News / raw tonic

The Downtown Pittsfield Farmer's Market is off to it's best season yet on the First Street Common. The new location, with plenty of parking right across the street and ample picnic and play space- including a splash park for children of all ages, isn't the only big upgrade this season. The exciting and much anticipated Double Value Program begins Saturday July 4^th . The DVP will allow shoppers to double their SNAP, WIC and Senior farmers market benefits. Basically, when you shop at the market for food using your SNAP/WIC benefits you can take home twice as much of the local harvest. How awesome is that?!

“We want everyone in our community, regardless of income, to have access to quality, nutritious food,” said market manager Jess Conzo in the 2014 Farmer's Market Report. She continued, “The Downtown Pittsfield Farmers Market is dedicated to providing access to fresh, local, affordable food to low income and under-served residents. The market has the potential to serve more low-income residents than any other farmers market in the Berkshires, because of its location. Pittsfield is the largest community in the Berkshires with a population of 45,000. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) 2011 Low/Mod Income Summary Data, 52.4% of Pittsfield’s entire population is considered to be low-income.” The Double Value Program seems like a very effective way to serve our community and fulfill the mission of the market.

Another market initiative, the Farm-to-table Food Drive, is a collaboration with the Unitarian Universalist Church in Pittsfield. Over the course of the 2014 season the Downtown Farmer's Market donated between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds of fresh, local food to local shelters and food pantries. The beets, kale, lettuce, corn, carrots, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, coffee, bread and more are a big change from the non-perishables that these organizations typically receive. You can support these programs that directly benefit our community simply by coming to the market and enjoying all that it has to offer, every Saturday from 9 am til 1 pm through October. Want to do more? Get your tickets for the Blue Moon Rooftop Party, a benefit for the market on July 31^st. More information about the benefit party is available online at www.farmersmarketpittsfield.org under special events. 

"Farmers markets have become a critical ingredient in local economies, food systems and communities. Not only are they an economic boost to local farms and businesses, they can also strengthen community ties and promote healthy eating." - USDA That statement really rings true for me- the Downtown Market is so much more than a place to stock up on weekly staples, there are also chef demos, workshops and live music, it is the perfect Saturday morning family activity! Last Saturday I saw a basket of picnic blankets to borrow for a spontaneous picnic, a free lending library and yes, there's always plenty of good, strong coffee, hot or cold- I'll see you at the market!

In the town of Washington, Massachusetts where my brother Brain and I grew up there are a lot of very old apple trees.   On my grandparents old property, an 1800's farm house is surrounded by a handful of century old apple trees.  Two trees, side by side near the road, produce huge pink and red apples- it only takes a few to make a whole pie!  I've never seen apples like these anywhere else.  Back in 2009 we picked them to make hard cider as well as 5 gallons of cider vinegar, which we used to make a big batch of Fire Cider for ourselves!

I love these trees and wanted to plant more of them so our whole family can continue to enjoy them.  The way to grow more of the same variety of apple tree is to graft clippings from the tree onto root stock.  So that's what we did!

We ordered root stock and took some clippings from the apple tree in early March, while the tree was still dormant. The clippings, also knows as scions, hung out in our snow bank until it melted and then we kept them cool in our refrigerator. The root stock arrived on Monday and we grafted and planted six new trees yesterday.

I trimmed the scions so there were at least 3 buds on each.  I also measured to make sure the diameter would match up with the root stock.

Our six roots for our six new apple trees.  Now we need to match up scions and roots and bind them together.

Dana finds the scion to match the root stock and then cuts each end so they will fit together. 

I wrapped each tree with a rubber band at the graft to keep it stable and then coated it with a healthy layer of bees wax.

We planted six little apple trees yesterday.  They'll get lots of water every day for the next two weeks, let's hope they are thriving by then!  

