gmail - april 2013 newton farmer … · embrace this annual bout of naive optimism—it brings with...

6/21/2016 Gmail - April 2013 Newton Farmer

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=39145d013f&view=pt&q=%22newton%20farmer%22&qs=true&search=query&msg=13e10ac0d9ff56b9&siml=13e10ac0… 1/8

Jenn Martin <[email protected]>

April 2013 Newton Farmer

Newton Community Farm <[email protected]> Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 10:28 PMReplyTo: Newton Community Farm <replyc5aa503316f5f4dbb17b[email protected]>To: [email protected]

Dear Farm Friends,

I have just come inside from a wet, raw evening that showed me my breath in a whitecloud. But earlier in the week the air was gentle, the sun sent golden light into darkcorners, and the warmth drew out smiles on people’s faces. I have hopes that thosedays will come back soon. But that’s New England, teasing us in early spring. Theplants know it’s spring, and they are popping out of the ground to meet it. If they areconvinced, we should have patience that spring, and warm days, will come.

Susan TornheimNewsletter [email protected]

From the FarmerIt has been over a year since I’veseen many of you. It’s good to beback at the farm, with spring finallyseeming like it’s underway. Thegreenhouse is already bursting withseedlings, leaving us wonderingwhere we’re going to put everythingbetween now and the seedling salein May.

It’s felt like a busy spring to me. Inaddition to the usual work of startingseedlings and getting the fieldcomposted, fertilized, and plowed, there are the additional tasks of preparing the barnfor construction, putting a new roof on the chicken coop, and building a new hoophouse―that’s right, another hoop house―seems like you can never have enough.We’ll be using this one to help produce over 20,000 seedlings for our annual seedling

April 2013



sale this spring, then planting it with a heatloving crop like cucumbers for the

summer, and finally using it again to grow greens or carrots over the winter. This new

tunnel will be smaller than either of the others and able to be moved wherever we

need it in the field.

The technique of growing plants under

plastic is spreading rapidly throughout

the Northeast and many other parts of

the U.S. It effectively lengthens your

growing season, helps control moisture

(and therefore many diseases), but also

presents new challenges—there are

diseases and pests specific to

greenhouse production. To help us, and

the farming community of metroBoston,

better understand these challenges

Newton Community Farm will be hosting

an event for farmers this October with a member of the University of Massachusetts

Extension Service. She’ll be looking at our hoop houses and talking to the group

about what we should be watching for in terms of pests and diseases, and how to

manage them organically.

Reacclimating myself to being at the farm has been fun and exciting, but also

challenging. Getting back into the swing of all that needs to be done, the planning

and prioritizing, has at times been tough. But that’s probably the case every spring—

it’s just that this year I have an excuse. My favorite part of spring on the farm is how

possible everything seems. All the plans and dreams, the wild ideas and new

ventures, seem doable before the crush of the season hits. I figure you’ve got to

embrace this annual bout of naive optimism—it brings with it the twin gifts of vision

and energy. Maybe we won’t get to everything we dreamed of doing this April, but

we’ll get there eventually. And in the meantime, the excitement of another coming

season buoys our spirits and propels us forward as our bodies once again remember

the soreness and exhaustion that lay before us.

Greg Maslowe

Annual Seedling SaleMother’s Day Weekend

May 11 and 12

Rain or Shine!

Buy some seedlings to plant for a mother whom you love…

at Newton Community Farm

303 Nahanton St., Newton

This year we are trying something new for our Friend of the Farm members and

Seedling Sale volunteers: a preorder sale available for pickup on Thursday, May 9,

from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Forms are available at our Web

site, NewtonCommunityFarm.org. It’s not too late to become a Friend of the Farm or

volunteer for the Seedling Sale and enjoy this special benefit!

There will be 20,000 vegetable and herb seedlings for sale, with a wide variety of

each. Come select plants for your backyard and talk with expert gardeners who will



be available to answer your questions. The cost is $5 for

either a four or sixpack of seedlings. Cash or check

only. Trays will be on sale for $1 each, but you can also

bring your own boxes for carrying your wonderful variety

of seedlings back home. Invite your family, friends, and

neighbors to the seedling sale! All are welcome. For

more information, please visit Newton Community

Farm’s Web site.

Jessica Basile

The Seedling Sale Needs Your Help

The Seedling Sale is right around the corner, bigger than ever, but we can’t do it

without you! For CSA sharers, the hours you volunteer for the Seedling Sale count

toward your CSA work hours. Please contact Jessica Basile at

[email protected] to sign up and get more details.

We need key volunteers in the following positions and numbers:

Updating our lawn signs: There will be a variety oftimes available to do this. We will need to plaster our

signs with this year’s date and time.

Lawn sign distribution: Week of April 29. Post lawn

signs around Newton, 4–6 people for up to 4 hours

Friend of the Farm seedling pickup: Thursday, May9. Various shifts throughout the day, starting at 9 a.m.

and running until 7:30 p.m. Set up and staff the table.

