Over the past three months, I've been volunteering at a really wonderful organic vegetable farm called Spring Creek Farm. Spring Creek is located just outside Baldwin City, Kansas and is run by an incredible couple, Stephanie Thomas and Tom Maiorana. The two started the farm in 2005 and specialize in heirloom melons, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes. They sell to local restaurants, at the Downtown Lawrence Farmers' Market, and host an 18 week CSA, Community Supported Agriculture program.
If you don't already know about CSA programs, read up on them! I'm enamored with the idea of directly supporting local food and farmers, cutting out the middlemen, and receiving fresh, seasonal produce weekly. Perhaps you have a program in your area.
A view of hoop house one. Stephanie and Tom have two hoop houses that shield crops from strong winds, heavy rain, and raise temperatures 5-10 degrees! These nice protective nests create a cozy space where romaine, buttercrunch, arugula, swiss chard, radishes, carrots, turnips, beets, tomatoes, celery root and other tasties flourish. I find it really difficult to work in the hoop houses without wanting to eat up half of what I'm suppose to be watering or weeding!
Big, beautiful heads of buttercrunch lettuce.
Carrots and more buttercrunch growing like crazy. Stephanie keeps improving my knowledge of different type of greens. My favorites are komatsuna (I like to call it "the sexy plant," since it sounds like kama sutra,) her arugula (spicer, and more delicious than any other kind I've tried,) and lamb's quarter (usually thought of as a weed, but really delicious and higher in vitamin A than spinach!)
A field of delicious onions, almost ready to harvest.
The gorgeous herb and flower garden. Fellow volunteer Juda works on the plot every Tuesday morning. We swear, Juda hides some serious fairy dust up her sleeve. Her pixie ways make chocolate mint sprout out of the woodwork, beautiful strawberries ripen, and the chives, oregano, and lemon balm taste a little extra special.
Here is half of the power-couple that makes all this happen. The day I brought my camera out to photograph the farm, Steph and Tom seemed too hard at work to be bothered with a photograph. This photo is borrowed from the Growing Growers website, a great program that connects apprentices with host farms, holds monthly workshops, and inspires the local food movement to grow. Stephanie was both an apprentice of the program and is now a host farmer. Pretty nifty, huh?
What else can I say? Even more amazing than their dedication to growing organically and with environmentally-friendly, sustainable methods, even more incredible than their involvement in their community, Stephanie and Tom are just really great people. They are kind, generous, and infuse their farm with the same happy, inspiring energy.
Recent Comments