Locavore Activism in Cambridge: Henrietta Davis Goes Local

Henrietta Davis is kicking off her election campaign to retain her seat on the Cambridge City Council by hosting a "locally inspired potluck supper" and a screening of the movie, "Fresh." The event is titled "All Politics is Local" ad will be held August12th at Davis's house, 120 Chestnut St. The potluck starts at 6pm, and grilled foods will be provided. Attendees are asked to bring a salad, dessert, or "other local dish." The movie starts at 8pm. Her invitation came with a guide to Cambridge Farmers' Markets and a list of Local Food resources.

I encourage locavore residents of Cambridge to show up and let Henrietta know you support her efforts.

Locavore Activism: Lexington Selectmen Discuss Busa Farm Tonight

The Lexington Selectmen are scheduled to discuss the Busa Land Lease Agreement tonight under “Items for Individual Consideration” starting at 7:50 pm: see http://ci.lexington.ma.us/Selectmen/agenda.cfm for the complete schedule. The Busa Land Lease likely refers to the the town's plan to lease the land back to the Busas for two years following the town's September 17 closing on the land. Selectmen's meetings take place at the Selectmen's Meeting Room, 1625 Mass Avenue (Town Office Building), second floor.

In the Media: Video of Butter-making in Maine

Boston.com today has a great article accompanied by a video on Kate's Homemade Butter, which really is made in the owner's home garage in Maine. You have to see it to believe it. I love Kate's Homemade Butter, but I almost never shop at Shaw's anymore, and thus never see it available. Perhaps I'll make a special effort for this award-winning butter.

Locavore Activism: Busa Farm in Lexington

Today, I visited Busa Farm in Lexington. Located just over the border from the Arlington Reservoir, Busa Farm is 7.85 acres of severely neglected farmland. When we visited, it had a tiny farm shop which supplemented the farm's produce with eggs from Chip-In Farm, honey and preserves from McClure's, and fruit from California. I did buy an enormous zucchini for only 25 cents that I intend to stuff for dinner (tonight, homemade pizza with locally made fresh mozzerella).

Outside, the flats of perennials, annuals, and patio tomatoes showed that Busa Farm has definitely fallen on hard times. The paths were overgrown with weeds, all the seedlings showed signs of stress, and the tomatoes were dying in their pots. The greenhouses were missing many of their panes of glass, and not by design, and these, too, were overgrown with weeds. Of the three greenhouses we saw, two had been abandoned to nature. The buildings other than the farmstand were in various states of disrepair, and the chicken coop we spied down the road looked forlorn and empty.

Which is why, in May, the City of Lexington purchased the land from its owners. The owners will continue to run the farm and maintain the property until at least Dec. 31, 2010 while Lexington figures out what to do with it. Lots of ideas have been floated: recreational parkland, community gardens, affordable housing, community farm.

Yes, you read that correctly. A group of citizens is pushing to turn the space into a community-run farm. Apparently, this model has precedent. Newton bought Angino Farm in 2005 and operates it as a community farm. During the summer, much of the farm is maintained by volunteer middle and high school students from Newton.

Our mission is to preserve and improve this historic open space site for the benefit of the community, to provide local, sustainably grown produce, and to educate the public about sustainable use of land and other natural resources.

This sounds like a fantastic option for Lexington. I'd be contacting the Lexington Community Farm Coalition right now, offering to get involved and start raising awareness amongst my neighbors... if only I lived in Lexington. If you are a Lexington resident, I encourage you to contact your local representatives and urge them to preserve Busa Farm as an educational, community resource. Also see the web site for other ways to help this worthy cause.

NOFA Conference: Mission for Missin' Local Products

I try to eat as much local, organic food as I can, but there are some things I have to buy nonlocal. A few of these are preferential - I have New Mexico green chile on my breakfast burrito every morning. I've tried growing it here, and it just doesn't come out right. Then there are things that just can't be grown in New England that we consider essential: coffee, black tea, chocolate, bananas, olive oil, cinnamon and similar spices.

