ValleyFood&Farm

Youth Market Day lets children sell what they grow and make, at the Bellows Falls (VT) Farmers’ Market. Kids of all ages get to explore their entrepreneurial side and sell homemade crafts, food, and homegrown products such as vegetables or eggs.

In 2008 a dozen children from New Hampshire and Vermont sold vegetables, brownies and muffins, lemonade, greeting cards, eggs, potholders, bracelets, herbal salve and jewelry. The children were enthusiastic and excited to showcase their talent to a willing clientele.

The youth market is a great way for a farmers’ market to participate positively in the local community. This special day gives them some ownership of the market they already love to attend. Further, since the children’s family members now certainly come to market, Youth Market Day draws in new people that might never have been to the market before.

Market managers who are interested in setting up a Youth Market Day might consider contacting their local NOFA-Vermont representative for help (www.nofavt.org).

by Abigail Healey, Bellows Falls Farmers’ Market Manager

In 2005, a group of us local food "activists" in Chelsea (we'd launched the Vermont FEED Program in the public school) decided to hold a harvest festival in support of local food networks. The trouble was, back then not many people knew what a local food network was, or why it was important. Fortunately, we came up with three ideas that helped get the message across to residents of Chelsea.

The first was to hold the festival on the Chelsea Green in conjunction with the already popular Chelsea Farmers' Market. The second was to offer a free supper in Chelsea Town Hall, with dishes prepared from fresh, local ingredients. Most of these were purchased from local farms in the area. We raised money for this, so we could buy from farmers, not ask them to subsidize us.

The third idea really kick-started us. We asked well-known author Bill McKibben to speak at the Town Hall supper on the importance of eating locally. Bill had just finished an experiment of eating for a year within the Champlain Valley watershed, and had written about it in his newest book. He delivered a truly inspiring message that galvanized the several hundred people packed into the Chelsea Town Hall.

That single day established the Chelsea Harvest Festival as an annual event. In years since, we've had other speakers (including a panel of local farmers who were wonderfully articulate about the future of farming), expanded our roster of activities, and helped a lot of folks understand what the local food thing is all about. It's been a great combination of family-friendly fun and education.

On the other hand, it's a lot of work pulling this off. Last year it rained which cut the crowd down and put a damper on the outdoor activities. But hey, that's what life is like--easy some days, tough others. Building a local food network is a long term effort, and the Chelsea Harvest Festival is part of that effort. As far as we're concerned, it's here to stay.

by Dan Breslaw

(For more information, contact Heidi Chapman, 802-685-3280; or Dan Breslaw, 802-439-5324)

D Acres of NH Organic Farm & Educational Homestead provides a model of expanding a family farm into a community service organization. Our goal is to share experiences, build community, and develop the skills of small-scale organic farming in an effort to propagate a culture that is sustainable. Onsite activities include root cellaring, alternative construction, no-till gardens, treehouses, forestry with oxen, blacksmithing, woodworking, and renewable energy systems. Staff, interns and residents unite with the public through food events, hands-on workshops, themed fairs, tours, localization, invigoration, and educational outreach to local schools.

D Acres continues to host four food festivities per month that highlight our seasonal harvest. Full Moon potlucks, First Friday Pizza & A Movie, First Sunday Breakfast and Third Saturday Soup are all opportunities to kindle community, eat all-you-should, and spend some time on the farm. The First Sunday Farm Feast Breakfasts are followed by a tour and open house.

In addition to our regular workshop calendar that offers instruction in woodworking, gardening, food preparation and preservation, forestry and construction, D Acres’ 2009 outreach focus is Traditional Arts & Ecology. Onsite forest-to-retail woodworking, blacksmithing, printmaking, and fiber artists will be augmented by local practitioners of crafts including basketry, tinsmithing, broom-making, glass work, and ceramics. Local artists will provide hands-on workshops throughout 2009 to demonstrate Sustain Ability in our production of necessary crafts from local resources. On September 12 -13, our workshop series will culminate in a two day Traditional Arts Fair that will include demonstrations, workshops, performances, networking and professional development workshops, as well as culinary art consumption.

