The Community Farm That Could What happens when the Town of East Hampton leases 42 acres to a few idealists? by Peter Garnham
My connection to EE CO Farm began in 2001, with a call from Lauren Jarrett inviting me to lunch with her and Annie Bliss. “We want to pick your brains about farming,” she said.
Jarrett (a successful graphic artist) and Bliss (a designer for the construction business she owns with her husband) had persuaded the Town of East Hampton to lease 42 acres of prime farmland to their new nonprofit organization, the East End Community Organic Farm. My initial impression was that while their intentions were sound, their lack of any farming experience made their project shaky. And when I went to see the land, late on a bitterly cold fall day, it was really hard—no, it was impossible—to reconcile that bare 42-acre field with their vision. Lesson One: Never underestimate two determined and resourceful women.
After the town bought the land there had been several competing ideas about how to use it, including a plan to build an athletic facility. Parents of bored and under-exercised kids, and some local athletic groups, strongly favored playing fields instead of farmland. But the town board, under Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, finally agreed that an organic community farm would be a more beneficial use.
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The Early Days Farming is not a business for the faint-hearted. You put out a lot of money and time to grow things that you hope to sell, preferably at a profit. The odds are not great. Weather, pests and diseases can wipe out your investment almost overnight. Markets are fickle, and there is plenty of competition. When I went to agricultural school in England, we were taught that successful farmers have a crop sold before they put seed in the ground.
It takes money to run a nonprofit, and EE CO Farm got some enthusiastic support from donors. Some gave thousands, some gave a few dollars, and it added up to enough to employ the first of several farm managers whose personalities did much to shape early, priorities. I found that one guy seemed to know quite a lot about boats, but little if anything about farm equipment. Another knew a great deal about farms, but had problems relating to women— particularly those who were basically in charge and paid his salary.
I wasn’t directly involved with the farm in those days, but I was very interested in the project and was willing to help, when asked. I remember thinking that funding must be very generous, because the manager, several laborers and anyone who happened to stop by were treated to daily deli lunches. All the top people had free cell phones, too, which at that time were pretty expensive gadgets.
The land was divided among four distinct but related uses. About five acres was occupied by 120 community gardens, each 20 by 20 feet, with a communal circle for meetings and picnics. Lauren and Annie marked this plan on the hard-packed soil with pegs and string while I held on to one end of a tape measure. Another five acres was given over to a compost operation, since a basic requirement of organic farming is lots of good compost. About 15 acres was set aside for the farm to grow its own crops for sale, to raise operating money. The rest was made available to small farmers, who could rent small parcels of land to grow commercial organic crops.
As it turned out, the farm’s tenants did better financially than the farm itself. These lone growers or mom-and-pop couples, which the farm called Enterprise Farmers, were experienced growers who knew their limitations, had their markets all lined up, and cut their costs to the bone.
Meanwhile, the farm paid a living wage to a manager and some farm labor, bought supplies and equipment, and struggled with the tricky economics of a farm stand, plus selling and delivering to stores and restaurants. A situation familiar to many farmers became clear: The farm lost money.
Financial See-Saw The next four or five years were a financial see-saw, as sales of farm produce improved but labor costs also increased. For a while, fiscal realities took a backseat to the founders’ fierce determination to see their dream realized. Donations from supporters kept the operation afloat, but debts began to accumulate. Some members of the farm’s board of directors realized that the business model needed some pretty drastic revisions for the farm to survive. Nevertheless, they loaned the farm money to keep it going, hoping that farm stand sales would improve.
With 20:20 hindsight, it is easy to be critical of decisions made in those early years. Perhaps the farm should not have bought that cheap tractor or employed that expensive consultant. Someone might have seen that payroll had to be reduced, even eliminated, and other expenses cut back hard. But like many small nonprofits it took a while for the bubbling optimism that got the whole thing started to subside, and for harsh reality to sink in. Perhaps the directors, none of whom were farmers, spent time wrestling with fundraising and personnel issues instead of making some hard decisions.
Eventually the situation was resolved, although not without some metaphorical blood and sweat, and real tears. The farm is now an all-volunteer organization with no employees and no commercial growing operation of its own. A few remaining debts are being paid off on a strict schedule by an iron-willed treasurer. There is a clear, strong light at the end of the tunnel.
Bouncing Back Except for the demise of the farm’s own commercial cropgrowing program, these difficulties did not interfere with the original vision of the farm. Having gone back to basics, the farm has found its point of balance.
