to preserve the breed and partly to help maintain a diverse gene pool,” Hanchette said.

They raise Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs and Dexter cows for meat.  “We are ‘Certified Naturally Grown and Animal Welfare Approved’ as is our slaughterhouse in New York State. We want our customers to know how our animals are treated from beginning to end,” Hanchette said.

Manda Farm also sells eggs, raspberries, vegetables, and Narragansett turkey at Thanksgiving. Their meat is sold at the Ashfield Farmer’s Market and at the Farm.

Other farms that have provided produce to Local Lunches include: Donovan Farm in Hawley; Red Fire Farm in Granby; Winter Moon Farm, Czjakowski Farm, and River Bend Farm in Hadley; Apex Orchards in Shelburne;  Farmstead at Mine Brook in Charlemont; Upingill Farm in Gill; and Snow’s Ice Cream in Greenfield.

The most fun part has been picking up the products. “Even on a quick visit
to a farm I can get such a feel for it.  I wish I could take my school-mates with me, but since that’s not practical I take pictures and write up little anecdotes for them, and post them on the Local Lunches bulletin board that I made,” she said.

Hearing Bartlett talk about her project was particularly moving to me after watching the famous British chef Jamie Oliver and his Food Revolution, televised over the past weeks. Oliver has been concerned about how people cook and eat for some time. We Americans were the target of his concern when he took is Food Revolution to Huntington, West Virginia, named by some as the country’s unhealthiest town because of its high rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. It was his  goal to get people to think about the quality of the food they were eating, the health implications, and the pleasure they were missing by not cooking for themselves.

Oliver found that kindergarteners didn’t recognize potatoes or apples in their native form – and that school lunches were not as healthy as they could be. He had a job to do to change perceptions and habits.

Oliver hadn’t started his Food Revolution when Bartlett designed her Local Lunches. She was ahead of the curve in her concern, and action. However, she is like Oliver who expressed his pleasure when he sat people down to eat good fresh food.

After all her work Bartlett says, “I love seeing the meal on people’s plates. That’s possibly the most rewarding moment. Then, I know that this meal has become a reality.”

Between the Rows   May 1, 2010

More Than Maple Farmers

My neighbors, Brooks McCutchen and Janis Steele, are very models of the modern maple sugarers.  When I went to visit their sugarhouse I saw the familiar steam billowing from the roof, but as I got closer I saw modern elements.

Inside the sugarhouse is a huge steamy stainless steel evaporator but there is no fire in sight. This operation is run mostly by solar power.

Solar power is not the only modern element. McCutchen and Steele use a reverse osmosis technique that removes most of the water from the maple sap before it goes into the evaporator. Reverse osmosis means the sap takes only about 45 minutes to emerge from the evaporator; then it is drawn off into stainless kegs. This is called small batch sugaring, and each batch will be slightly different in color and taste. Which brings us to the modern marketing of Berkshire Sweet Gold Maple Syrup.

We live in a rural area, so most of us are familiar with how difficult it is for small farmers to make a fair wage. The rise of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms, farm stands, and farmers’ markets are some of the ways local farmers have found to make a more secure living. After doing some wholesale selling, McCutchen and Steele decided to do only direct sales. You can buy their syrup at their Heath farmstand on Route 8A, at any of the dozen or craft shows they attend up and down the eastern seaboard, or buy mailorder through their website, www.berkshiresweetgold.com.

Berkshire Sweet Gold farmstand

Besides using new technologies and marketing strategies, McCutchen and Steele take an innovative approach to working on their farm. They consider themselves carbon farmers, as well as maple farmers. They manage their mixed woodland, which includes the sugarbush, to sequester carbon.

As we talked they reminded me that at the turn of the 20^th century 80% of Heath was open farmland and the soil was becoming depleted. There are not many open fields anymore but McCutchen explained that it is the mixed forests that have grown up that are rebuilding the soil, putting carbon back into the soil. “Carbon is the core for providing the structure of healthy soil,” he said.