D Acres of NH
Organic Farm & Educational Homestead
218 Streeter Woods Road
Dorchester, NH 03266
(603) 786-2366
www.dacres.org
info@dacres.org
D Acres of NH is a non-profit, farm based service organization that promotes SustainAbility through practice, experimentation, workshops, tours, and community outreach.

If it’s your job to plan the meeting, and you want the food to come from local farms, how do you start?

First, plan the menu. Be flexible in what to serve: it’s best to offer food available in the current season. (Vital Communities staff can help with this.

For example, summer is of course a great time for berries – just rinse them and put them in a large bowl or cups, like we do at Valley Food & Farm meetings. Apples and cheese are best for simple meetings in the fall.

And remember that lots of great food is available year-round, so winter meetings can show your commitment to local farms, too. Simple meetings include cheeses, of course, and cider or apples or pears.

Do you have a group of volunteers available to cook? That can make the whole experience much richer. For example, if you were at last spring’s Ottauquechee Natural Resource Conservation District (ONRCD) meeting, you would have enjoyed their wild foods theme, featuring ramps, fiddleheads, asparagus, and specialty grilled Vermont cheese sandwiches. And in South Strafford, quarterly local foods meals are cooked by community volunteers and paired with related entertainment: like three versions of ratatouille for dinner, and the movie of the same name played afterward.

When planning the menu, try to have a variety of colors and textures, and decide if you want to offer both vegetarian dishes and meat dishes.

Next, figure out who will cook the food. Simple snacks just require cutting up, but for more complex meals, ask members of your organization, a church group, localvores, food coops, restaurants, chefs, or caterers to cook the food. Some stores/delis offer already-made foods with local ingredients, like Upper Valley Food Co-op’s cornbread, made with Vermont cornmeal. Be sure all recipes have been tested beforehand.

When buying the food, you may be able to get it directly from the farm, but in the off-season it will probably be easier to buy from a local coop or grocer. While some groups ask farmers for food donations, please consider the irony of groups showing their commitment to the success of farms in this region, by asking farmers to give away their product. Most groups stick to a clear “pay the farmers” rule, graciously accepting donations only if the farmer offers and insists.

To emphasize the source of local foods, you can display the products’ packaging, or even make a small sign. When Chittenden hosted the Business After Hours for the local chamber of commerce, all the local cheeses were labeled and that became part of the guests’ conversation. If it’s a sit-down meal, you can list recipes and who grew the food on a commemorative menu card.

Some community members experienced with local foods meals for meetings: Debbie Diegoli, Vital Communities, 802-291-9100 x112; Linda Schneider, ONRCD, 802-295-7942 x11; Sandy Clavelle, Chittenden ; Joey Hawkins, South Strafford.

Ironically, in our rural state it is often hard to connect Vermonters in need with fresh, local, produce. So last spring Vermont’s WCAX-TV partnered with the Vermont Foodbank and the Vermont Agency of Agriculture to launch a public service campaign that encouraged home gardeners to plant an extra row of vegetables for their local food shelves.

Through on-air public service announcements, WCAX weathercaster Sharon Meyer and Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Anson Tebbetts shared the importance of the “Grow an Xtra Row” campaign and encouraged all Vermonters to donate the bounty of their gardens. With news stories, blog entries on wcax.com, special events, posters and the distribution of free seed packets, “Grow an Xtra Row” quickly found an enthusiastic audience.

In a year when many Vermonters faced the realities of challenging economic times, "Grow an Xtra Row" inspired local churches, farms, and private citizens to expand their gardens, sometimes in a big way. One youth group working in conjunction with Barber Farm in Jericho harvested thousands of pounds of potatoes for the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf.

In 2009, "Grow an Xtra Row" will return and be even bigger and better. Promotional seed packets will be donated by High Mowing Organic Seeds in Wolcott, Vermont. These packets will be distributed throughout the state through sponsor partners and the Agency of Agriculture, allowing even more folks to "Grow an Xtra Row."

And with the help of Vermont gardening experts, we’ll be able to provide even more information, goodwill, and best of all healthy produce to Vermonters in need.

To learn more about "Grow an Xtra Row" visit wcax.com and www.vermontagriculture.com.

