Hungry?

[posted Oct 14, 2010 on the new website: SharedHarvestCSA.com. Please head over there for details about the 2010 Winter share and more recent posts!]


Shared Harvest Winter CSA can supply the veggies for many tasty meals this winter! Lots of two month shares are available. Pick up is at Busa Farm in Lexington (Nov 20) or Brookwood Farm in Canton (Nov 13). Picadilly Farm and Riverland Farm grow the majority of veggies for the share, with smaller farms like Busa, Brookwood and Moraine adding the finishing touches. Here's a link to the Shared Harvest CSA site, where you'll find a Two Month Subscription Form. You've got to supply your own chef!

Purple Cows in the Winter Share!

[posted Sept 8, 2010 on the new website: http://sharedharvestcsa.com. Please head over there for details about the 2010 Winter share and more recent posts!]

Next week Charley Baer hopes to harvest the heirloom Jacob's Cattle beans he's growing for the Shared Harvest CSA.

According to Slow Food USA, "Jacob's Cattle bean is also called a Trout bean or an Appaloosa bean, but Jacob’s Cattle bean is the oldest name for the variety. This bean is a Prince Edward Island heirloom. Legend has it that it was a gift from Maine’s Passamaquoddy Indians to Joseph Clark, the first white child born in Lubec, Maine."



Of this year's crop, Charley writes: "In hot years like this one there is much more red than normal. This year they are almost pure red with very little white. There is so little white in the few I have checked that they almost look like purple kidney beans with a few white spots. Although a good growing year, yields look like they will be light with weak pod sets coming on Beverly's sandy soils lacking water earlier on. I've got a lot of these purple cows coming in."

So there you have it, the reason for the one pound bag of purple cows you'll find in your Shared Harvest CSA share this year!

Yep, there are shares available, but ...

the three-month Lexington/Busa Farm winter share is quite popular and there are just a couple of dozen left. If you’d like a Shared Harvest CSA share for October 23, Nov 13 and Dec 11, now’s the time to sign up! Subscription information is here.


The blog has been moved over to our new website: Shared Harvest CSA. Join us there!

Riverland Farm Visit

As promised, here are pictures from my working visit to Riverland mid-June. Megan T from the Newton Farm came along. Wish I’d been able to get a video of Megan and Riverland farmer Rob Lynch tying tomatoes – looked like they were dancing! Mouse over the photos for a brief description.

Farm Fleet

Every organic farm has a farm fleet -- the equipment needed to make farming economically, environmentally and physically sustainable. On a recent working visit to Riverland Farm, I came across one of the nicest pieces of farm transport I've seen in some time.


That's a blue Schwinn in front of a field of garlic. Riverland's big red barn and hoop house are in the background. Yep, those are blue streamers on the handle bars. On Riverland's twenty-five acres it's essential to have a way to get around. I'll post more farm fleet photos soon.

Why Farm?

A friend asked me why I love to farm.

I love farming because it's hard (physically) and challenging (intellectually) and it's political and social and fun (except when it's snowing, and then it's an adventure). Unlike so many other occupations where compromises must be made, organic farming is totally consistent with my most deeply held values. What's not to love?

I wonder why other farmers love to farm. An article on the CRAFT web site summarizes a conversation farmers-in-training had about this topic a few years ago. Here's the link: Why Farm?

Bare Naked Farming

Another road trip to a Shared Harvest CSA partner farm is being planned, this time to Riverland Farm in Sunderland, MA. Should be an interesting experience given that Riverland farmer, Rob Lynch seems to be setting a new standard for farm wear. Here’s an excerpt from the most recent Riverland Farm newsletter, Riverland Currants:

Knowing the power of the wind here on this open plain in Sunderland, we make it a point to close down all of our barn and greenhouse doors in the evening. Forgetting to do that simple task on Wednesday made for an eventful night. As that storm came in Meghan and I both shot out of bed, disoriented but knowing exactly what we had to do. At that time I was so focused on closing everything down that things like clothes and shoes seemed unimportant. Despite our best efforts the wind got to the barn before we did and took a 6’ x 11’ 200# barn door off and threw it into the road like a piece of cardboard. We reached the greenhouse in time preventing any structural damage though the wind did take several of our plug trays and scatter them all over the farm and smash up a solid wood bench that we use for filling trays with soil. The hail that came in with the storm did some minimal cosmetic damage to our first head lettuce, bok choy, and some of the swiss chard and spinach. Overall the storm was mostly just mentally traumatic but ended up being good fodder for comedy when I think back on running around in my birthday suit closing things down.

Visit Riverland Currants for the full newsletter article.