What are some of the highlights of your six years as a shareholder in Red Hill Farm?
Snacking on cherry tomatoes still warm from the sun, filling our basket and canvas bags to the brim (or sometimes not), wondering what’s new this week, planning dinner (and lunch and dinner and breakfast) on the drive home, the smell of the fresh cut flowers lingering in the car, learning about new and wonderful produce varieties, and meeting others that share the same values regarding where our food comes from.
What have you gained from the experience, other than fresh produce?
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The Painter Family: Mia, Wes, and Ben.
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We’ve made friends and acquaintances, and we chat with others in the shed about recipes, flower-arranging tips, the weather, compost, anything. I’ve also spent my Saturdays for a couple years working on the farm in exchange for food as a work share member. I’ve been behind the scenes: the seeding room, the way the transplants get their start in the greenhouse then the earth, how often the weeds need trimming around the deer fence. I’m also a member of the farm Core Group which is a group dedicated to helping the farmers with the non-growing aspects of running a farm—from how to incorporate solar panels, to organizing fundraisers, to making sure new members feel welcomed and understand the pick up process.
What are your favorite kinds of food from Red Hill Farm?
Bright tomatoes, celery leaves, scallions as long as my arm, European cukes, onions, garlic, deep purple kale, salad-every-day in the spring andfall, kohlrabi, freezer full of eggplant and zucchini and sautéed greens, vibrant yellow and red Swiss chard, snow peas, fresh tomatillo salsa. And the strawberries, one of our favorites, the fresh, deep red strawberries. Some years by the quartful, some years by the handful, and some years just one –one precious strawberry sought out during a work-share afternoon.
And that’s what’s great—every year is different. There was the year we had more tomatoes than we knew what to do with. I learned to can, I stocked the freezer, and in my naivety, I expected that each year would bring the same. Instead, the following year we ended up with more eggplant than we knew what to do with, and were craving more tomatoes. And then another year we were introduced to kohlrabi—ended up with dozens at a time and were eating kohlrabi in every possible way we could think of—stir fried, raw, baked—all delicious!
What does it mean to eat seasonally?
That took us a couple of years to learn. Part of it is feeling the seasons and going with the ebb and flow of the earth—eating mostly fresh and light in the summer, and eating mostly preserved and hearty in the winter. Coming out of the long cold winter hiatus to the freshness of the greens makes our bodies feel alive. The first few weeks of a new season usually find us gorging on baby greens, spinach, lettuce varieties never before seen or tasted. Then, just when we think we can no longer eat another salad, the lettuce bolts and along come tomatoes, onions, cukes, and the beloved Swiss chard.
What’s so different about Community Sponsored Agriculture?
Our food has a face—and a family—and it doesn’t come shipped from a far away mega-farm, selected and picked to withstand packing and traveling. Our food is picked just hours before we eat it, and it travels no farther than we can see. The varieties are chosen to be the best for taste and nutrients, not durability.
What do you like most about being a shareholder in Red Hill Farm?
Over the past six years we’ve learned to be more relaxed, we’ve learned what it means to eat produce grown using organic methods. We’ve become friends with the farmers and interns who do the lion’s share of work to fill our baskets each week, and with the other members who share in their bounty.
We feel a sense of freedom knowing that we will eat whatever it is that the farm has supplied us with each week. We know that we will plan our weekly menus around what the earth is ready to share, and that sometimes we will try things we wouldn’t have necessarily picked out from a store. We know that there are no dangerous chemicals to worry about polluting our bodies and our baby’s body, that the run off from our farm is safe for the streams. And we also know that each year, each week, will bring something new and wonderful and healthy and delicious. We know that our choice to support a CSA is not only nourishing ourselves, but also our community, our friends, our earth, and our lives.
