Heirloom Harvest

In Memoriam

The Heirloom Harvest community sends its condolences to the Cahill family and friends. We received the following note recently (reprinted here by permission of the Cahill family):

Greetings John, We are interested in renewing our farm commitment for next season. We share a share with the Cahill family and would like to have our pickup on Tuesday again, on site, as we did last year. I also wanted to update you regarding the Cahills. Kim Cahill, age 37, passed away January 12th after being diagnosed with bile duct cancer. She was diagnosed in November. Of note, she wanted to be buried at the St. Lukes cemetery because of its location next to the farm. She loved Heirloom Harvest for being a local farm and its commitment to the community and organic farming.

 

Earth Day, Earth

Heirloom Harvest celebrated Earthday 2006 from 1 to 4 pm on Sunday, April 23. The rain forced a change in our plans to walk the farm and pick up trash. Instead, those present filled peat pots and seeded in the barn in between education events that included a discussion of Oxfam's campaign to reform farm policy in the US, and a demonstration of how pollution affects groundwater.

Volunteer Chris Wright and Oxfam representative Stephanie Demmons work to fill peat pots and plant summer squash seeds.

Barb Harrington (left) from the Crystal Spring Center for Earth Learning gives a demonstration of how pollution from various sources—including a golf course, a factory, a housing development, a clearcut hillside, and a conventional farm—affects ground water.

Audience members participated in the pollution demonstration by playing the roles of the various facility owners on the model. Here, the "factory owner" is pouring effluent into his factory which flows out into a stream, which leads to a river and eventually to a lake and the wetlands where the water changes color from the pollution.
[We are indebted to Mark Fisette for the next three photos.]

Let's Call the Whole Thing Hot

Hopkinton resident and CSA member Kathy Mosher (left) came in with her daughter to help seed start Black Krim heirloom tomatoes, while Trish Stephanko transplants hot pepper seedlings at right.
Kathy is taking an organizational role in the effort in Hopkinton to establish a community farm on the 600 acres of Weston Nurseries land that is coming up for sale in that town. If you'd like more information about how to become involved in helping to preserve a significant portion of the 600 acre parcel for farming, contact Kathy at jkmosher@comcast.net.

Please note: Town water will not be turned on at the farmsite until around last frost in May, so please be sure to bring your own water bottles for drinking water, as the greenhouse can be as hot as 90-plus degrees even when it's only in the 50s outside.

Update on Travis

As many of you may already know (perhaps from last year's blog entry), the older son of Heirloom Harvest assistant manager Trish Stefanko is serving in Iraq right now.

Private First Class Travis Weiner (pictured here (middle) tying tomatoes at the farm last summer) is serving with the 101st Airborne with an Air-Assault Team near Baghdad. In recent action about two weeks ago Travis was hit in the neck by mortar shrapnel as his unit was leaving an area they had just cleared in a eight-humvee convoy. Travis was not nearly as badly injured as some other soldiers in his unit, and he assisted giving first aid to some very badly injured men.

Travis spent some time in recovery and has now returned to duty, though the doctors decided not to remove the shrapnel from his neck. Travis will be returning home in mid-April for a two week leave and has said he would love to attend a Red Sox game. His mother Trish has heard tickets are hard to get, and wanted me to post a request if anyone had tickets that they could donate or sell to her during the time Travis is in town, she would be grateful.

Her email is trish8588@verizon.net.

Westborough organic farm holds first Earth Day celebration

Heirloom Harvest will host an afternoon on the farm of education, advocacy and action in celebration of Earth Day on Sunday, April 23, from 1 to 4 pm.

The farm is located along Route 135 in Westborough, behind and adjacent to Saint Lukes’ Cemetery at 30 Hopkinton Road. The farmers will be joined by the Dominican sisters in residence at the Crystal Spring Earth Education Center of Plainville, who will do a demonstration for children of how pollution contaminates drinking water.

