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

April 18, 2008
Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, the growing season suddenly arrived.  Perhaps the blending of the days and weeks into one another had something to do with the tumult in my life since the New Year began.  Since January 1, I spent two weeks exploring a new part of the country with my best friend, said goodbye to my longtime boyfriend who was going to farm in Italy for three months, quit my last semester of college to move home to take care of my ailing mother, held her hand as she died, reunited with my boyfriend, and then moved up here with him to Amherst, Massachusetts, our home for the 2008 growing season.  

Finally catching my breath after the move, I knew I needed to get back into the earth, to turn soil and plant seeds. For what better way to ground oneself and celebrate the passing of loved one than to midwife new lives into the world?  So I began to dig up the patch of overgrown garden in our new backyard, planted peas, and began a new farming season working at the brand spanking new NoHo Town Farm, owned and run by Ben James and Oona Coy, in Northampton, MA. 

Now this is only my second season farming, and my first full season that I’ll see through from seeding to storing squash and potatoes in the root cellar for the winter. Although I grew up in the suburbs, buying all my food at a supermarket, my mother had rural roots and always planted a small garden in our backyard.  The first peas of June, bursting July tomatoes, and crisp August cucumbers were always heaped, unadorned, at table in place of more complex side dishes.  Despite the joy of eating the beautiful produce my mother so proudly grew, I resisted working in the garden as a child.  My turn at farming didn’t come until I had lived for three years in urban Somerville, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. I had developed a knack for pantry cooking and an appreciation of fine food, but felt little connection with the world of agriculture beyond my love of open space and quiet.  What drew me back to farming was academic study of community health and nutrition and a passion for promoting health and preventing disease.  I began an internship farming at a community farm in Waltham, MA immediately after a three-month stint in South Africa where I was deeply moved by the irony of such poverty in a land blessed with such rich arable land.  And so, upon returning to the States, I dove into action, believing that the best way to promote justice and better health for the community, individuals, and the land was to participate in sustainable farming.  My idealism, like that of many first time farmers, was soon shattered when I began to live the day-to-day life of a farmer, dropping to sleep before dark many nights and waking with the first glimpse of the sun.  What I learned as a novice last summer was that as a farmer, you will work harder, sweat more, and make more mistakes than you ever thought possible; that no amount of schooling you have received will teach you to be a good grower; and that the earth is remarkably forgiving and fruitful, despite our human blunders. 

Planting brassicas (the family of plants containing cabbage, kale, pac choi and the like) last week, with dirt working its way under my cropped fingernails, I felt a deep sense of peace come over me.  The April morning was edged with frost and all the crew members wore hats and heavy sweaters, but the perfect blue sky promised a warm afternoon and ample sunshine.  The familiar soreness and ache in my shoulders and lower back, reminiscent of the harvest days of August, had reappeared, reminding me how unfamiliar my body has become with the work over the winter.  But in that dull pain and the lingering strangeness of being in a new place was the comfort of knowing that I’m back with my hands in the dirt, doing real work, building community around food, and growing the plants I love to cook with and nibble right out of the ground in the heat of summer days. 

So stay with me as I reconnect, a new farmer in a new place in a new chapter of her life.

Sara

Sara can be reached at sara.b.franklin@gmail.com