Seedling Sale: Saturday, May 11, & Sunday, May 12 Setup: 9 a.m.–noon, 4–6 people each day Volunteer coordinator: Check in and coordinatevolunteers, 10–3 p.m., 1 person each day (can do

shifts)

Jessica Basile

Education

What a long cold winter we have had! I hope you have all been able to keep warm

and have plenty of fun. Despite the snow, freezing temperatures, and chilling wind we

have been busy. Earlier this year we teamed up with The Newton Partnership to be

part of their Teen Health and Wellness campaign. With the help of volunteers we

were able to offer a cooking class using farm produce for a group of Newton teens.

They had fun preparing, cooking, and then enjoying a simple but healthy meal that

included spinach and roasted butternut squash, and they also put together a range of

exciting programming for the coming months.



It is hard to believe that spring is

here, but apparently so, and with it

comes a range of programs. Over the

coming months we have programs

for both adults and families that focus

on both gardening and cooking and

simply enjoying our natural

environment.

And if those few days of 80degree

heat got you thinking ahead to

summer, then look no further. With an

exciting array of programs focused

on where our food comes from and daily involvement in farm life we have something

for everyone this summer. For more information and registration details please click

here.

Farm Sprouts preschool and kindergarten Little Diggers students entering grades 1 and 2 Farmer in Training elementary students entering grades 3–5 Socially Aware Young Farmers middle school students entering grades 6–9

Alison Wilson

Sharing the KnowledgeOne of my favorite parts of being farm manager at NCF is the opportunity to share my

thoughts and opinions (and it would seem that I have a lot of them, at least the latter)

with different audiences. I was thrown right back into this aspect of the job this spring

with a number of invitations.

In March I was invited to moderate a panel at the Urban Farming Conference held at

Roxbury Community College. The conference, cosponsored by the Massachusetts

Department of Agricultural Resources, the Urban Farming Institute, and City Growers

(a forprofit urban farming venture based in Roxbury), had to be rescheduled due to a

blizzard, and only narrowly missed being cancelled by a second blizzard. The forced

change of dates proved a blessing in disguise as it allowed the organizers to move to

a larger venue at Roxbury Community College and accept more registrations.

The conference attracted over 400 people and still had a waiting list of more than

200. The organizers are planning to make this an annual event and hope that the

excitement around the conference will help push Boston toward converting many of

its 600 or more acres of abandoned properties into urban farms. For those who want

to know more, The Boston Globe published an article about the conference availablehere.

Early this spring the Newton Conservators contacted me and asked if I would write an

article for their newsletter about climate change and agriculture. I jumped at the

opportunity as it brought back memories of my work in graduate school on

agricultural ethics. The article provides an overview of some of the ways climate

change is affecting agriculture in the U.S. I’m hoping to follow it up next winter with a

second article looking at one or two of the issues in more depth. The article is

available at http://www.newtonconservators.org/newsletters/apr13.pdf.



Finally, a producer from Emerson College asked if I’d be willing to be interviewed fora TV show they were doing on young people and food issues. “Why not?” I thought,so I headed down to Tremont Street with my daughter, who was excited to see what aTV studio was like. While I haven’t yet seen the show, I very much enjoyed theprocess of making it. The fact that many of the questions they asked were directlyrelated to my experiences at the Urban Farming Conference made for a niceconnection. (To see the show, click here; Greg’s interview starts around 18 minutesin.)

Greg Maslowe

Jon Orren, New Board Member

Jon Orren, a new NCF board member, is a teacher at Newton South High School(NSHS) in culinary arts, nutrition, and food science. This makes his chairmanship ofthe education committee a perfect fit with his background. He also directs NSHS’sSustainable Agriculture Program and advises the students who manage the school’s2,500squarefoot organic garden and composting program. A certified culinaryinstructor, Jon has many years of experience as a personal chef, food writer, andcook. As part of his culinary adventures, he had a successful specialty picklebusiness in New York City for many years. Jon is a graduate of Newton North HighSchool and Columbia University. We are delighted that he has joined the board.

New Assistant Grower

If you volunteer at Newton CommunityFarm, you’re likely to meet our newassistant grower, Signe Porteshawver.Working with volunteers is one of herresponsibilities, along with helping Gregwith nearly everything he does to growfood.

Signe discovered farming whileattending Tufts University. Ananthropology class introduced her to thework of Michael Pollan, author of TheOmnivore’s Dilemma and other bestselling books, and got her interested in

the social significance of food. Her senior thesis focused on communitysupportedagriculture and community economics. As part of this project, she worked on threecommunity farms, which fueled her desire to grow food commercially. Signegraduated from Tufts in 2011 with a double major in anthropology and biology.