Knowing that both McCutchen and Steele had professional careers as a psychologist and anthopologist respectivley before they became farmers of any sort, I asked them how they came to this new career.

McCutchen said it was not such a leap as I might have imagined. He was 13 when he came to Heath with his parents Leighton and Martha McCutchen. He attended Mohawk for a short period but then chose to finish high school by correspondence, and went to work at the same time for farmers in the town. “Elmer Sherman made maple syrup as a seasonal product on his farm. He was very fussy about doing things right,” McCutchen said.

After graduation he attended The College of the Atlantic; that is where he and Steele met, both majoring in Human Ecology. “Psychology can be too much in the head,” McCutchen said, “but anthropology is based on land, on language and communication. It is a more natural progression.”

Steele said that as a Montreal native, she grew up where all the kids went sugaring in season. “Ninety percent of the world’s maple syrup comes from Canada so now when we bring our syrup up to my family we are stopped at the border and everyone laughs that we would bring syrup into the country,” she said.

“I haven’t really left anthropology. I’ve just shifted my topical focus. I’m still a member of the American Anthropological Association and have a sub-group membership in Culture and Agriculture.  This June Brooks and I are giving a paper on Variance Agriculture and the Ecosystem Marketplace at an Agriculture Food and Human Values Society conference,” Steele said.

She explained that variance agriculture and marketing, emphasize the particular variety of a crop. Those of us who garden certainly have our favorite varieties of lettuce, tomato, and squash and can understand this concept, as can those who drink specialty wines and liquors.  McCutchen and Steele believe that giving information about variety is another element that small farmers can use in their marketing for greater profit – enough to make a fair wage.

Steel and McCutchen also remind, and educate people, that maple syrup can be used for more than pancakes. Going beyond pancakes, McCutchen  says small amounts of maple syrup can be used in cooking, not as a sweetener, but to help balance flavors. The grading system of A, B, and C is no longer used; the color of the syrup is an indicator of intensity of flavor. He said that if you have a lemon based sauce or marinade a bit of light amber syrup can help achieve that balance; if it is balsamic vinegar a darker syrup; and if it is soysauce based a black amber syrup (which is not really black) can be used. You will find many excellent recipes on their website and at the farm stand. I am going to try the sautéed green beans and garlic tossed with a bit of Berkshire Sweet Gold and a few dried cranberries.

I think small family farms are still one of our American ideals. The making of Berkshire Sweet Gold maple syrup supports a family (children and grandparents work as well), supports the community economy, maintains the rural landscape we all love, and protects our environment.  ###

Crop Mobs

The New York Times Magazine had a story on Sunday about Crop Mobs down in North Carolina.  The idea is that volunteer ‘pop up farmers’ can show up at a farm to slave away for a day or afternoon, doing all that labor intensive work that small farms have so much of.

I know the Greenfield Garden Club has Weed Mobs before their annual garden tour, but I wonder if any local farms need a Crop Mob?  I’ll bet there are farmer wannabees around. An afternoon of Crop Mobbing might be just the education they need.  Farming aside, “Anywhere there is dirt, community will grow.”

Phil Korman and CISA

Philip Korman of CISA

CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture) is familiar to many of us because of the bright yellow Local Hero signs at farmstands, farmer’s markets,  supermarkets and car bumpers. We have recognized the benefits of buying food from our local farmers: keeping our money in the local economy; preserving local farms that produce the rural atmosphere we all treasure as well as a variety of crops; and cutting down on oil-dependent food transportation.

As consumers we see some of the work done by CISA, but much of its work, and workers, are visible only to the over 200 local farmers who are CISA members.

Philip Korman joined CISA in 2008 as its Executive Director. A graduate of Cornell University he has spent his professional life working for the community and common good through organizations like the National Priorities Project in Northampton and the Franklin County Council of Governments.