And then there are the things that ought to be available locally that I can't find: nuts, mushrooms, oils, and sugar. I was delighted to find a workshop at the NOFA conference on growing black walnut trees for nuts and timber. Hopefully, I will meet other nut growers there and find out where I can buy local nuts the way I used to buy pinon nuts on the side of the road in New Mexico. Similarly, there are lots of workshops on mushrooms, which I have yet to spot at a farmers' market anywhere.

Oil and sugar are the two that burn my noodle most. In the land of maple, you can find lots of maple syrup and maple candy, but no actual, commercial granular maple sugar. Why? And beets grow prolifically in New England. Why is there no beet sugar available? Admittedly, cane sugar from Florida is not a terrible compromise, but it just bugs me.

Finally, I have yet to find, anywhere, locally produced cooking oils. Olive oil is admittedly impossible (and the top on my list of crops I'd grow if I ever return to New Mexico), but surely there are plenty of other sources: corn oil, sunflower. Does rapeseed grow here for canola oil? And cycling back to the discussion on nuts, what about walnut or almond oil? Of late, I've been substituting locally produced butter, but there are a lot of cases where I'd much rather use a good oil instead. With any luck, I'll find a source of locally produced oils at the NOFA conference.

What are some other examples of things you ought to be able to find locally and can't? Please comment.

Buying the Farm

Right now, my two-year-old is chanting "Old McDonald Had a Farm" just as I'm contemplating becoming Old McDonald myself. It's a tough question: do I want to become a farmer?

My husband and I have been exploring the possibility in the last few weeks, ever since we returned from Sweden. There are a lot of pros and cons.

PROS:

1. I grew up on a farm. I run a community garden. I have a clue what it takes to successfully raise vegetables.
2. Local CSAs have absurdly long waiting lists, on the order of years. Many won't even advertize their shares anymore. So there is huge demand.
3. The New Entry Sustainable Farming Association has a list of farm properties near Boston available for lease or sale but not enough farmers to work them.
4. It would be highly satisfying in many ways. We'd have the freedom to grow our food (produce, eggs, meat) any way we like.
5. It's a healthier lifestyle and would encourage us to get a lot more exercise.

CONS:

1. I grew up on a farm. I know how much work it is, and that's rather daunting.
2. I grew up on a farm in New Mexico. That's an utterly different climate, and I'd have a lot of learning to do. It was a cattle farm, and I'm unlikely to want to raise cattle here, though I did have a herd of goats growing up and know how to care for them from birth to butchering. We never milked them, though, so that would be an interesting learning experience right there. And I know almost nothing about the use and maintenance of farm machinery.
   
3. My husband did not grow up on a farm. He was utterly astonished the first time a seed I'd planted sprouted. Nor does he have any desire to be a farmer. He doesn't like outside work, he doesn't like the smell of dirt, he doesn't even like houseplants. He says he's willing to take care of the business end of farming: finances, hiring labor, etc., but I'm dubious. I do not want to be stuck with all the work, and I'd miss the family- and community-building aspects I know and love.
   
4. My health is not the best. I have multiple chronic illnesses, almost all of which I control with diet, and I sprain joints at the drop of a hat. While more outside work would undoubtedly be very good for me, our business could outright fail if I sprain an ankle again.
5. We have two small children, one just about to start kindergarden. They're a full-time job in themselves right now, and at the very least, we should wait until they're old enough to contribute to the farm in a meaningful way. (My five-year-old wants goats.)
   
6. We live in a wonderful, supportive community, and we're not sure we want to leave it, although there are good reasons why we might, farm or no farm.

My current inclination is not to buy a commercial farm. It's too risky, and I don't think we have the proper resources. Microfarming, on the other hand, makes some sense to me. Defined as mixed-use farming on two to five acres, this seems like a manageable amount of farm to me. My grandfather's farm was five acres, and on this scrap of land, he grew alfalfa for his cattle, orchards consisting mostly of apples and pears, a large amount of corn, and two good-sized gardens for family and friends. Pumpkins grew up into his macintosh trees, the strangest apples you ever saw.

