After Meryl LaTronica graduated from college, she realized that farming might be her calling.
“Farming felt like such a great combination of outdoor physical work and working with land and nature, but also doing work that is about serving and connecting people,” she said. “The people-plus-plants life has always felt like the most amazing balance, getting to work every day under the beautiful sky, but side by side with other people and for people.”
For more than 15 years now, she has worked as a production farmer and educator in the eastern part of the state, and she helped create and manage Powisset Farm in Dover for the Trustees of Reservations. Now, all her interests and skills are being put to work for Just Roots Farm.
Some of us may remember that when Davis Street School was demolished to make way for a new community center, the Pleasant Street Gardeners lost their garden plots. That was a heartbreaking consequence, but the gardeners were determined to get community garden space back. They petitioned the town for a new space; the ultimate decision was to site this new garden on farmland that had once held the Greenfield poor farm.
In 1849, the farm was owned by Justin Root, who sold it to the town for the poor farm. The name “Just Roots” was intended to be a nod to the history of the land, but was also a statement about what kind of farm it would become, with plans to make healthy food available to everyone, including those with low incomes.
I met LaTronica, director of farm operations, at the old red barn and saw the setup for the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Nowadays, they have 240 CSA members who get to choose how they want to fill their order. One hundred and forty of those shares are for low-income customers.
“We are always looking for creative ways that people can pay. They can use SNAP. We like to give people options,” she said.
I saw the equipment used for cleaning the vegetables. The most fascinating piece of equipment was the bicycle-powered root washer that cleaned beets, daikon radishes and other roots.
Two small greenhouses and a 95-foot long hoop house filled with ripening tomatoes stand near the 60 community gardens. Gardeners who don’t have garden space can get a 20-foot by 20-foot plot. The herbs, squash, beans and lots of flowers riotously fill their plots.
Beyond these structures are the seven acres of production fields. I was amazed to see that there were new plantings. LaTronica said the farm’s staff want to get the most food they can from the land.
“This is the last planting for the year. We like to get these seedlings in the ground by Sept. 1, but all the rain this summer upset our schedule,” she said. “Still, we keep planting greens, celery, lettuce, fall carrots and other vegetables that don’t need a long season. Maybe we’ll get a harvest, and maybe not, but we have to try. Right now we are harvesting about every other day.”
We walked past leeks, potatoes and sweet potatoes.
“I like growing sweet potatoes because it sends out such pretty flowering vines,” LaTronica said.
I wondered why so many rows were covered with white reemay, a very light row cover. She said this has been a terrible year for flea beetles on the brassica plants and the reemay is the answer.
My tour led us to a large area planted with buckwheat, a good cover crop that will be cut down. The virtue of buckwheat is that it very efficiently smothers weeds, and adds nutrients when tilled into the soil.
It was wonderful to see all this great production, but this farm is about more than the vegetables. It is about people.
“We go out to people when we hold our farmers market in the alley next to Green Fields Market, and at the Saturday farmers market,” LaTronica said. “But we also want to bring people to the farm. They come here to put together their CSA shares.”
For a small extra fee, CSA members can also make use of the pick-your-own garden. That garden includes a few vegetable varieties, an enormous number of trellised cherry tomato plants and flowers.
To give back to the community, Just Roots also donates food to the Center for Self Reliance and Stone Soup Café. Last year, LaTronica estimates that about 10,000 pounds of produce was donated.
I volunteer at Four Corners Elementary School, so I already knew about the School Snack Market. Every week, Just Roots brings vegetables to the school and the children taste what has been brought. Then they go to a research station, where they can give their opinions of the different vegetables. I can just imagine the importance these children feel as they make their report. Then they get to choose a healthy snack to take back to their classroom.
I asked LaTronica if she ever thought about the farm’s history as a poor farm.
“Oh yes, I do think about them,” she replied. “I can hear them whispering to me.”
I like to think those whispering spirits are rejoicing that the farm is poor no more.
Pat Leuchtman has been writing and gardening since 1980. Readers can leave comments at her website: www.commonweeder.com.