Do you ever feel like your life is so varied and full that it's hard to believe it's all in one lifetime? That's how I feel when I sit down and think about who I am and where I've been! This article begins yet another chapter. Hi! My name is Wendy Martin, and I'd like to tell you about some homestead adventures and my organic CSA farm.
I grew up on the outskirts of suburbia. We had a large garden and I raised chickens, ducks and rabbits. Then, I went off to college to study forestry and food science. For awhile, I was a caretaker for a castle. Then after less then 2 years of working in corporate America, inventing food, I moved to Vermont. For more then a year I travelled around the state in my VW bug ... stopping at farms to work a while, then moving on. For six years I settled into a cabin near the Green Mountian National Forest in southern Vermont. There, I raised chickens for eggs and meat, and had a huge garden in a neighbor's field and got real good at finding and preserving wild foods, and gleaning farms after harvest.
It was at that cabin where my daughter, Heather, was born. When she was two, we moved to the campus of Goddard College and became pioneers in the Single Parent Program that had just begun. After a year of dorm life, we moved to a country house and again got chickens and lived a life closer to the land. I had to drop out of school for a semester because of illness, but I kept going and got my degree. For my senior college project, I put together the Good Food Cookbook that was published by Head Start for kids and parents to learn cooking together. Then, I became homeless. My landlord wanted his house back.
What a strange time that was! I was living on an island in a tent, canoeing to my car each day, putting the canoe on the car and going to work. I didn't want anyone to know. It was then that I was chosen to represent Head Start from Vermont at a national conference and flew to Salt Lake City, Utah. I went from my tent to an all-expenses paid trip for a week at a fancy hotel, meals and airfare included. Soon after that, I met someone who lived in an underground house on 10 acres and I moved in. At first I rented, then I bought half, and now I own the farm. It's amazing how much we've been through!
Our underground house was built from ideas in the $50 and Up Underground House Book by Mike Oehler. At first it was only 14x28 ft. - all one room, with no bathroom or kitchen or running water or electricity. Little by little we fixed it up, adding a room for Heather, a bathroom with composting toilet, an 8x8 ft. root cellar, a 12x48 ft. solar greenhouse, and this year, a workshop.
I was too sick to work at a "regular" job, so I started Peace and Carrots CSA. This allowed me to work hardest in the spring, when I felt best, and slow down for the fall and winter, when I felt worst. I could work the hours I chose and rest whenever I needed to. For nine years we did the CSA. Then, in the spring of 1998, I got very sick, my apprentices quit and my 14 year old daughter came up missing. This was not good! Six weeks later, we found out Heather had been hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in California by herself. She pled temporary insanity and came home.
I was having a hard time physically and Heather wanted more free time in the summer, so we called it quits in October when the last squash was delivered. We've given the bottom half of our garden to a very nice, energentic young woman who will be taking over the CSA. We kept the top half of the garden for us. Now we want to concentrate on growing and preserving our own food, growing herbs and flowers for edible and medicinal uses and we are both jumping into writing as a new livlihood - Heather as a travel writer and me writing about homesteading, gardening and cooking. Next year we will be opening the Peace and Carrots Homestead Learning Center. Here we will teach all sorts of homesteading skills like organic gardening and farming, alternative building, herbal preparations, food preservation and storage, rope-making, simple boat building, survival, etc.
Over the next year in Homestead Connection I will write about home business, growing and using herbs, seed saving, composting, organic gardening and home food preservation. If you have any questions or comments, write to Wendy Martin at PO Box 69, Calais, VT 05648 or send an e-mail to IM4Farms@AOL.com
Peace and Carrots Farm is a CSA...that stands for community supported agriculture. This was our ninth season. In late winter/early spring we start advertising for the up-coming season. Families can get half, whole or extra-large shares for the season. They send in their money in a lump sum or with a pre-arranged payment plan. The idea is to have enough capital for the farmer to purchase seeds, fertilizers and other supplies as needed with money from the shareholders.
At our place, Heather and I start seeds in our solar greenhouse that is
attatched to our underground house. These seedling flats get moved out to cold frames and the garden as the season progresses. We have two acres of raised beds and an orchard. The beds are tilled, limed and manured in spring or fall or both. We plant, weed, harvest and deliver at the appropriate times. We generally
deliver May to October...and each week that includes whatever is ready to harvest, divided by the number of shareholders for that day.
When it comes to risks,we've had droughts and this year was 21'' of rainfall above average. One year we had a frost every two or three weeks all summer. Growing in well-mulched raised beds keeps all these things from being a problem. I plant many varieties of each vegetable...like dozens of kinds of tomatoes and peppers and peas and carrots. I have a seed addiction :-) This way I CAN order everything I like in all the catalogs...in the name of diversity and crop insurance. Each season is unique. You never know what's going to do best. I also replant most crops to have successions so there are always more vegies growing up. Like lettuce....I plant out transplants of loose and head lettuces early in the spring, then seed loose leaf spring, summer and fall lettuces plus Romaines and endives. The first couple of weeks of mature iceberg lettuces were beautiful, but after that, the hearts rotted out and we delivered mesclun mix....which I always top with a sprinkling of nasturtium blossoms and johnny jump-ups or calendula. The shareholders are risking their money right along with me. They also benefit from surpluses for no extra money. It's theoretically possible for a hail storm or bug infestation to wipe out a lot,
but even so, there are always plenty of things that can and will survive. I grow every kind of vegetable that will or might survive in Vermont....also herbs and flowers.
CSA's are good because farmers and consumers have a relationship. The families receiving food know how and where their food is grown. The farmer has a home for everything that is picked...no sitting around in all sorts of weather at the farmer's market. Both farmers and consumers share the risks of crop production and the bounties of harvest. Some years are heavy on one item and lean on another...it all depends on the season's weather, bugs, etc. The biggest complaint we get is that we are too generous.
I never did the farm as a total money-making enterprise. The purpose was to give me a "right livelihood"...something I could be proud of doing with my life. I also had very little money, and this was a good way to get working capital each spring and build up my homestead in the process. This worked :-) I felt like I was useful and I took a couple acres of scrubby trees and brush and turned it into a thriving homestead. We now have a half acre orchard, herb beds, flower beds, perennials such as Jerusalem artichokes, comfrey, asparagus, horseradish, rhubarb, etc. There are 3 kinds of raspberry patches, blueberries, strawberries, elderberries, rosehips, etc. The field is covered in raised beds and various sheds full of tools...all thanks to the CSA. Things I wanted to purchase anyway could be written off as business expenses. Neither Heather or I ever made wages for all our work....but we do have the satisfaction of a job well done and lots of food in our freezers and root cellar and fresh stuff all season. Believe it or not, after all this, Heather still wants to be a homesteader in her own right :-)
So, I highly recommend CSA's. If you are strong, ambitious and have enough customers, you can undoubtedly make some good money. I also advise starting small and building up your skills and tools as you go. Folks who rush into this seem to spend unwisely and go broke quicker.
Even though it will never be featured in Better Homes and Gardens, this is a place that sprang from our own hearts and heads and hands. I think we homesteaders are about as lucky as you can get :-) Wendy in VT
