SEASONS GREETINGS TO ONE AND ALL!

        This season, we are excited to offer you the chance to give a CSA share as an incredibly special and unique gift to a loved one, a family member or a friend who loves fresh veggies, would like to eat more fresh vegetables and / or likes to support the health of the inividual, the community, and the earth.

        This coming season will also mark the beginning of a new stage of development for the farmers, as some of them 'graduate' into the next phase of self-sufficiency. This step is new and exciting, and the early purchse of CSA shares again allows the farmers to start of the season right, with resources from you, thier supportive community.

        ACT NOW for EARLY BIRD SPECIALS!

        If you purchase this gift before December 10th, are guarenteed to receive in the mail before Dec. 25th:

•  Our CSA bag (as pictured above),
•  A customized gift message
• And a welcome packet containing more information about the farm, the farmers and pick up sites.

         If you purchase the CSA share before December 31st, the price will be reduced by 10 percent from 2013 prices. You again have the oppurtunity to purchase a single or full sized share for either the summer season, the fall season, or both! (July through October).
Please link to the website www.cultivatingcommunity.org to purchase your holiday CSA gift through paypal, or call the ofice at 207-761-4769 with any questions.

The harvest is celebrated, the cover crop is planted....

      Two weeks ago we celebrated the end of our season, and what an amazing season to celebrate. It seems like you can breathe in the spring, when the land is being distributed, and then you can breathe again in the fall, when the cover crop is planted, yet in between is a whirlwind of breathless activity; planting weeding, loading trucks rushing to markets, packing CSA's and administering to the countless details of the farming season. And yet, as miraculous as it is, everything gets done, and perhaps more importantly, every season is more successful, more managable and memorable than the last. And even though this group of farmers and helpers and consumers have converged only recently from countries and continents far and wide, before you know it, you have community and shared lived experience.

We want to thank all of you who have supported us through this season and who have made this remarkable community possible.

We danced to show our happiness with the weather and the whole season.

Riding a hayride at the Harvest Festival on the beautiful farm

See you next year, happy winter!



A view from the other coast: Refugee farmers in Seattle

Here's a great story about Somali-Bantu farmers trying to make a living farming on the other side of the country, in the outskirts of Seattle.  The story does a great job of sharing the joys and struggles of trying to succeed as a small farmer in a completely new country, and has some clear parallels to experiences here in Maine.

http://daily.sightline.org/2012/10/09/betting-on-a-farm/

We love to see stories like this out there, as they remind us that we're part of a national movement to support refugees who want to contribute to this country's agricultural future, and to be part of the food movement that is reshaping how we eat.  Let's keep working together!

Visitors to the farm

A few weeks ago, Cultivating Community hosted a group of staff members from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) as well as several staff from Maine's Congressional Delegation.  They were there to learn how the NRCS, an agency of the USDA, has helped to provide infrastructure improvements at the farm we manage in Lisbon, Maine.  NRCS contracts have supported farmers in implementing on-farm conservation practices such as cover cropping, mulching, and crop rotations.  They also helped us install a new well in 2011, providing much needed irrigation to the farm.

Staff members from the NRCS and the offices of Senator Collins, Representatives Pingree and Michaud with farmers at the wash station on the farm.   

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We're always happy to help share the story of these hard-working farmers and how far they've come to meet their farm business dreams!

CSA: Community Supporting Arts

Fresh Start Farms is honored to be included in the CSA: Community Supporting Arts project!

In early spring 2012, fourteen artists were partnered with Maine farms running CSA programs. They have been visiting their farms regularly since March and creating art inspired by their farmers’ lives, work, landscapes, challenges and ideals ever since.

Come support the project and check out all the fantastic art inspired by Fresh Start Farms growers and other CSA farms across Maine!


CSA: Community Supporting Arts is a project of the Harlow Gallery and the Kennebec Valley Art Association in partnership with the Kennebec Local Food Initiative, an organization based in Gardiner, Maine that strives to strengthen community food security through access, education, information and advocacy.  

Is that a sweet potato or a football?

On Sunday, I visited the Bates Mill Farmers Market in Lewiston in the pouring rain. The day was cold and wet and miserable but the market stood out like a multi-colored jewel emerging from the gloom. There were piles of verdant green chard leaves with rainbow colored stems, ruby red beets just waiting to be roasted, pumpkins glowing like orange orbs of fall cheer, long elegant leeks that faded from green to white, piles of red and white and purple potatoes, silver carafes of piping hot apple cider, red coolers full of local meats, dainty wheels of  creamy white handmade cheeses topped with sprigs of rosemary and crushed black pepper, green striped watermelons that sound like drums when thumped by practiced fingers checking for ripeness. There were white eggplant, spring green eggplant, and eggplant in 4 shades of purple; onions ranging in color from paper white to dirty yellow to rich tan to royal purple were displayed in overflowing baskets; and carrots in four different hues waited for customers to take them home. 

           But what really caught my eye in the midst of all the color shrouded in rain was a pile of rather visually uninspiring, lumpy brownish vegetables shaped like footballs....they were the biggest sweet potatoes I have ever seen in my entire life. I am now the proud new owner of a 2-pound sweet potato grown by Khadija Hilowle, a Fresh Start Farms farmer who braved the rains yesterday to sell her produce. My hat is off to you Khadija and to all of the other Fresh Start Farms farmers who successfully grew a vegetable this year that no one in Maine knew was even possible to grow until a few short years ago. 

Farmer Spotlight: Mohamed Abukar

Mohamed Abukar is orignally from Somalia. When Mohamed arrived in Lewiston, he was told about the NASAP program and was immediately drawn to it. “Since I already had the knowledge and the experience, if there is a farm here, I will grow on it.” But his experience and knowledge of farming the land in Africa proved very different. He learned a new system for preparing the soil and planting in addition to other new techniques for farming in Maine. If he had started growing here the way he did in Africa  he states, “it would not have made any sense. In this country, you have to make the soil healthy and you don’t have to do that in Africa.”  From 1992 to 2004,  Mohamed lived in a refugee camp in Kenya, on his time there he says "I tried to start a farm there, and it took me two years. By the time my vegetables where growing, I had to leave.”  On farming:  Mohamed comments that it is an automatic process for him, "Here, no matter what, I have good fresh food. If I were somewhere else, I would still be farming."

Where to Meet Mohamed

Thursday: South Portland Farmers' Market 3-7 pm

Saturday: Bath Farmers' Market 8am- 1pm