Having worked for two years—first as an apprentice, and then managing restaurantaccounts and a small CSA drop in Cambridge—for the 15acre farm at Drumlin Farmin Lincoln, Signe is interested in seeing how our much more compact farm ismanaged. She also looks forward to using farm products in unconventional ways asshe starts an apprenticeship in herbal medicine with the Gaia School of Healing. Sheblogs at www.TheVegTable.wordpress.com.

If you think the surname Porteshawver is unusual, you’re right. As far as Signeknows, she and her two siblings are the only three people in the world to bear thisname, formed by combining her parents’ last names. Her first name is Swedish,



means “swan,” and is pronounced SIGnee.

Susan B. Weiner

Jenn MartinOur new assistant newsletter editor, Jenn Martin, has lived in Newton for almost threeyears. Mostly at home with her two preschoolers, she also works parttime as theprogram administrator for One Can Help, an organization based in Newton that helpscourtinvolved children and families. Jenn says she has been gardening since shecould walk; her parents had a large garden in Indiana, and they canned the producethey grew to last through the winter. She is the computersavvy technical person whowill enter the edited text into the online newsletter format that we use to produce thenewsletter. The noncomputersavvy editor is profoundly grateful for her help.

Susan Tornheim

2013 Flower ShareSign up now for a weekly flowershare through the Natick CommunityOrganic Farm (sorry, no biweeklyshares). Flower share purchasers willreceive a fresh, seasonally changingbouquet of flowers grown at theNatick Community Organic Farm.Starting on June 12, the bouquetswill be delivered to NewtonCommunity Farm on Wednesdaysand will be available for pickup in thelower level of the barn between 2 and7 p.m. on Wednesdays andThursdays.

Choose from two options in 2013: a 12week share for $180 (ends August 29) or a15week share for $240 (ends September 18). To enroll, fill out the NewtonCommunity Farm 2013 Flower Share form and send it with a check to NatickCommunity Organic Farm, 117 Eliot St., Natick, MA 01760. Forms are due by June1.

Dede Vittori

Call for VolunteersThe days are getting longer, the sunshine is growing stronger, and spring plantinghas begun. We want you to come grow with us. We have plenty of fun and haveinteresting volunteer projects that can take an hour or two, or the whole season, ifyou have the time. We depend on our community of volunteers to keep our farmrunning. We can accommodate many different backgrounds, skills, and interests. Andthe time you spend counts toward your CSA work hours.

Read more about our teams and committees here. Or send an email [email protected]. Please put VOLUNTEER in the subject line.

Also consider volunteering for one of the following current needs.



Board Vacancies: treasurer, fundraising, events,buildings, personnel adviser (offboard position) Education: Farm Sprouts instructors Events and Volunteer Outreach: Seedling Salevolunteers (see separate article), event organizersfor upcoming events Farming Assistance: Weekly dropin volunteersessions from June through October everyWednesday, Thursday, and Saturday from 9 a.m. to12:30 p.m. Start with an orientation, help with farmtasks, and then end with a brief gathering to talkabout the morning. Come prepared to get dirty andwork outdoors! Fundraising: Capital Campaign volunteers, mailing

help, grant writingCommunications: video producer (produces short videos), graphic designer (helpsdesign materials), media calendar liaison (updates event info online), blog liaison(sends announcements to blogs), newsletter writer (writes short articles fornewsletter) Finance: Finance Committee members Buildings: project managers/overseers for barn reconstruction project, projectoversight assistance for other projects (such as chicken coop)

Barney Keezell

Julia Talcott, Graphic ArtistJulia is a longtime Newton resident, aCSA shareholder, a gardener, and agraphic artist. She was so enthusedwhen Newton decided to buy the Anginofarm and establish a community farmthat she created her first celebratorywoodcut poster in 2011. Her second twocolor woodcut poster was finished in2013. As she did with the first one, shecarved the woodcut and printed it byhand in her Newton Corner studio.

The artist is donating to the farm aprintable version for use in print orpromotional items. The fineart limitededition prints are for sale at veryreasonable prices. They will be availablefor sale at the NCF seedling sale on May11 and 12. Please contact her at 8572316538 or [email protected] if you are interested.

RecipesWe are approaching asparagus season, that delicious and brief period. Our sharedrecipe wiki already has five excellent suggestions for asparagus dishes, which youcan see here.

Another way to enjoy asparagus is to steam it in the form you like (whole spears or



cut up) and dress it with LowFatVinaigrette.

Susan Tornheim

Volunteer Hours

Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday from 9 to 12 every week

Please contact us if you have any questions about this newsletter or ideas for futureissues, or if you want to be added to our mailing list. Just email Susan Tornheim [email protected]. For more information about the farm, email our farm manager,Greg, at [email protected] or check out our Web page atnewtoncommunityfarm.org (or click on the image at the top of the page).

updates on class listings, events, NCF news and more!

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Newton Community Farm 303 Nahanton Street Newton, Massachusetts 02459 US

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