He couldn't and didn't make his living off of it, but he did make our lives much richer, healthier, and more fulfilling. It's the kind of life I can imagine being extremely satisfying. I could grow my own vegetables, trying different varieties and preserving heirlooms. I could have a greenhouse for fresh produce all winter long. I'd have orchards of fruit and nut trees chosen for easy maintenance and flavor. We could have a small goat herd and some chickens, maybe even ducks if we have a pond. Herb beds. Grape vines. Mushrooms. Corn.

I still have my doubts, which is why our whole family is attending the Northeast Organic Farming Association Summer Conference next weekend. We received the program booklets just a few days ago, and I'm fascinated and frustrated by the workshops listed. Should I attend the Backyard Medicinal Herb Walk, the Easy No-Knead Artisan Bread at Home workshop, the Farm and Garden Native Bee Habitat Creation workshop, or the Simple Gifts Farm tour? ARGH!

Just the fact that I get this excited about these topics tells me I'm on the right track. And perhaps the conference will help me figure out which less-traveled path I should take.

Backyard Local: Fight Tomato Blight

Warning to all backyard gardeners: there is a serious epidemic of late blight this year affecting tomato and potato plants. This is the same fungus that caused the Irish Potato Famine, and a combination of conditions this year (wet weather and contaminated tomato plants sold at places like Home Depot) have made this the worst outbreak of late blight in decades. Our CSA, Brookfield Farm, just mowed down all their potatoes in the hopes of saving the tubers and preventing the spread of the fungus to their tomatoes.

What makes this fungus particularly pernicious is that its spores are airborne, passing from plant to plant on the breeze. If you have tomatoes in your garden, regardless of where you got them, please go out and check them for blight. See www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/photos/lateblight_tomato.htm for pictures of late blight. Look for brown patches on the stem and wilting leaflets around it. If you find blight, remove ALL affected foliage immediately. If it's in the stem, you will likely have to remove the entire plant.

Do NOT put infected foliage in your municipal yard waste, where the fungus can infect their mulch and compost. Bag it and throw it away. In New Mexico, we'd burn it, but I doubt that's allowed around here.

If you have other tomatoes or parts of tomato plants that show no blight yet, spray it with fungicide immediately and after every rainfall (yes, this is a pain, but, o! the horror of a summer with no tomatoes). There are many recipes for homemade fungicide, including:

• http://site.cleanairgardening.com/info/recipe-for-home-made-fungicide.html
• http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090619125802AABbIUf (you can substitute dishsoap)
  

Or you can buy this organic fungicide: http://www.cleanairgardening.com/greencure.html. Brookfield Farm is using copper as a fungicide.

Here's a good FAQ on late blight and how to deal with it: http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/lbfaq.pdf

Also, keep in mind that there are plenty of other fungi around to prey on your tomatoes. The tomatoes in my community garden have early blight, and I'll be directing our gardeners in foliage removal and fungicide spraying this afternoon. Early blight is much less deadly than late blight, but it can transfer to other species like eggplants. It's treated in the same way as late blight, although treated plants are much more likely to survive. Tomatoes are going to be precious and rare at farmers' markets this year, so it will be well worth it to maintain your own love apples. And squash plants of all kinds are likely to be affected by fungus as well, so it's worth checking your squash for a white dusting on the leaves and treating it with fungicide or at least soapy water.

On the plus side, all the rain has had other benefits. Our greens, carrots, cucumbers, beans, and squash are going crazy, and despite the cool temperatures, I've got a lot of peppers and eggplant (hurray for black row covers). And for the first time this year, we had a noticeable blueberry harvest (we suffer from alkaline soil, but we seem to have finally brought up the acidity enough - sulfur helps, too) and will harvest our first lingonberries ever!

Side note: if you have midsummer-bearing raspberries, they should be running out of fruit right now. Once the fruit is gone off the canes, you should prune away the fruitbearing canes, leaving the new canes (those with no little stubs from the fruit) to grow as much as possible before winter. These non-fruiting canes will bear fruit next year. Removing the old canes means the roots only have to support the new canes, and they will be healthier and more prolific next summer.