Oxfam US organizer Stephanie Demmons will be present to discuss the 2007 farm bill,  and how residents can send a message to improve the farm bill to better support small farms in local communities in the U.S. and abroad. Volunteer Family Inc., a nonprofit community service organization with a mission of strengthening the role of families in providing service to the community, will send volunteers to help with cleanup around the farm, as well as some of the farmwork. Members of the public are welcome.

“Oxfam is working to shift funding in the 2007 Farm Bill to support sustainable, diverse and equitable agriculture and rural development programs here in the U.S.,” says Stephanie Demmons, a regional Oxfam organizer. “Oxfam is concerned that the current emphasis on commodity subsidies fuels consolidation and continued overproduction of commodities that harm farmers both here and in developing countries.”

The first Earth Day was celebrated nationwide on April 22 in 1970. It was observed in hundreds of communities and on the campuses of thousands of schools, colleges and universities. Many important environmental laws were passed by the Congress in the wake of the 1970 Earth Day according to Wikipedia, the online information source, including the Clean Air Act, laws to protect drinking water, wild lands and the ocean. The EPA was created within three years of the first Earth Day.

Heirloom Harvest is a community supported agriculture farm. Community supported agriculture is an innovative approach to the relationship between farmers and those who enjoy good food. With a preseason payment, members purchase a “share” of the season's harvest, a varied assortment of seasonal vegetables each week from early June through November. Though the farm is under private management, it has an educational mission and a program to donate food to charity. For more information,  call 508.963.7792, or visit the farm’s Web site.

Mark your calendar!

We hope to have an Earth Day weekend event Sunday, April 23, to have a family volunteer and work day. We’ll be working with a family nonprofit organization whose mission is a giving families a chance to come out and work together. Also, there will be a speaker from Oxfam who will discuss the importance of small farms and advocating making some changes in farm bill to make it less commodity focused and more focused on small and sustainable farms.

Worms' Turn

Heirloom Harvest members  and farmer John Mitchell joined with participants at the Crystal Spring Center for Earth Education to celebrate the Spring Equinox. Here, Dominican sister Barb coaches some kids who played the role of worms in an educational play. Behind her on the chalkboard is a rousing song about compost that is sung during the play—to the tune of "Take me out to the Ballgame..."

compost
Spring Equinox

Deep in the Leeks

At the Fall Equinox, Renée Moelders captured images of her son, Moritz, and a leopard frog among the leeks. As she points out, the leeks look like a jungle when seen from Moritz's perspective. The frog might well feel the same way, on the damp earth under lots of leeks to keep him moist.

Music for toddlers

Heirloom Harvest CSA member Sharon Goldstein is teaching a music for toddlers and their parents class, ages 15 months to 3 years,  at the Westborough Jewish Community Center.
Sharon describes the class as follows: “Music brings children to life!  You and your toddler will sing, chant, move, dance, listen and play simple instruments in a nurturing environment. Music stimulates so many areas of your child’s development: language, self expression, social interaction, motor skills, creativity, bonding, emotional growth and so much more.”
The class runs for 12 weeks from October through January, Tuesdays, 9:30-10:10 am. Contact Sharon at 508-435-7951 or email sharon@twin-islands.com.

Drumming in autumn

Solar ovens were set up at the Fall Equinox celebration to make solar-heated s'mores.

Joshua Fecteau helps bring in the irrigation pipe for winter storage at the Fall Equinox celebration.

At the Fall equinox, members sang, drummed and played various instruments along to renditions of John Denver's "Country Road" and Woody Guthrie's "This Land is your Land..."

Several CSA members helped move pipe from the field to the barn during the Fall Equinox celebration.

Fresh Princess

Karen Masterson and her daughter visited Heirloom Harvest recently to pick up cases of collards for her Framingham restaurant, Big Fresh Cafe. We provide her collards all season long, as well as surplus salad greens and other vegetables--when we have a surplus.

Big Fresh is the only restaurant that Heirloom Harvest sells to. Karen is committed to locally sourcing as much of her organic produce for as much of the year as possible. She also is adamant that organic food should be reasonably affordable, and the prices at her restaurant reflect that.