Well over 100 gardeners now grow their own vegetables, fruit and flowers in the community gardens. Although the community gardens occupy less than one-eighth of the land, they are in many ways the core of the farm. They are all 20 by 20 feet, but I don’t think any two are the same. It’s amazing how many different ways a relatively small square can be divided and arranged! Some are casual cottage-garden sort of arrangements where everything sprawls and competes and rejoices in the heavily composted soil. Others are more formal, with mahogany-edged raised beds holding finely made uprights that support climbing plants. There are gardens arranged in geometric rectangles or squares, and others on a diagonal pattern. And that’s just the gardens—true diversity is most apparent when they all get planted!
The gardeners themselves are an amazingly diverse group as well. A very senior executive of a very large bank tends his 20-by- 20 with great care and a charming sense of wonder at the workings of nature. His neighbor is a laborer for a local landscaper, whose garden is a lush marvel focused on producing his family’s food. The owner of a film studio sends out a crew to prepare his garden so that he and his family can arrive later to plant it. An energetic senior tends two gardens, one for herself and one to grow food for a local pet-adoption group. A psychiatrist happily admits that her garden is her therapy. A rag-trade retiree grows wine grapes, next to a local government mechanic who grows tomatoes.
The 10 small farmers who grow organically on the land are almost as varied. Dale Haubrich and Bette Lacina produce literally tons of beautiful vegetables and fruit from a scant ¾-acre parcel. Their mini-farm is truly a model of intensive organic culture. Dense plantings leave just enough space to walk through, and as one crop finishes it is replaced with another. There is no wasted space anywhere.
At the other end of the scale is Balsam Farms, run by Alex Balsam and Ian Calder-Piedmonte. On their 17 acres there are thousands of row-feet of tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and other market crops. Large equipment, and a vast variety of implements, handle everything from basic plowing to laying drip irrigation and plastic mulch in one pass.
Patty Gentry, a chef at Ross School, tends two acres of carefully chosen greens, melons, roots and beans. Paul Hamilton juggles his carpentry job with his love of growing stuff on a bit more than an acre. My one-acre piece contains culinary herbs and a big hoophouse where I experiment with season-extending techniques.
And the farm continues to make hundreds of tons of compost each year, using leaves from the Town and Village highway departments, and stable waste from commercial haulers and individual stables. With the generous help of a local landscaper, Charlie Marder, huge windrows are turned repeatedly until the material breaks down into a fine humus. The farm’s gardeners and farmers get unlimited amounts of this brown gold.
Planting Community Financial realities forced the farm to abandon its own commercial crop production, so now the only vegetables and flowers grown by EE CO Farm itself are for the Food Pantry Garden. About two acres have been set aside to grow food for donation to the local food pantries. Seed is donated by major seed companies, the farm’s three master gardeners supervise the project and about 20 community gardeners volunteer to help with seeding, weeding and harvest. Extra labor is provided by community service workers assigned to the farm by the Town Justice Courts.
Scaling back the farming has in some ways freed the farm to express its true community role. School and other youth groups visit the farm throughout the growing season to see how fresh food is grown, and farm volunteers help schools develop their own school gardens. I find it quite amazing, and not in a good way, that children of families that have been in East Hampton for 300 years are surprised to see that carrots come out of the ground. I offered one kid a fresh-snapped stalk of asparagus. She said, “But it’s not cooked!” I persuaded her to taste it anyway. “Wow! Wow! That’s awesome!”
I think it has now been adequately proven that kids who “don’t like vegetables” have better taste than we give them credit for. What they don’t like is stale vegetables, grown on a factory farm 3,000 miles away. Give them really fresh local veggies and you see their eyes widen. “Hey, that’s good!” And if they are involved in actually growing the vegetables, they instantly become veggie fans and promoters.
Experts give free gardening workshops at the farm during the summer so gardeners can get personal guidance and advice. Community gardeners can get help whenever they need it, in person or by e-mail.
It took us a while to dispel fears that our soil, like that of most farms all over the country that once grew potatoes, contains traces of arsenic. Soil tests, and leaf tissue tests, showed that years of adding thousands of tons of good compost have removed any threat to health that may have existed.
The farm also does experiments that aim to help other local growers. We grow green vegetables and some root crops in the unheated plastic-covered hoophouses through most of the winter, which now will go to the food pantries. And this summer I will be grafting thousands of heirloom tomato plants for disease resistance and increased productivity, a project that is being funded by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.
EE CO Farm is now in its eighth year, and has become a real community resource with gardens, small farms, educational programs and experimental projects. As I walk the fields on an early summer morning, the sun rises to burn off the mist, a red-tailed hawk circles overhead and I know that this is a very special place indeed.
Peter Garnham is a contributing editor for Horticulture magazine and a children’s book editor. He is chairman of the EECO Farm board of directors.
