Farm history and cycles

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Our farm has a rich history as part of the East Farms section of Westfield, originally settled by the Root Family, (thus the name of our street – Root Road). We can’t wait to research the farm’s history, which dates back to the 1840’s, during our winter break. Did you know that Westfield started out as a purely Agricultural community? Amazing how few farms are left in Westfield considering that it was first settled because of its rich agricultural soils. For its’ next 150 years almost the entire town was devoted to farming! Agriculture is an essential part of Westfield’s heritage that shouldn’t be lost, and we consider keeping that history alive part of the farm’s mission. Some projects we are thinking about are to get the farm and barns historically registered and another is to get East Farms recognized as a unique and special agricultural part of Westfield.

Historical research is hard to pursue during the growing season. There’s just so much to do when the vegetables are producing – in addition to the picking, we have to weed, cultivate, plant, man the CSA market, and this year due to the drought, we had to irrigate. Our days last from dawn to dusk and it’s fortunate fresh vegetables are easy to cook (thank you tomato mozzarella salad) or we’d be too tired to make dinner some days.

Farming is relentless – you can’t decide to not pick the tomatoes or postpone the weeding, skip watering or neglect planting. It’s even harder if you have livestock – that’s a year-round, day-in day-out commitment to feed, water, and in the case of dairy, milk the cows every day!

It’s one reason why we chose to grow vegetables – there’s an annual cycle which includes a much needed break during winter. Though the advent of high tunnels has enabled us to extend the growing season enough to offer a Winter CSA share November through February, we still get a break before the cycle begins again in Spring.

If you’d like to get your own Winter CSA Share so you can enjoy our certified organic produce, we have a few remaining winter shares available. Check out our website or come see us in person – the farm market is open to the public Wednesday to Fridays from 3 – 6:30 pm & Saturday’s from 9 am – 2 pm until October 22nd.

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