Fertile Ground USA...Celebrating the people behind the plow

by Sara B. Franklin

    Oh glorious fall. The leaves are changing, the mornings are crisp, and there’s a feeling of slowing down and nestling in at the farm. Our CSA distribution shed is filled to the brim with storage onions curing and piles of winter squash.  We just ate the last of our watermelon yesterday, and the tomatoes don’t look like they have long to go.  We’ve been working in fleece jackets and wool hats recently, as the mornings are brisk and chilly.  The dew has turned to silver in the early morning light, and everything seems to be lit in a beautiful golden hue from the slanting sun.
    Autumn at a New England farm is something else. You really have to experience it to understand its otherworldly beauty. And after the urgency and chaos of the summer season, the slower pace and cooler temperatures are welcome changes.  A different tone from my August posting, eh?  The only thing I have to complain about these days is waking up in the dark. But hey, there are worse things in life than watching the sun rise every morning.
    There’s a wonderful sense of cycle right now. We’ve been finishing off patches of greens and beans, plowing them under and seeding cover crops in the freshly tilled soil.  One of our young goats, Maybe, went to slaughter recently, as did our small flock of lambs.  Our chickens, who seemed to be tiny and helpless only a few breaths ago, have grown into full-fledged laying hens, providing us a dozen fresh eggs each day.  Soon we’ll be pulling the stakes and twine out of our tomatoes rows and putting those aggressively productive plants to rest.
    Our farmers market is in full swing, and it never ceases to amaze people when we tell them that we are located “just over there”, barely out of sight from the busy downtown of Northampton.  The distance from farm to plate seems to be decreasing by the day here in the Northeast, and yet, local folks are still getting all wide-eyed when they think of a farm in their neighborhood.  To me, seeing such surprise and pleasure on the face of an avid vegetable eater never loses its novelty.
    All of us on the farming community are getting tired, and are preparing to put our fields’ bed after a long and work-filled season. We too need a good rest, and I find myself looking towards the end of October with a sense of anticipatory nostalgia edged with relief.  My body needs a good rest before gearing up for next season.
    As the season winds down and work slows to a walk instead of a run,  I find myself with a renewed gratitude for the work of the fields, the chance to spend these glorious, fleeting days in the rows instead of cooped up inside.  There’s still much beautiful food to be harvested before the last pickup of the year, and we seem to be, once again, doing our work with high spirits and a bit of extra spring in our steps.

by sara b. franklin

 We started a new farmers market in Northampton! Well, I shouldn’t really say we. My boss, Ben, did almost all of the organizing and PR necessary to get a new market off the ground- man is it a lot of work!

From interviews on the radio to flyers, from sandwich boards to recruiting vendors, starting a new market is no joke.  Ben was wired all weekend, buzzing around, running on adrenaline and very little sleep. Come Tuesday morning, he was up at the crack of dawn, harvesting.  Oona and I finished off the harvest all morning in unusually hot September temperatures, and then used our spiffy bike trailer to haul the produce back to their house to wash and pack, and then off we went. You should have seen us! Ben and I, rolling down the main drag of Northampton on bikes equipped with hundreds of pounds of produce, our EZ Up tent, cash boxes, bushel baskets, and tables for display.  We rolled into town just as the first vendor was showing up at the pedestrian walkway we had reserved for the market, and I scrambled frantically to set up and go retrieve our produce labels from the copy shop while Ben fluttered around, talking to vendors and working out logistics with the parking commissioner. 

 3 o’clock arrived with shoppers anxiously awaiting the go ahead. And what a first day it was! There was hardly a minute without a sale happening which, for a first day of a small weekday market, seemed like quite an accomplishment. With aching feet and a mind fried from making too much change, I made it to 7’oclock, just as the sun was beginning to sink.  And let me tell you, there’s nothing you want to do less after a busy market than pack up and ride a bike home in the dark. But Oona, Ben, and I managed to get all the spare produce back into crates and Ben and I carefully pedaled back to the house.

 I fell asleep exhausted but exhilarated. People were so excited! Expressions of gratitude came at us right and left from folks thrilled we were introducing such a welcoming and exciting community event.  I forgot what a proud rush it is to interact firsthand with customers as they wow over the produce that I helped to grow.  People were so amazed by the bike trailers, and expressed curiosity and amazement that there was a chemical-free farm right in the heart of their town (who knew?). One thing I never tired of was declaring to people that no, we don’t use pesticides and yes, you can walk and bike to us. 

The Tuesday Market may have just begun, but my commitment to small-scale family owned farms has been growing deeper and stronger for years now.  Tuesday afternoon was just another reminder of how important the work of farmers is, and how much joy and unity can build around sharing healthy, sustainably-grown food.

by Sara Franklin
Here we are in August, and all the farmers I know can barley keep their eyes open.  Despite cooler temperatures than this part of the country usually sees this time of year, there’s just something about August that has a way of exhausting the farming community. This is the time of year when many beginning farmers contemplate quitting, the time of year when farmers complain they have no lives, that they spend all their waking hours harvesting and attacking weeds, the “end of the sane farming season”, as a friend of mine put it.
    And yet, ironically enough, it’s the time of year when customers tend to get most excited about farms.  The August bounty of tomatoes, melons, corn, peaches, and zucchini seems to invoke bucolic nostalgia in even the most urban-minded souls. Perhaps it’s because August is a month of barbecues and lazy, mosquito-filled evenings, the last hurrah before vacation season ends and the chill of autumn evenings crisp the air. Whatever the reason, I find the contradiction between the mindset of farmer and customers this time of year a bit unsettling.
    This is the time of year when the cash flow is greatest for farmers, and yet, we’re at our moodiest.  Long, humid days make for grouchy crews on the farm and short tempers at home.  Dropping to sleep immediately after dinner and waking up shortly before I have to be at work is not my idea of the good life. And yet, here I am, willingly putting myself through this sapping daily grind. Are we, the farming community, crazy?
    I find that it’s only thoughts of fall, a lovely season on farms when temperatures drop, the urgency of harvesting slows a bit (note: Right now, tomatoes, zukes, cukes, and melons need to be picked every day and a half or so that fruit doesn’t rot on the vine and the plants continue to produce. As the temperatures drop and these crops peter out, the harvest become bi- or tri-weekly again, akin to the harvest schedule of the spring), and a sense of rhythm returns. All that in contrast to the chaotic rush that defines August.  
    Because of the frenetic pace of work these days, it’s likely I won’t write again until September.  By then, we at Town Farm will have a new farmers market up and running in downtown Northampton. Ah, a fresh start right after Labor Day, reminiscent of back-to-school (there will, after all, be apples at the market!), a time that never failed to excite me.  By then I might even have my feet back under me. Well, let’s not get carried away.