We Sow, We Harvest . . . We Celebrate!

The Roundhouse

Lots of sowing was done in the last two years to bring about the harvest of a strong renovated Roundhouse at our wonderful Franklin County Fair. I was glad to be present for the re-dedication – during which many people were thanked, too many to list here, but I was glad that one of my colleagues at The Recoder, Irmarie Jones was thanked for all her help promoting the renovation and fundraising.  While the Fair is 162 years old, the Roundhouse was built in 1899. You can imagine it did need some refurbishment.  Now, on to the Fair!

Clarkdale Fruit Farms

The Roundhouse holds my favorite exhibits, like this prize winning array of fruit from Clarkdale Fruit Farms. I got to sample one of Clarkdale’s famous white peaches before I left. Clarkdale is a generous member of the community, participating in a number of important events like the Free Harvest Meal, and the Sunflower Contest. Thank you, Tom.

Pine Hill Orchards

David Shearer is another generous community member who also provided prize apples to the Sunflower Contest – in addition to winning many blue ribbons and putting up a beautiful display.  Thank you, David!

The Roundhouse exhibits give just a hint of the abundant harvests in people backyard gardens.  This is the most local eating, and no one could find fault with it.  We New Englanders are smart, energetic and frugal – and a garden is proof of all these characteristics.

If you have a fruitful garden, you are going to have to preserve some of it.  These prize winners show that canning is not a lost art.

Greenfield Garden Club exhibit

Once again, the Greenfield Garden Club had a prize winning exhibit. They built all that furniture just for the Fair. You might almost think they actually spent some time sitting on beautiful benches.  Not likely!

I was not the only person admiring all the exhibits. The crowds were just starting on this first day of the Fair. There ismore to see.

Happily we can see that Franklin County’s young people are following in their skilled parents’ footsteps. Lots of excellent work in the Youth building.

There are all kinds of rides on the midway, including this roller coaster. Lots of food, too. Can you ever eat too much fried dough spread with maple cream?

Modern farming can require a lot of modern equipment. On display at the Fair.

But farms really need livestock. Not all the dairy farms are gone.

Goats have become important to farmers – who have learned to make goat cheese.

Llama

Some farms harvest fiber!  We have spinners and knitters and weavers here in Franklin County.

There is a poultry house at the Fair. This prize winning rooster is smaller than my rooster. But both are beautiful. And loud.

After looking at all the beautiful produce in the Roundhouse, some gardeners might be wondering why their flowers and veggies don’t look quite like the prize winners. They can talk to the Master Gardeners who will be on duty and full of information.

One new thing that struck me about this year’s Fair is the number of recycle and compost bins all over the fairgrounds, including in the kitchens of the food purveyors that will be collected daily. Plastic foam was banned and vendors were using only compostable paper plates and utensils.  At the end of the fair, spent exhibits will also be collected for composting.  Hooray for a trash free fair!

There was not much sun at the Fair today, but when I got home, the sun was gilding the air and the trees, for just a few moments, to let everyone know that Saturday would be a good Fair Day.

Laughing Dog Farm

Daniel and Divya Botkin at Laughing Dog Farm

December is not usually a good time to visit a small farm in action, but when I visited Daniel Botkin and his wife, Divya, at Laughing Dog Farm in Gill I got a tour of a thriving garden in the big hoop house (or long tunnel) and a lunch of delicious vegetable soup with bread and goat cheese made that very morning. This is local food at its finest.

I had specifically gone to Laughing Dog Farm to learn about making garden structures out of black locust.  I already knew black locust is a rot resistant wood. I’m still using fence posts I was given 25 years ago – and I don’t think they were newly cut then.  I did not know that black locust is considered a weed tree and grows quite fast. You would think this would make it easily available, but not so. It does not make good lumber because it doesn’t grow straight and is not harvested in the same way as maple, oak and other timber trees.

Still, if you can find a supplier of black locust, take advantage of the opportunity. Daniel Botkin has built numerous arbors, trellises and low hoop houses out of black locust. Sometimes he uses the poles, but he also makes use of  slabs and flexible thin slats. These sturdy structures, made of crooked logs and rough slabs, show a slightly manic sense of humor as well as engineering skill. They are not what you will find in an elegant flower garden, but they will last for years, and make use of that extra dimension in the garden.

In the summer Botkin’s  three plus acres of market garden rise up towards the sun. We are all familiar with bean poles and pea fences, but cucumbers also love to be grown on trellises. Melons can be placed in net bags like those onions come in, and supported on a trellis.

Botkin is a proponent of permaculture and no till techniques.  His  land is a steep hillside which he has terraced using black locust slabs and ‘poopy hay’, the bedding from his goat barn. The advantage to goat manure is that it can be used immediately in the garden, unlike cow manure or my chicken manure which need to be composted to be safe for plants.

December veggies in the hoop house

In mid-December parsley, leeks and kale were still growing in the heavily mulched beds outdoors, but  I was really stunned by the variety of vegetables growing in the hoop house, all manner of greens and a few sunny calendulas. This long structure, made of ‘hoops’ and special heavy plastic is not heated, but it is warm enough to provide cold hardy greens until spring.  When I visited I even got to eat a few Sungold cherry tomatoes.

Low tunnels made of black locust slats

Botkin had just finished building a new low tunnel with flexible slats of milled black locust that will retain their shape as they dry. Low tunnels can be used in a hundred ways, Botkin said. They can be covered with plastic in very early spring to start spinach and other greens. An extra advantage is that you will foil the insects that plague brassicas.       During the summer the plastic sides can be rolled up and the ends left open making that area very warm for crops like peppers and tomatoes that like and need extra heat.  Or the plastic can be removed entirely for the summer and the skeleton can be used for vining crops like cucumbers.

In late summer or fall, with the plastic in place, a late planting of hardy greens can go in. Botkin said, “I don’t operate with a plan. I look at the space and decide what will give me the highest value. Or I might throw down what seeds I happen to have in my apron.”

Laughing Dog Farm is small, but there is a lot of work to be done to bring vegetables, f.ruits, berries, herbs and flowers to local farmer’s markets. I was reminded that for 20 years Botkin was a teacher and counselor before he devoted himself to full time farming in 2000. He has not stopped teaching. In the summer he has apprentices who live at the farm and give a certain amount of labor for room and board while they learn the pleasures and challenges of growing food.

Botkin explained that there are networks that include the World Wide Opportunties on Organic Farms (www.wwoof.org) and the Northeast Organic Farming Association (www.nofa.org)  that help pair young people who are interested in learning with small farmers who need extra seasonal labor.

Beyond teaching interns and apprentices, Botkin holds occasional workshops at Laughing Dog Farm and has put up a website www.laughingdogfarm.com that explains his philosophy and gives enormous amounts of information about gardening. It includes a series of very short videos on designing hoop houses, growing greens in a hoop house, planting intensively and working with goats. Some teachers just cannot give up teaching, no matter what else they are doing.

Botkin is also an enthusiastic seed saver. In the olden days gardeners and farmers routinely saved seed from their own plants, but now seed is easy to buy. Aside from the issues of hybrized seeds that won’t come true, and genetically modified (GMO) seeds that have many people concerned, Botkin says that saving seed gives the gardener control over his produce, and over his own food security.

A vegetable garden does provide a measure of security, of good health, and pleasure. Those are good things as we go forward into a new year.  ###

Between the Rows   January 2, 2010