Picadilly Road Trip

Picadilly farmers Bruce and Jenny Wooster are well known in the eastern Massachusetts farming community as skilled organic farmers and exceptional teachers and mentors to new farmers. So, when I planned a road trip to Picadilly, I invited Newton Community Farm intern, Megan Talley, to join me. The Newton farm is about one acre in size; Picadilly Farm has 25 acres under cultivation. Seemed like a great learning opportunity. And boy, was it ever! While Megan mastered tractor seeding, I helped transplant the celeriac that will be in the winter share. In the afternoon we hoed beds and beds of newly emerged potatoes with the farm crew. A very special thank you to farmer Jenny for making this such a great learning experience for Megan!

Here are some photos from our day.

Notes from Picadilly Farm

Picadilly Farm is one of the primary growers for the multiple farm extended season CSA. Picadilly farmer, Jenny Wooster, sent us this farm report.

Dear Shareholders,

We're halfway through May, and the first harvest is just around the corner! Sails are fully set here on the farm, with the full crew on deck and about a third of our 25 acres planted. The farm looks better than ever, as the relatively dry (but not too dry) spring has allowed for plenty of sunny-day time to spread paint, level and re-seed some of the farm roads (something we've wanted to do for several seasons now!), and clean up fallen timber and brush around the field edges. Now that the danger of frost has (likely) past, all of our focus will turn toward the fields, as we start in with planting the first of the cold sensitive crops in the field - first summer squash and zucchini, quickly followed by cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, melons, eggplant, peppers, and our second attempt at organic sweet corn.

Bruce and this season's apprentices, Jenny-Q and Andy, have taken advantage of a few recent rainy days to build a second mobile chicken-coop. Our spring chicks - we're calling them teenagers, as we have to catch them every morning and return them to the incubation box that they have clearly outgrown - will soon be out on pasture and enjoying the sunshine. The older laying hens have enjoyed the spring pasturing our marsh field, a part of the farm that it usually too wet for anything but bird nesting and a July haying. Three black lambs are grazing at the crew house, and six piglets will arrive from a Vermont farm in early June, to spend the summer here. Two of the three bee hives made it through the winter and are going strong - it's a survival rate that we are pleased about, given the poor weather for the bees to build their honey stores last summer. Our volunteer beekeeper, Brendan, will add two new "nuke" hives in a few weeks, to bring us back up to four hives. While we raise the bees primarily for crop pollination, we do like to get a honey crop, and it looks as if we just might, maybe, hopefully, this fall. Our well-loved barn cats came through the winter well, and have been valiantly protecting the greenhouse seeds and seedlings from those pesky little four-legged predators.

We've just learned that our farm will receive a grant from Natural Resource Conservation Service, a part of USDA, for construction of a new high tunnel (farm-speak for greenhouse). The high tunnel grants are geared toward low energy production - solar heat, manual ventilation, and season extension for local foods. We'll put up the new house next winter/spring, hopefully with a second one to match, filling up the open space between the current hoop houses and the distribution barn. Our plans include summer greenhouse tomatoes and winter greens growing, as early as 2011 - exciting steps for our farm.

We come into harvest season with nearly all of our CSA shares sold - a milestone for us in our fourth year on the farm. We're growing for 200 shareholders on the farm, and 200 shareholders who received delivered boxed shares in eastern MA. Thanks to all of you for your early support! You've allowed your farmers peace of mind, as well as the opportunity to focus our time on growing the veggies, training our crew, and enjoying our days of planting and weeding with you in mind. Thanks also for spreading the word about the farm, and we still have about 15 shares left... so tell your friends and neighbors!

We're looking forward to harvesting for you!

Jenny (for Bruce, Susie, Andy, Jenny-Q, Antonio, Adelina, Caitlin, Alejandro & Edgar)

Road Trip

Liz and I took a little road trip this Wednesday. First stop was Berlin, MA to meet Charlie at Village Power and Equipment. Charlie is the man to go to if you're in the market for used farm equipment, or if your used farm equipment has broken down. His knowledge about old tractors is encyclopedic. We looked at his tractors: Cubs and Super As, 148s, 149s, Gs,Ns, Hs and tractors with letter/number names that went in one ear and out the other. We examined manure spreaders, plows, flail mowers, rotary mowers, tool bars, sweeps, shovels, shanks, shoes and ..... you get the picture. Charlie's got a lot of equipment. And he likes to talk about it. It was the most interesting window shopping I've ever done.

Our next stop was Picadilly Farm, just across the Massachusetts border in Winchester, New Hampshire. Picadilly provides the bulk of our winter share. Farmer Jenny gave us a tour of the fields, greenhouses, washing station, walk-in cooler, equipment barn and CSA area. We met the farm crew: Antonio, Adelina, Lucio and Susie. We worked with Jenny and the crew to harvest spinach and celeriac. Bruce fed us lunch. Beckley, Bruce and Jenny's two year old daughter, introduced us to farm kittens, butternut and sweetie, and dazzled us with her ability to count celeriac as we harvested.






Picadilly is a sweet little farm. Jenny and Bruce are excellent land stewards and skilled farmers. The farm staff are a wonderful bunch of hard working and fun loving folks. What a great road trip!