Support Your Local Earth

article

by Catherine Harper

Even for the most devoted urbanite, it is hard not to have some nostalgia for the small farm. Here, the fields of grain, there the pasture. Behind the kitchen, the herb garden, and around that the large plots of vegetables. A few chickens, a couple of goats, perhaps a cow. And a story told, on every level, of the rising and falling of the year, of planting, harvesting, eating and returning to the earth.

Once upon a time, most people lived on small farms. Once upon a time, most vegetables that people ate they grew themselves, and those they did not were mostly grown nearby. Once upon a time, when you asked someone to grab a few sprigs of thyme from the garden, they would probably know what to look for.

Turkic legends traditionally begin with the line "Bar eken, yok eken." Literally, this means, "It is said that it was, and that it was not," but I was taught that this is a contraction of a longer phrase: "Once, it is said, there ws as a time; that time it is no more." How far removed such a world is from our supermarkets, artificially lit and filled with food nearly as far removed from the natural world, food that has come on average 1000 miles and one to two weeks from harvest before we even see it.

I don't want to falsely deplore the achievements of modern agriculture. I am glad that a farmer's life is no longer mandated for the vast majority of us. There is much to be said for so few feeding so many, especially in terms of how many possibilities are opened. But there is also such a thing, I think, as taking things too far. And if on the one hand we can now enjoy eggplants in February, and strawberries in November, the flip side of this is that much of the food we can buy is hardly fit to eat.

Our local produce clerk tells me that I should enjoy the bunches of fresh, dirty spinach while I can, because in a few years he expects it all to come destemmed, washed and in plastic bags from farther away. As much as I enjoy bananas, the off-season's strawberries are pretty, but flavorless. And the hard fuzzy spheres given the appellation "peaches" bear almost no resemblance at all to the real thing once they are in your mouth. Better to go without. (Peaches, picked ripe, are soft, difficult to transport and go bad very quickly. But a peach picked before it is ripe will not produce any further sugars. For years, I thought I disliked peaches. Now I have a peach tree, and a short peach season extended a bit by the local farmers' market. A brief pleasure, but exquisite.) Meanwhile, all this produce is shipped around the world, at great expense, including to the environment.

And the flip side of the semireal world of the supermarket is the world of industrial farming. The small family farms of lore and imagining are disappearing, unable to compete with the larger, more highly mechanized (and more economically influential) farms. Increasingly, the agricultural revolution has not only freed the unwilling from the labor of farming but is also making it no longer an option even for those who would farm on a smaller scale by choice.

Somewhere between the extremes, there is room for finding another way, a way that allows us to choose what aspects of each we find valuable. We need not all return to the farm, but we can choose to retain an understanding of where our food comes from, a pagan sense of the turning of the seasons around us and a connection to the land. We are not bound to slavishly limit ourselves to what is locally available (though to my mind such limitations, deliberately chosen, do have their own rewards), but we can enjoy what is truly fresh and at its best and support those who provide us with such sustenance for both body and spirit.

The last several years have seen a gradual increase in awareness of local, naturally grown food. On the one hand, there has been the great increase in the market for organic foods, and an increasing appreciation of season that has many grocers showcase food when it is at its best. On the other hand, there have more and more farmer's markets, where one can buy produce that is local, seasonal and fresh, directly from the people who have grown it. And most recently, there has been a rise in Community Supported Agriculture farms, or CSAs.

CSAs are farms that instead of or in addition to selling their produce directly sell "shares" of produce to members, usually people in surrounding communities. Members pay for a share up front and receive in turn a weekly allotment of fresh produce during the productive season. The advantage to farmers is that they receive the money up front, can plan their planting based on actual needs and so are less likely to waste produce than they would selling through farmer's markets, and are less effected by the vagaries of the weather. The direct advantage to members is fresh, local, usually organic produce, usually for far less than would such food cost at retail. The indirect benefits are a closer connection in general between producer and consumer and a greater understanding of each other's needs, a closer tie to the season and the land and a visceral connection to the source of the food that sustains us. For city dwellers, this is an excellent way of bridging both the concrete that often stands between us and the land, and the gap between us and our agricultural roots.

Dog Mountain Farms became a CSA in 2001. Prior to that, the Krepkys had spent a year doing farmer's markets but were dismayed by the amount of produce that was wasted through that process. They have both a summer and winter season, the summer season running 20 weeks starting at the end of May, the winter running 10 starting in mid-October.

