Farm

July 7, 2017 by Kimberly Kneeland

Dietetics Meets Farming

July 2017

Guest post written by: Brianna Trainor, MPH coordinated dietetics student at UMass Lowell

For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Brianna and I am in my third and final year at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell for my masters of public health with a concentration in dietetics. As we enter the month of July, my community nutrition rotation at Wright-Locke Farm is coming to an end. I had the pleasure of working with some great people and had the opportunity to learn so much about the farm and agriculture.

Here is some insight as to what my community nutrition rotation encompassed at Wright-Locke Farm. My days at the farm consisted of a variety of the following activities : farm work, after-school child education programs, assisting with adult education workshops, youth summer education programs, the Jenk’s Center Gardening Club, involvement in the first speaker series, visiting the farm animals, and working at farmers’ markets.

The most valuable lesson that I am leaving Wright-Locke Farm with is the relationship between nutrition education and preparing foods specifically with children. When children are involved in the planting, harvesting, and cooking processes, children retain more nutrition knowledge than they would without being involved in the processes. Children retain nutrition knowledge while they are performing tasks. One of the days at the youth ed program, the kids made a berry kale smoothie. The children groomed the garden, harvested the kale, and put all the ingredients in the blender. We talked about the health benefits of the smoothie and the children happily (!) enjoyed their healthy snack.

I am leaving this internship with more knowledge and experience than I could have asked for and I am very grateful for everyone at Wright-Locke Farm for giving me this opportunity.

Postscript by Wright-Locke Farm Staff: Thank you Brianna for your energy, hard work, and willingness to learn from what we do at the farm. Like you, we believe that good, fresh food, cooking, nutrition, farming, and animal management are all important puzzle pieces in being a heathly individual. We know that you’ll do good things for your community whereever you go!

If you’d like to hear more of Brianna’s thoughts, she was also part of this interview with Renee Barrile.

May 9, 2017 by Kimberly Kneeland

Wright-Locke’s “Night-time Farmers”

Written by Amy Rindskopf, Event Manager

The month of May means many things in the Farm’s calendar – seedlings start to leave the greenhouse for the fields, after-school education programs return, and the farm stand moves from once-a-week eggs-only towards a full week with veggies, eggs, and delicious snacks. For the Farm event team, it means something even more: parties return to the 1827 Barn!

Regular visitors to the farm know that we do many public events throughout the warmer months: Family Farm Nights in June & July are our most popular event but we also do Spring Fling in May (this weekend!), Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox parties, Farm-to-table Suppers in the late summer, and our annual Harvest Dinner in September.

The most attentive visitors know that we also host private events, everything from children’s birthdays to graduations to family milestones to weddings. People who come to the farm to celebrate the important moments in their lives aren’t just looking for a place to have a party – they are connecting themselves and their guests with history and nature in a way rarely seen in event spaces. It’s why so many people come back to our events year after year. And why more than one party guest has become a volunteer in our fields.

Our event team definitely has the most unusual job description at Wright-Locke Farm: they must love helping organize beautiful events, but they also enjoy working outside in all weather, moving heavy wooden barn chairs, climbing ladders, having dirty hands, and chasing runaway paper lanterns (and the occasional lost sheep). These night-time farmers of Wright-Locke Farm are some of the best problem solvers I know – they can hang anything from the Norway maple on the hill used as our wedding ceremony site. Need to hang a poster in the barn without using any nails? But of course! Sudden hailstorm changing your outside summer fete to a cozy fall barn party? Not a problem!

Here’s looking forward to a season full of starry nights, happy families, vibrant music, and delicious food!

March 23, 2017 by Kimberly Kneeland

A Glimpse of the Life of a Farmer

~March 2017~

Written by: Adrienne Altstatt, Farm Manager

As the first employee of the Wright-Locke Farm Conservancy, I came to the farm in April of 2011 thinking I would be here for just a year. But now, six years later and about to start my seventh growing season, one might say I’ve settled in. I grew up in Minnesota and, before Wright-Locke, I managed a farm in Maryland for six years, so acclimatizing to the culture of New England and becoming familiar with the local farm community has taken some time. Nonetheless, it has slowly grown on me.

Here’s a little insight as to what it’s like being the farmer at Wright-Locke Farm.

My work begins in March when I start seeding in the greenhouse, hiring staff and organizing our sales outlets (CSA and farmers markets). March is when I spend the most time at my desk. After that, I’m rarely here and my desk is more a repository for my papers and the occasional perch for the farm cat. As the weather changes and becomes more inviting to young plants, my crew and I begin the long process of transplanting and seeding the fields. We also prep our barn work space for efficiency and ease during the season and set the animals (goats, sheep and chickens) up in their warm season quarters. Especially in the early part of the season, farming is often a “watch-the-weather” game and patience is one of the most important virtues for a farmer to have.

The end of May is when the season truly kicks into high gear for us. On top of planting seeds and transplants, we begin harvesting three days a week for our markets and CSA and, now that the weeds have started to grow like…well…weeds, we also have to add weeding to our ever-growing “To-Do” list. With so much needing to get done, balancing the daily demands of the farm is key and knowing when to let something go from your list sometimes takes courage.

For the next five months (June—October), our days are fairly similar in terms of tasks, but as most farmers will tell you, there is always a monkey wrench in there. Tractors break, droughts or deluges happen, someone accidentally weeds the wrong plants out, animals or insects decimate a crop, someone finds a bug in their salad, four-foot-tall weeds take over, you twist your ankle playing soccer, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Farming is a test of flexibility and adaptability, and sometimes that can be trying. However, in the quiet evening hours when I have the farm to myself and the dog and I are wandering the fields, I can’t help but delight in the beauty and magnitude of this small farm.

All of that peak-season “go-go-go” can be exhausting, but sooner than you can say zucchini with an Italian accent, the season is wrapping up. However, just because the temperature drops and we stop harvesting veggies doesn’t mean the season is over—it is time to plan for next year. A great deal of a farm’s success comes from the pre-planning for the following year—cleaning, tallying, mapping, organizing—all so that you’re ready to hit the ground running when the next season starts. It can take years to understand trends and realize that nobody wants to buy your okra in New England (at least not enough people to make it worthwhile), or that your soil grows potatoes poorly, or that people are over kale. So, it’s important to take that accumulated knowledge and apply it to your plan for next season; because you can always make it better next season. But most excitingly, when seed catalogs come out in December, it’s time to dream again!

The take away? Farming is about patience, balance, letting go, a little bit of planning, and a lot of faith. I would say that farming is inherently about faith: faith that if you put a seed in the ground, it will grow; faith that people will buy your product; faith that the weather will be favorable; faith that you can continue to do this work and it will be appreciated and successful. Much like life one might say.

Be well and happy growing!