Once, as a young man, he spent a couple of summer months on a farm in Norway, just three hours south of the artic circle. “They raised dairy cows, and pigs, but no vegetables. All produce was imported. A lot of rhubarb soup,” Korman said.

Nowadays he contents himself with a home garden and enjoys living in a rural area, where there are lots of vegetables and fruits, and  working for CISA, a community organization that has a wide reach, from farmers to consumers, to other organizations and businesses who have an interest in food. And that is almost all of us, when you think about it.

“We are here to help the bottom line of farmers,” Korman said. They do this through a variety of workshops in business, finance and marketing. “Farmers already know what they are doing in the fields, but we can help them with those other aspects of farming. We also have a new Women in Agriculture initiative, in acknowledgment of the growing number of women who are farming.”

As any person starting a business knows, there is more to success than making a product. For farmers this means they also need an agricultural infrastructure to allow farmers to process their crops, and gain that value for themselves.

There was great controversy recently about a slaughterhouse in the area, and it is clear that such an operation will need to be sited carefully. However, meat farmers would benefit immensely from having a local slaughterhouse, and even those of us who like, or would like to raise backyard chickens, or pigs, would benefit. I believe that a well planned and managed small local slaughterhouse would avoid all the environmental problems that we associate with industrial sized slaughterhouses where there is cruelty and dangerous waste.

Korman said there is interest in building a local dairy processing operations. Gary Schaefer of Bart’s Ice Cream already uses local blueberries and peaches in their ice cream and are interested in using local milk as well.

In addition, CISA is investigating the possibility of establishing a flash freezing operation, that could either be brought to farms, or where farmers could bring their produce for freezing. This would be another was to increase farm income, and add jobs.

Those who attended the Northampton Winterfare farmers market scooped up all the fresh greens that Red Fire Farm had, showing that there is a market for fresh vegetables early and late in the season. Currently there is the possibility of funding to help farmers build hoop houses, to make this market available to more farmers.

During my talk with Korman I realized that how many people and organizations are generating ideas, and then working in concrete ways to make it more and more possible for us all to eat more healthfully and locally, and for more small farms to be more successful. This is a very exciting time for farmers in our area when there is organizational support and resources, as well as the desire from consumers to buy their products.

Since our local farms are small, we don’t realize what an economic impact they have on the area. Yet, local farms had more than $9 million dollars in sales last year; 35 Local Hero restaurants spent more than $1 million on local produce; and schools, and hospitals are buying more local produce. Of all the produce used at  UMass dining halls and cafes, more than 20% now comes  from local farms.

According to the 2008 CISA Annual Report “. . .we want more local foods and agricultural good available, more of the time, to more of the people.” When that report came out, a state funded Senior Farm Share program provided 350 low income seniors with 10-12 weeks of fresh produce from their local CSA.   The state cut half the funding for the current fiscal year, and for the upcoming fiscal year there is no state funding at all.

Because of their commitment to providing healthy fresh food to low income seniors CISA has been fundraising, hoping to raise $25,000 to keep this program alive until the economy and our state recover from this serious downturn. There is still time for people to make a donation to that program. Call Pamela Barnes at (413) 665-7100., or logon to www.buylocalfood.org for full information.

Nowadays you don’t have to be a farmer to be a supportive CISA member. Community memberships are available at a variety of levels. I’ve joined. Will you?

Don’t forget Greenfield’s Winterfare farmers market on Saturday, February 6 from 10 am to 2 pm at Greenfield High School. Beautiful produce, a Barter Fair, and workshops. I’ll be talking about that most local crop, sprouts. For full info logon to www.winterfare.org.  ###

Between the Rows July 31, 2010

Wonderful Winterfares

Northampton Winterfare

In the February/March issue of Organic Gardening magazine, Gordon Hayward who gardens in Vermont, talks about our ‘food shed.’ I know about watersheds, that protect the quality of our water, and was amused when I heard people talk about their ‘view sheds’ the landscape view they enjoyed from their house, but I had never heard the term ‘food shed.”