Cindy Krepky describes the philosophy of her CSA as being about sustainable agriculture, trying to have locally grown produce, helping people understand the seasons and having a more natural approach to food production. Concepts like stewardship of the land, building the tilth and working with the soil are very important to the Krepkys. Cindy also is very enthusiastic about encouraging people to use local produce in part to reduce the fossil fuel consumption from shipping foods large distances.

Unusually among CSAs, Dog Mountain Farms delivers to people's doorsteps on the Eastside. A typical selection of produce includes seven or eight different items, plus one "value added" item such as goat cheese, homemade pesto or jam, or honey. (They have partnered with a local apiary.)

The produce, of course, changes over the course of a year - at the beginning of the summer season, for instance, one might get peas, lettuce, kale, eggs, goat cheese, pesto, cut flowers, herbs, variety of lettuces and chicory, French sorrel and scallions (to pillage information from years past). Later into summer, sweet corn, summer squash and tomatoes will make their appearances (along with many of the things from spring), while near the end of the season one will get apples, winter squash, potatoes and heartier greens. On Thursdays or Fridays, the Krepkys send out a newsletter telling you what to expect for their Monday delivery and suggesting recipes to help you plan any weekend shopping.

In addition, each year Dog Mountain Farms holds a few events where people can come up to the farm and see what it's all about. Many children, say Cindy, really don't understand where their milk and apples come from. Here, they can come up and hold the baby chicks, see the trees and gardens and get some sense of connecting with the land. Interested people can also call at other times to set up an appointment to view the farm.

The Cultivating Communities CSAs were a great surprise to me, having been familiar mostly with rural, family-farm-style CSAs. Cultivating Communities began with a partnership between the Seattle Housing Authority and two local P-Patch organizations. Its goals were many.

The Seattle Housing Authority administers several "garden communities," communities with houses arranged around a central courtyard, occupied primarily by first-generation immigrant families. These communities had large grassy areas that were going unused, while the residents kept their own garden plots close to their own houses - a polite arrangement, but one that concerned the housing authority, as many of these buildings were older, and the soil immediately around them was at risk for having been contaminated by lead-based paint.

At the same time, the housing authority had an interest in promoting interactions both between members of different language groups within the garden communities and between residents and the greater communities around them, and also an interest in encouraging entrepreneurial ventures.

What has grown out of these needs is three separate CSAs, one at Highpoint in West Seattle, and one each in Rainier Vista and New Holly, both in South Seattle. Residents cultivate communal gardens, as well as plots for their own use, and are also involved in the distribution of produce to CSA members.

The Cultivating Communities CSAs operate between the end of May and the middle of October. These CSAs are particularly well-suited for the more adventuresome cook, and to people who enjoy cross-cultural interactions - the produce includes a high proportion of Asian greens and other vegetables, along with what we might otherwise consider traditional European garden fair.

Produce can be picked up weekly from all three gardens. In addition the two South End gardens have also made arrangements with more centrally located churches to allow people to pick up produce there. The season tends to start with seven or eight items a week and to grow to around thirteen items during its height. Usually this comes to about two grocery bags full. Most of the time, the produce will have been harvested only hours before you pick it up.

In discussing the ways in which the CSAs have promoted community, Martha Goodlett shared the story of one gardener. He is an older man, who has been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and who many days can barely leave his house. But he prides himself on his gardening and in growing large amounts of produce, and particularly fine vegetables. Every year, the P-Patch program has a banquet and contests, and every year he comes bringing beets the size of buckets. It is important and rewarding to him to have the chance to be part of such a group.

Over the years, Goodlett has watched many people begin working with the program, often shy and barely able to speak to the CSA members at first, but quickly gaining confidence and language skills, and often bringing their children and other family members to work in the garden together.

The Cultivating Communities CSAs are open Thursday afternoons, Saturday mornings and Monday mornings. While they are locked when the gardeners are not working, they are usually open pretty much any afternoon over the summer.

I had originally scheduled an interview with Claire Thomas of The Root Connection, the area's largest and oldest CSA. However, she apparently had either not heard or not understood the words "pagan community" when I originally described this publication to her. When the meaning of these words became clear to her, she became quite short with me and wanted nothing further to do with this article.

This surprised, and upon reflection, saddened me. I have perhaps become spoiled by the acceptance that is prevalent in this area, especially in the organic farming and gardening communities, and it hadn't even crossed my mind that anyone would pass up the opportunity to have their farm featured here for such a reason.

Other CSAs

The above-mentioned CSAs are only a few of many in this region, each of which with their own regions, specialties and stories to tell. Seattle Tilth maintains a list of local CSAs on their Web site: http://www.seattletilth.org/activities/tilthactivitylist.html