Her commitment to organics and to helping to create a sane local food system manifest in other ways, such as her volunteer work as a board director at the Natick Community Organic Farm. Next time you are in Framingham stop by Big Fresh and spend your dining-out dollars enjoying great food and supporting her efforts.

Rock the 'nox

This year, the Heirloom Harvest community and all of its friends and family members are invited to attend a Fall Equinox and harvest celebration on Saturday, Sept. 24th, starting at 2 p.m., at the farmsite in Westborough near the barn (park where you would when you pick up your produce for the CSA). Directions to the farm are on the website.
Celebration events will be guided by our friends at the Crystal Spring Earth Learning Center.
Plans include a simple ritual of gratitude for the harvest followed by a drumming circle, solar-cooked S'mores (if we get sun, that is) and a pot-luck meal. Bring your favorite dish to share, a lawn chair or blanket, and any kind of percussion instrument you have (a coffee can with stones is great!). The Equinox celebration is nondenominational.

Out here in the fields

Stephen Kurina and his son, John, picked cherry tomatoes today. Caught candidly, Stephen was gracious and posed. If you see your blog editor picking next to you some enchanted afternoon, don't you hesitate to vogue either.
       

Meet Sheila

Sheila Schilling (right) is a former AmeriCorps volunteer who worked with Farmer John Mitchell at a nonprofit community farm in 2003 in Waltham, Mass. Sheila grew up on her family's corn and soybean farm in South Dakota. She had not considered sustainable organic agriculture as a career until she was introduced to it while working with John on an Americorps project in Waltham. She is now finishing an internship at at organic farm in Ohio.

One of the advantages of the AmeriCorps program is in exposing young Americans to the many challenges and opportunities this country has to offer. We tried to bring AmeriCorps to the farm in Westborough, but were unable to secure local housing for a crew (housing must be provided by the sponsoring agency).

One important issue that faces the farming community is finding and training the next generation of American farmers, and I'm glad that Sheila seems to be well on her way, and maybe some day will be able to take over the family farm in South Dakota and introduce organic, sustainable techniques. Way to go Sheila!

Sheila sent this message recently:

How has everything been going on your farm this year? Has the weather been good this season? Do you have a large CSA like you had at Waltham Fields? If you have a website for your farm I'd really like to check it out. [Editor's note: We sure do!]

I have been having a fantastic summer with my farming internship. It is hard to accept the cooler mornings with the promise of fall just around the corner. There is still so much to do and the days are warm so I can keep telling myself that there are still a few weeks of summer left.

I also will begin looking into bachelor degree programs and schools. I am leaning towards a degree that will focus on sustainable agriculture, but haven't looked at what options are out there yet. The farm managers mentioned looking into some sort of satellite programs where I could possibly get a degree while working on the farm. I would love that, but haven't had time to research that either. So there will be a lot for me to look into.

I just thought I'd write and let you know what I'm up to. I'm so glad that my AmeriCorps team was able to work at Waltham Fields; it had really sparked my interest and opened up so many great opportunities.

I hope all is going well for you this summer!

Sheila

Now She Is Six

On the hottest, most humid day of the year so far (July 19th), we took a long lunch and held a birthday party for the farmer's daughter, Josephina, who turned 6.
Farm Intern Amanda Smaltz (left) along with other  farm member children look on as Josephina gets ready to start opening presents. The theme of the party was tropical, hence the ukele, lauis, brightly colored "dew rags," etc. Farmer John Mitchell made Portuguese Kale Soup for the main course. Workshare Christine Scott (not pictured) baked a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

Finding good help

Farmhand Trish Stefanko was visited by her son Travis (center, with backpack) recently for a day of harvesting and tomato tying at the farm. Travis graduated from boot camp last winter and is now a soldier with the 101st Airborne. He was home on leave from where he is currently stationed in Kentucky. Travis will ship out for his first tour of duty in Iraq this September.