"Lawns use more equipment, labor, fuel, and agricultural toxins than industrial farming, making lawns the largest agricultural sector in the United States." -Food Not Lawns by H.C. Flores

There's a growing interest in putting lawns to more productive use. In my downtown Lebanon neighborhood, with very little space between houses, Doreen Schweizer has planted several fruit trees in a narrow strip of land between her house and driveway. There's a 4-in-one apple tree (four varieties of apple grafted onto one tree), a 3-in-one pear tree, and a Stanley (self-pollinating) plum.

In spring, these trees offer their blossoms and scent, in summer their much appreciated shade, and in early fall, an abundance of fruit, which often becomes gifts of canned spiced pears, plums and applesauce for family and friends. A curving path of stone leads under an arbor to a comfortable bench and table tucked under the trees . . . a perfect little hideaway. That narrow strip of land is also home to a good-sized patch of asparagus that (lucky me!) is often ready just in time for my birthday. Out back, in a small spot of sunny land, she grows tomatoes, beans, zucchini, peppers, chard, kale, thyme and mint . . . and a hardy peach espaliered against the back fence. (This summer saw the first harvest of 5 peaches.) The remaining yard is filled with flowers that last all season, from the first grape hyacinths and crocuses, to the black-eyed-susans and sunflowers (goldfinch heaven!) that last through fall . . . a little Garden of Eatin' in downtown Lebanon.

By Pat McGovern

The Tour de Taste: A Pedaling Picnic was developed to showcase the wonders of cycling and staying active and healthy in the Upper Valley while making strong connections to the wonderful local foods and farms in our region. The event started in 2007 and is now entering its third year. The 3rd Annual Tour de Taste will take place on Sunday, September 13, 2009.

The event is described as “the only bike ride where you actually gain weight” as you ride along a variety of possible loops (6 miles, 12 miles, 16 miles, or a combination) throughout Fairlee and Thetford, VT and Lyme and Orford, NH. In past years we have had as many as 10 food stops along the way that showcase locally grown fruits and vegetables as well as locally made foods.

The Tour continues to grow. In 2007, almost 200 cyclists registered for the event. In 2008, the number was 350. For 2009 we hope to break 400 people. We continue to make improvements to the routes, add a greater variety of local foods and vendors, and keep the riders safety as the number one priority. It’s wonderful to see so many smiling faces as children, friends and family munch their way from stop to stop. Colorful and tasty treats await their visit - roasted red pepper and squash soup, corn on the cob and tabouli to name a few.

The Tour is open to everyone and participants must pre-register on-line at our website. Trails Alliance members receive a discount. Registration opens summer 2009. All proceeds from the event go to support the Upper Valley Trails Alliance.

Tour de Taste is brought to you by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance

For info please contact:
John Taylor, Trail Programs Director
Upper Valley Trails Alliance
PO Box 1215
Norwich, VT 05055
(802) 649-9075
John.taylor@uvtrails.org
www.uvtrails.org

There is something magical about going outside in March and retrieving last fall’s harvest. It has minimal impact on the wallet and environment, and one can choose varieties by taste rather than settle for store bought varieties that ship well. A trip to Newfoundland, Canada inspired our root cellar interest. At one bed & breakfast, we toured a root cellar used for over 100 years. After nine months of cold storage, the potatoes were just as firm as the day they were put in. We were sold! We bought a piece of plastic culvert (four feet in diameter by five feet long) from a construction site.

We buried the culvert on end in a gradually sloping hillside near our house and a ladder was added for access. In September, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and beets were stored and their quality maintained throughout the winter. That summer, we added a drainage pipe to take care of standing water after heavy spring rains and constructed a small building over the top to eliminate the need for snow removal. On June 29, 2008, the Hannah Grimes Localvores sponsored a root cellar workshop at our home. Seven folks came to the Sunday afternoon workshop. A carrot cake (made out of carrots from our root cellar, of course!) was served to round out the workshop. There are now at least two new root cellars in the area. We recommend the book Root Cellaring by Mike and Nancy Bubel and are happy to answer questions: 603-399-7708.

By Jeff & Dottie Smith, Hannah Grimes Localvores