Newsletter #12 – September 3, 2014

Contents of Share1236

  • celery (1-2 heads)
  • pac choi or napa cabbage (1-2 heads)
  • slicing cucumbers or japanese cucumbers (4-5 fruits)
  • tomatoes (5 red, 2 yellow)
  • cherry tomatoes and tomatillos (1 bag)
  • jalapeño, ancho poblano and/or cayenne hot peppers (1 bag)
  • scallions (1 bunch)
  • zucchini (2-3 fruits)
  • collard greens (1 bunch)
  • cauliflower (1-2 heads) or summer squash
  • salad mix (1/4#)
  • edamame (1 bunch) – We love sharing this late season treat with you, but cannot take the time to pick each individual pod off of the plant.  So we are giving you a bunch of full plants.  Here’s how to use them:  (1) Pull the whole seed pods off of the plants.  (2) Steam for 2-3 minutes, or until pods turn light green.  (3) salt and pop the seeds out of the pods.  Do not eat the pods.  These are great, served as an appetizer in their pods, or on top of a salad.  If you are able, we would happily take the plants back to when you return your boxes.  Otherwise, put the plant debris in the compost or your neighbor’s compost pile.

ANNOUNCEMENTS1235

  • COMMUNITY WORKDAY/SKILLSHARES.  September 13 – transplanting strawberries, orchard and field prep for fall and winter, firewood, stone wall building.  October 25 – garlic planting, more firewood, prepping high tunnel for spring planting.
  • Please RETURN YOUR BOXES.  You can leave them where you get your delivery. If you break them down, please make sure not to tear or bend any of the tabs, or just leave the assembled box for us and we are happy to break it down.
  • WASHING YOUR VEGGIES.  We do not extensively wash veggies before delivering them to you.  We will do some washing if there is a lot of dirt on greens and we always rinse root crops.  In general, this allows the food to stay fresher longer.  It also means you need to wash your veggies before consuming them.  For greens: fill a bowl with cold water.  Soak greens in water for a minute.  Drain water and repeat two more times.  Dirt will rinse to the bottom.  Bugs should float to the top.
  • If you are a shareholder, you have the option of volunteering 5 hours over the course of the season in exchange for an additional week of food in the fall.  Be in touch to schedule your work with us, or come to a workday.
  • All of our newsletters are archived on our website, along with lots more, including educational resources and more recipes.  Thanks!
Food justice News 


Sunday, September 21 will be a historic day in NYC. Bring your friends and family as we make the PEOPLE’S CLIMATE MARCH the kick-off to the movement for a sane climate future.  Organizers are projecting it will be the largest demonstration against climate change ever, with vibrant contingents of various sorts to call out our concerns and solutions to the climate crisis at our collective door.

Why now? On September 22, the UN is holding its next big Climate Summit and the leaders representing the major stumbling block to the past climate summits will be there: including and especially the U.S. Now’s our chance to make our voices heard. We cannot be silent nor hopeful that others will represent us on this most important issue. The future is in our hands. Let’s join together to let the world know that those of us in the US want to see a radical reduction in greenhouse gases, that we want to see a sane climate policy that will substitute renewables for fossil fuels, that will support local food systems and sustainable farming practices that conserve fossil fuels and sink carbon in the soil, and will create good jobs based on the needs of the people and the planet, not corporate profits. 

Join the Food and Agriculture contingent – The food justice movement is organizing a Food and Agriculture contingent for the march that we hope you’ll join. Farmers and farmworkers, school and community gardeners, restaurant staff and culinary students, food processing workers, food business owners, anti-hunger and pro-health advocates will all join together to raise the importance of food policy and practice in mitigating and adapting to climate change.

Please join us by emailing back to ClimateChangeBFC@gmail.com. Let us know if you want to help with outreach, graphics, media, educational events and if your organization (of any kind) wants to get involved with the March. Also let us know if your group would like to host a pre-march forum or event to help educate local residents re the relationships between climate change, food and agriculture.

Here are some additional ways you can connect:1234

See you on September 21 at Columbus Circle (59th St. and Bway) in Manhattan!
Specific time to meet and exact location TBD.

Farm News

This is not the researched piece it deserves to be.  This is a reflection.  Research will be at a later date…  I watched from afar, as a dear friend of mine from NYC stood in solidarity with the people of Ferguson.  She stood with them in all of their rage, and all of their love.  She carried healing on her back in the form of herbal remedies, crystals, and the burden of pain, such a heavy load at times.  She embraced people with truth.  Was it not Mama Earth herself in my friend’s skin?  This land.  So many traumas, yet she persists.  She absorbs our grief, ignorance, rage, terror AND love, compassion, hope.  She is older than we can fathom and arrives with a timeless patience.
These recent murders of young black men by those in uniform, highlight the fault lines of disparity in our country, too often drawn along race and class lines.  Who is connected to land?  Who is growing our food?  Who is eating well?  Who is getting gunned down by our public servants in the street?  Unarmed or not.  Every life is precious!  And we on the land.  This beautiful Earth that holds a container for all of our humanness.  That we farmers are blessed with the job of stewarding.  Yet, how do we reconcile that we cannot be in the streets in solidarity beacuse the carrots need thinning, or the tractor is broken, the fall cabbage needs planting, or the cooler needs a repair.  In these same communities young are being murdered, countless more people are suffering from food related illnesses.  Premature deaths and living in a haze of systematic oppression through food, or lack thereof.
As a keeper of this land.  I, as a farmer, stand in solidarity with the people of Ferguson, St. Louis, Sanford, and countless other cities, committed and driven to see ALL of these oppression of this empire come to an end.  We as a broad community have the resource and power within ourselves to offer the healing we need.  Farmers supporting activists, supporting artists, supporting health care providers, supporting teachers, supporting children, supporting elders, supporting farmers, and so on.  And we can eat well, think well, heal one another, pass on culture.  And for now… we take a moment to mourn the loss of a mother’s child, and know that his death was not in vain.  That we will work until we live in the world we all deserve.1237
This week we will begin another large infrastructure project of building a farm garage, CSA packing area and programming space.  This project is a much needed addition to our limited programming, lodging and storage space.  Read: our home.  If one thing has been clear this season, it is that there is an overwhelmingly high demand for the programming we are running.  We want to be able to host people of varying abilities and comfort levels, as well as expand the space for gathering.  This project will begin this week with site work, and continue well into the fall with building.

In other news, Leah and I returned from a week away from the farm, nurturing our spirits in the beautiful community that is Dance New England dance camp.  We are ever-so-grateful for the farm crew, Capers, Crysbel and Lissa, who held down the farm operations while we were away, allowing for this incredibly restorative time.  The space was a beautifully safe space to explore what it means to move without limit in our bodies, from a place with an open heart.  For all of us it was a transformative time.  We left inspired as dancers, parts of our community, parents, and partners to one another.  We attended dance, body work, and movement healing workshops, went swimming, watched sunsets, ate food with our new community, played, and danced until the wee hours of the morn every day.  We hope to carry this inspiration and rejuvenation back to the farm, and infuse our work we do here with the same spirit.  Let us know if you think it’s rubbed off.  Or at the very least, look for us on the dance floor…   1238

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