This week, I would like to highlight our two full time staff people, Kenneth and Seth. This is their second year at Stearns Farm CSA, and they have not missed a beat. They take farming seriously and accept their assignments with curiosity and an intellectual vigor that forces me to rethink how we do things here. I love that! They work so hard, and they keep us all laughing, too.
Kenneth is usually on the tractor, spading, prepping beds, or cultivating crops with the basket weeder or secondary shanks. Cultivation entails driving down the beds, where crops are planted, with implements that drag in the ground and uproot small weeds. If we get them with the tractor at an early growth stage, they don’t turn into large headaches! Kenneth makes cultivation a priority, which has cut down on the hand weeding we have had to do this year. He also manages our blueberry and raspberry plantings and manages the parkland, where our potatoes, alliums, and popcorn live. You may have been there with him to plant, weed, or harvest. If you haven’t been yet, please sign up for potato harvesting when it comes up. It is a lot of fun because we go as a group to dig the potatoes out of the ground.
You wouldn’t know that Seth has been farming only a short time – this is his second year as a farmer. He sets up drip irrigation at the drop of a hat, manages our propagation greenhouse and cold frame, and has taken on management of many of our field plantings as well. Seth also takes care of our two larger greenhouses; you can find him pruning and tying tomatoes, watering, or scouting the basil for downy mildew. He is a natural teacher and leads many groups that come to the farm. He makes it fun for people, while also having an eye for detail and making sure work is done right.
There are many other things that these guys do, as well: too much to list in this short post. Stearns Farm would not be functioning at the level it is this season without Seth and Kenneth. They deserve our thanks.
See you at the farm!
—Susan