Also pictured, Trish's nephew, Ian Foertsch, who is a farmhand this summer. Ian will be starting college at Sterling College in northeastern Vermont this fall. Sterling has a large organic farm on campus, complete with solar and wind-powered barns.

Farm, Boy

A young CSA member takes a turn in the seat of the cultivating tractor, which will soon be rumbling up and down the beds cutting down weeds. [Remember, no child is allowed to sit in the seat of a tractor without the permission and presence of a member of the farm staff.]

CSA members celebrate the equinox at Crystal Spring

Heirloom Harvest CSA members joined the community at Crystal Spring Ecological Education Center in Plainville on Saturday, March 19th, to celebrate the Spring Equinox, which occurs March 20. (In the definition of the spring, or vernal, equinox from the wikipedia, linked to above, it is described as "the moment when the sun appears to cross the celestial equator, heading northward." More at the link.) Children and community members participated in a play that highlighted the wonders of soil and all the organisms that live in the soil.

The play facetiously featured three planets that visit Earth to appreciate the diversity of life on this planet. (Planets on the right.) Other characters in the play included the farmhand (Josh Fecteau), the farmer (Heirloom Harvest farmer John Mitchell), and Crystal Spring, represented by Carole Rossi. The roots were played by the young children that were present, who wore stickers with drawing of worms and soil grubs and microbes to represent the life in the soil around the roots (at left).

The play, written and directed by Barbara Harrington, included the following passage:

ROOTS#1: Life down here (in the soil) is a community. We’ve got lots of creatures to feed, as you’ve heard. Each of these billions of creatures has a community job that draws their gifts from deep within themselves and their relationship with everything else. These days it takes millions of critters to heal and protect us from disease. Many more creatures give themselves to strengthen our great, diverse soil community so that we don’t get washed away.

CRYSTAL SPRING: Amazing, isn’t it! Soil is a cosmic event. It took 3 billion years for Earth to develop 6” of topsoil. Topsoil is an extremely advanced form of Earth life. It now takes a thousand years for Earth to create just one inch of topsoil. Imagine that! The next time you put your hands into the soil, cherish it. Earth is the only planet in our solar system with topsoil. There may have been water on Mars, but there’s never been topsoil there. In fact, there’s no topsoil within a trillion miles of our home planet. We humans know this because we’ve gone looking for it.

FARMER JOHN: When you use chemicals and inorganic fertilizers, you go to war against this precious soil, killing off all the diversity that Earth thrives on.

CRYSTAL SPRING: Worse and worse land and water and atmospheric conditions spread globally, infecting the way we take in the world: what we eat, what we love, how we think, how we act; all life is one.

Crystal Spring also presented a demonstration on how to make compost tea.

***

Afterward, all present went outside for cake, juice and tea. As pictured below, these snacks were thematically appropriate, bringing in worm candy to perpetuate the theme of earth-friendly gardening and farming.

 

Meet the farmer!

John Mitchell of Heirloom Harvest CSA in Westboro will meet current and prospective members for the 2005 season at Crystal Spring on Wednesday, March 9, at 7 PM.  He will explain the program, what's involved in membership, and present new and exciting information on the upcoming season.
Let us know you're coming by calling 508 699 7167 or email us at cryspr@comcast.net.  Directions to Crystal Spring are on the website. All are welcome. If you are already a member, bring a friend who cares about local, organic produce from June to November.

Spring Equinox: Let's have tea!

On Saturday, March 19, 2-4 p.m., the equinox will be celebrated at Crystal Spring in Plainville. Barb will be directing her annual playlet and there are lots of roles to be filled: How about acting the part of a worm, a vegetable, a microbe? (Sorry, the role of Farmer is already spoken for by our very own farmer, John Mitchell.)

This year we will demonstrate the making of compost tea, a most nutritious and refreshing drink for all your seedlings. Come and share snacks, music and lots of fun. Let us know you're coming by calling 508 699 7167 or email us at cryspr@comcast.net.  Directions to Crystal Spring are on its website.

All are welcome!