Re-Blogged from Windy Ridge Farm by Julia Lemieux

Exciting things are afoot on the farm for the 2015 growing season!  The farm applied and was accepted last year into a matching enterprise grant program.  This grant is providing half of the funding for our new propagation house which is being constructed this coming summer.  In addition to the grant, this program involved a large amount of technical assistance and business planning.  During the planning process, the idea came about of going for organic certification.

The dance of being an organic practices farm that is not certified has been an interesting one for the past five seasons.  Like many other farmers who are not certified, we spun a myriad of terms to avoid using the word organic in our marketing and signage. 

‘Sustainable’ was often our word of choice.  It was great at the farmer’s market when customers inquired about whether or not we were organic and we could respond with, “We’re not certified, but we follow organic practices.”  At that the point the customer knew us and we formed relationships based on their trust that we were farming with integrity.

From an ecological stand point, we are entering into a very scary time for the food chain.  Honey bees, Monarch Butterflies and various song birds are literally the canary in the cage for a large scale experiment in the rampant use of pesticides in the agriculture industry.  We’ve known from day one that our farm is a form of resistance against massive agribusinesses and the chemicals they support.  At the same time, the rebels in us also balked at the idea of shelling out the money and time involved in applying for organic certification.  It seemed to us it was just another agency trying to make money off of our already meager farm earnings.

What became apparent during the grant business planning process was that as the farm grows over the next five years, we may not have the luxury of meeting and chatting with every single customer that wants to do business with us.  Without that face to face interaction the consumer has no way of distinguishing between our product, which is produced organically and another farm’s product which they call sustainable, when in fact it could be sprayed with who knows what and grown using chemical fertilizers that are ending up in our waterways and oceans.  We’ve been sensitive to the term ‘greenwashing’ since day one.  It hurts to watch conventional farmers sell plants and produce to consumers and know that the customer is assuming it is organic and ethically grown because they are at a farmer’s market or the product is local.  This is why we always encourage customers to ASK their farmer and not assume they are purchasing an organic product.

So what were we to do as a small farm with limited resources?  We couldn’t follow our plants and produce around with a bull horn yelling, “We don’t spray!” to every customer that comes into contact with our products, especially as our business grew.  We also began to find that many of our potential wholesale customers could not purchase our organic produce for their organic products because we did not carry certification.  So, we took the leap and dove into the long process of applying with Baystate Organic Certifiers.

The application process in itself is daunting to attempt as a small farmer who already wears so many hats in the business.  The only time of year when there is time to go through the process is the dead of winter.  The huge road block with this is that it is also the time of year when the farm has no income AND when many of the material expenses are incurred.

Enter team Fire Cider.  This local company has taken their spin on a traditional tonic and turned it into a great example of a successful and ethically run business in our area.  When Fire Cider was founded, they received community support from other businesses and they wanted to be able to extend this gesture to the next generation of sustainably minded entrepreneurs.  They chose to assist a farmer with certification costs because they want to be able to source more ingredients for their product from local farms and not many in our area have organic certification.  They also recognize that the food system needs to be fixed and consumers need to know that the products they consume (whether it’s a tonic or a turnip) is clean, safe and actually good for them. Coincidentally,  the busiest time of year for Fire Cider Sales, a tonic that supports the immune system, is cold and flu season, the dead of winter.  It was a perfect match.

Shortly after writing the painful check to our organic certifying agency, Fire Cider approached the farm about assisting with our certification costs.  A program already exists which reimburses farmers up to 75% of the cost of certification, but it doesn’t happen until October.  Fire Cider provided us with a loan for the 75% we will be reimbursed for and a donation to cover the remaining 25% of our expenses.

It was surprising for us to hear the great news that someone wanted to help us cover our certification costs, but we really shouldn’t be surprised after doing business in the Pittsfield area these past 5 years.  Through all of it’s struggles, this community is emerging as a resilient and innovative area with a strong pulse in the sustainable food and business movement.  We’re excited to announce that we are now certified with Baystate Certifiers as an ORGANIC producer.  Thanks so much to everyone over at Team Fire Cider for lending a hand at just the right moment, we can’t wait to get growing in 2015!