mollystotts
Recently, a friend of mine was being honored at a banquet held at Central Baptist Hospital, and I had the opportunity to tag along. The veggie spread set up in the back never looked so inviting as we filled our plates with broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. Devouring them, we each commented that we must be incredibly hungry, as these vegetables tasted better than any we had eaten before. Later, as I was flipping through the night’s program, one particular sentence caught my eye: “Central Baptist serves locally grown food.”
And it hit me — that was the real reason behind the tastiness of our snack.
Much of Lexington is aware of the Farmers Market, a place where local farmers can sell their goods, however there is much more to the market than a Saturday morning ritual for the health conscious. Behind the tables, you will find people who put their hearts and their hard work into offering you the best product their hands and the land can offer.
Behind the tables, is a veritable Narnia of fresh food and healthy choices.
Beyond the market, many of these farms offer shares in a program called community-supported agriculture, or CSA. CSA offers the opportunity for customers to buy directly from a farm by purchasing shares in a “season,” which can last longer than six months. Whatever the farmer grows that season will be put together on a weekly basis and then either delivered or set aside for pick up by the customer. These bundles of food are not always the same; the ingredients can vary week to week, but the amount is plentiful and the items are always fresh.
CSA sounds simple, and the practice of it, for the customer, is easy. Just pay for the items upfront and enjoy quality food all season long. However, as I discovered from visiting various area CSA farms, the work on their side is long, difficult and often hot. On the other hand, each and every farmer I spoke with, while acknowledging the difficulties and threats facing CSA farms, seemed more concerned with a singular passion than with anything negative. That passion is more of an affection, really — for the land they work and what it can produce.
My Father’s Garden is a three-acre farm in Winchester, Ky. If you had to guess where you’d find this farm, which supports several families, you’d probably be wrong. Right in downtown Winchester on Rowland Avenue — in a neighborhood, no less — is a surprising “patch of heaven,” as farmer Molly Stotts declares.
What I found at My Father’s Garden, I found at every farm I observed. There is a knowledge deeper than any you’d find at a chain grocery store of the product, because the product isn’t just any product, it’s an egg from a hen that Stotts can trace back a generation or two. It’s wool from orphan sheep that Stotts and her family raised. It’s a love of farming handed down from her father, she tells me, as she scoops up “Paddy,” one of the farm’s chickens.
Not only are these farmers attached to their products because of a love for what they do, there is often an underlying reason, a spark that gets them interested in the idea of locally grown, often organic, food. That was the start for Stotts’ husband, Craig, and his bees. Craig Stotts had arthritis so badly that it hurt for him to shake anyone’s hand. He began keeping bees and after accidentally getting stung a few times, he noticed that the venom worked to cure his arthritis. Now he works in the farm without much trouble at all.
It was a similar case with the Quigley family of Lexington. They noticed that their dogs, Pete and Annie, were suffering from several health issues. Pete had been born deaf and even developed cancer. This concerned the family, who decided to keep their dogs inside on days when their neighbors sprayed their lawns. When the dogs began to improve, the Quigleys wondered how much of their environment and eating habits had taken a toll on them as well. Soon, they bought land on Cedar Creek Lane and began their CSA farm, For Pete’s Sake. For Angie Quigley, it was “coming back to [her] roots,” she said. For Pete, now a cancer survivor, it meant a bigger playground where he can, and does, charm all of the patrons.
Many of the threats facing CSA farms, such as government agencies and commercial corporations or lack of community involvement, are things that these farmers feel can be dealt with through education. These farmers send out newsletters, recipes and even offer classes in an effort to combat these foes.
Elmwood Stock Farm goes to great lengths to ensure that not only customers are educated, but other farms as well, perpetuating the community aspect. The idea of helping someone in possible competition with your business is an idea lost on much of today’s corporate world, but farmer Mac Stone states that Elmwood’s only competition is in “producing a good crop for the customer, not with other farms.” He and his wife, Ann, along with her parents, Cecil and Kay, and brother, John, and his family, not only seek the best way to grow a crop, but also to only offer the best of that harvest to customers. They care this much about their product because they care so much about their customer.
“If you can grow stuff without pesticide, why not?” Mac Stone said. “Why not strive for that? Organic poultry feed is more than two times as expensive as commercial, but you have to just draw the line and go for it.”
Dove’s Landing Farm, a CSA in Versailles, Ky., also takes part in the education effort and offers a summer camp to children ages 6 to 14 in order to teach the younger generation what the land has to offer. Stotts shares in this sentiment and is “so pumped for the younger generation” as she believes they will be the ones to strengthen what she and fellow CSA farmers are working to build.
There is nothing but optimism to be found from these farmers — not a blind, unaware optimism, but a motivated, equipped perspective. They have seen what hard work can do and are no strangers to standing brave against rough weather. “if you love the land, it just works,” said Carrie Polk of Dove’s Landing. And who wouldn’t want to eat a potato taken from dirt so lovingly worked?