However, aware as I am of the 100 mile diet, I should have realized the term put me on familiar ground. Hayward quotes Cornell University’s definition of food shed as “a geographic area that supplies a population with food.”

With all the recent talk about national security, especially airport security, there is not so much talk about ‘food security.’ Fortunately, because of our food shed, we in this region are enjoying substantial food security; we could feed ourselves very well indeed, even if there were some catastrophic event that kept the refrigerator trucks from California making it all the way to western Massachusetts.

This blessing of this security was brought home to me last year when I attended the Second Annual Winterfare  Farmer’s Market at Greenfield High School. It is one thing to have a garden and even know that the farmstands are full of wonderful fresh produce in the summer and fall, but I was amazed at how much fresh produce is available locally during deep mid-winter. Granted, many of the farmers were selling frozen meat, potatoes, squash and all manner or root crops like beets and carrots which can be harvested in fall and stored properly for use during the winter, but some farmers had beautiful lettuces and other greens that are such a luxury during the winter.

I could hardly carry away my share of the bounty which included not only vegetables like tender greens from Red Fire Farm, but Clarkdale apples and cider, Hillman Farm cheese, El Jardin bread,  Warm Colors Apiary raspberry honey, and Real Pickles. Our food shed is varied and delicious.

Seeing so many people giving of their time and energy to put on this terrific event made me determined to do my share this year. Whether you attend the Northampton Winterfare today from 10 AM to 2 PM at Smith Vocational School or the Greenfield Winterfare on Saturday, February 6 at Greenfield High School I will be on hand to demonstrate the growing of sprouts.

Sprouts are the most local of food crops. Mine grow on the counter next to the kitchen sink.  To increase my experience with sprouting  I sprouted wheat for the first time. When I visited Cliff Hatch, and his daughter Sorrel, at Upinngil during the summer I bought a couple of bags of wheat berries. They have been waiting patiently for me to learn to make wheatberry salad, and this workshop prompted me to try sprouting them. I even bought  a hemp and flax Sproutbag at Green Fields Market to expand my horizons further.

The information sheet that came with the Sproutbag said that it was better than a Mason jar for sprouting wheat and other grains as well as beans. And here I thought I was just doing my best for the consumer economy.

I will bring my sprouted wheat bread to Winterfare, along with salad sprouts in Mason jars in two different stages for those who may not be familiar with the process and not realize how easy it is.

The magical thing about sprouts is that in the process of sprouting the nutritional value of the seed shoots up, increasing the amount and number of vitamins A, B complex, C and E. The amount of protein and fiber also increase. What is not mysterious is that none of this nutritional value is lost because it develops on the kitchen counter and is eaten in that same kitchen. There is no nutritional loss as when vegetables are shipped from far away, and of course, no gas or oil are used for transportation.

My presentation is only one of several presentations being offered today. There will be information about canning, how to store root and other crops for winter use, how to make your own nut milk and how to make cheese.

Those who have a surfeit of jam or any kind of good produce can bring them along to the barter session.

CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture) is a sponsor of Winterfare. Logon to their website, www.buylocalfood.org or www.winterfare.org  for full details. I hope to see you there – or in Greenfield.

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I heard from Daniel Botkin after my article about Laughing Dog Farm last week. I said that his goat bedding and manure could be used fresh on the garden and didn’t need to be composted like my chicken manure. Goat manure is not hot like chicken manure but he wanted to make this clarification:: “The goat manure, although it is more readily usable for organic gardening (because 1.) it is pelletized 2) it is pre-mixed with hay and 3) it breaks down much faster than most, more dense, anaerobic “slop” manures), it is still not safe around ripening food crops and never goes near any edible or soon to be edible plant parts when fresh. I do apply it fresh around trees, shrubs and as sheet mulch on fallow, non-edible landscapes.”

Thank you, Daniel.

Between the Rows   January9, 2009