Sweet Land Farm - Trumansberg NY

"Farmers need a place to farm and make a viable living. Farmland needs to be enriched and nurtured so that it can yield bountiful harvests year after year. Members need a dependable source of vibrant, richly grown food. All of these needs must be kept in balance. Sweet Land Farm is a CSA-only farm, so everything that we grow is for you, the shareholders. This makes the above-mentioned balance nicely transparent"

(- SLF member's handbook)

We were lucky enough to not only volunteer at Sweet Land Farm but also stay on the property with our friend, Mahra.

This farm covers 34 acres - a third of which is used for growing annual vegetables, about an acre for perennials and the rest under cover crops. Currently the farm offers 350 summer shares and 150 winter shares. That's a lot of food for a relatively young farm.

Evangeline and Paul use a combination of elements to get their produce to the people. First of all, the members come to the farm. They are supplied with a bag (which they must bring each time) with which they can fill with whatever they choose from selected crops. This means the members, if they choose, could take a whole bag of chard or potatoes etc. or they can choose to diversify. There was a great selection when we visited, considering how early it is in the season. As well as the one-bag selection, members are able to pick from an extras section which is unlimited, though there are particular guidelines around this section (e.g. you can take as much as you can eat, but not as much as you want to share with others or preserve). 

On top of this there is also a u-pick list each week. These are the crops that you can harvest yourself and contain both unlimited and limited items. The week that we visited the u-pick list included sugarsnap peas and strawberries as well as unlimited blue cornflowers. Pretty dreamy. The u-pick element is great for a number of reasons. It gets people out into the farm and literally in touch with their food and how it is grown. It's a productive education for adults and children alike. It also transfers responsibility from the farmers to the members in harvesting those relatively time consuming crops and I think, affords those harvests the adequate time for real pleasure – in the picking and the tasting. Have you ever smelled a field of ripe strawberries in the summertime? It is worthy of some meditation.

The quantity of each crop put out for distribution is recorded which allows the farmers to track demands and trends of what's proving popular or not, and informs their harvest for the next week and their planning for the future. They 'tally so the customer doesn't have to'.  


During distribution days SLF also hosts other CSA's including Wide Awake Bakery ('best bread ever' - Colin), Crooked Carrot Community Supported Kitchen ( 'best kohl rhabi pickle ever' - Bridget), The Piggery (we tried their pulled pork sandwich - yep, best ever) and more. Each of these deserve their own post, which I'll hopefully get to.  
There is also an egg share on offer which includes a dozen eggs per week (you can buy as many shares as you need). The flock is rotated over fresh pasture every week or two - read more about it here.

SLF also offers a winter CSA share (impressive, considering the climate) and allows them to offer a niche product to the community. They are able to provide a good range of crops throughout both seasons due to effective root storage and the use of passive solar tunnels to lengthen the season for greens.

This kind of smart system design is based on years of shared experience in farming and particularly in CSA schemes. Evangeline and Paul are incredibly experienced and this wisdom permeates design and process. From the few hours we spent volunteering we could see the farm just runs well. The equipment is appropriate, the relationships between elements are considered and accomodated, even the feng shui of the distribution shed is great. And, from all accounts, the workers are very happy. This, I'm sure, is in part due to the commitment to tea breaks which seem to always include freshly baked treats and percolated tea or coffee. It is the basic things that make all the difference.

Paul, Colin and Evangeline - tea break

We felt incredibly welcomed by all of the team at SLF and were especially grateful for the time that Evangeline and Paul took to answer our many questions and share their hard-earned wisdom. My head was buzzing and after the information over-stimulation wore off I was left with a resounding impression of optimism, hard-work and courage. These guys have really done it themselves, building not only a home and a business but a multifaceted community asset. I remember looking across the fields at kids picking peas, at new young farmers working together and at community members getting excited about the latest harvest of harukei turnip and thinking, this really is something. It's definitely set a bench mark for the way I imagine a CSA of this scale. Thanks, ya'll.

As an aside, couple of pieces of equipment really caught my eye at this farm , so here are two odes to technology...

Ode to the Cool Bot

The Cool Bot is one of the cheapest and efficient ways to (electrically) power your cool room. The Cool Bot is a $300 'brain' that allows you to use a typical air conditioner in a cool room – as opposed to a fan based system that will be simultaneously generating heat (by the spinning fans) whilst trying to cool the air.

Without the Cool Bot an air conditioning unit would eventually freeze if you try to get the temperature below 60 degrees (f). The CB contains a thermostat controlled element that keeps the unit from freezing. The Cool Bot also bypasses the switch that an air con unit has to stop it from trying to cool below 60.  Evangeline and Paul have had great success with this unit – they have used it for 5 years straight without a hitch. So cool. You can read more about it here.

The Beauteous Barrel Washer

Here is another great design (which we saw in other farms in the area). 'Tis the Barrel Washer.

Paul said he saw this type of machine being used in an Amish farm to great effect and knew it was a priority on the capital investment shopping list.

It's used to quickly wash quantities of all kinds of root crops while rolling them along to eventually fall into the packing tub. Here it is in action. It's a kind of big investment but, from all accounts, certainly pays off.