This winter, the Temple-Wilton Community Farm is embarking on a fundraising campaign to expand growing land and build new housing for its apprentice program.
Lincoln Geiger, one of the founders of the farm and its community-supported agriculture program, said the farm will need to raise at least $60,000 to reach both goals.
The largest expense is new housing for farm apprentices. Currently, the farm only has one apprentice employed, in cheese-making, but in the summer and the height of the growing season, it typically houses between six and eight young farmers who are getting hands-on experience in cheese-making, dairy farming and growing vegetables. But Geiger said the farm hopes to convert the apprentice housing into a full-time home for a new permanent vegetable farmer. The farm is seeking the right fit for the position, Geiger said, leaving the question – Where to house next year’s apprentices?
“Flying by seat of the pants for the next spring,” Geiger said.
For the spring, supporters of the farm who live nearby have offered up rooms to house them, but that’s only a short-term solution, Geiger said.
Much of the farm has been put into conservation and is reserved for farmland, but there is a 10-acre stretch that was preserved for future development of farm buildings, Geiger explained, and that’s where the new housing would be built, pending approval from town boards.
The land had previously been approved for the construction of a duplex, which never came to fruition, but Geiger said the farm would be looking at a different plan and approaching town zoning and panning boards with a different concept. Ultimately, the farm hopes to build new housing in the form of a central kitchen and laundry, with small camp-like cabin sleeping quarters.
At the same time, Geiger explained, the farm is planning to expand its growing acres, to allow the soil to rejuvenate between seasons. The Temple-Wilton Community Farm practices crop rotation, which allows the soil to replenish nutrients stripped by growing crops, but after 100 years of farming, Geiger said the farm needed to make some changes to keep the soil healthy.
“We’re trying to get a better grip on the fertility of the soils,” Geiger said. “The rotation has been too short. We see it on other farms, people running into the issue after they’ve been farming the land for a while, that the fertility has to be built up on a longer framework. Vegetable-growing is taxing on the land.”
To do that, Geiger said they decided to convert two acres of pasture land for vegetable-growing, and may add a third acre. But, he said because it has never been used for growing, there is no water access, and the farm will have to install irrigation to make it viable for season-long growing.
Tax-deductible donations to Temple-Wilton Community Farm can be made by PayPal through their website at twcfarm.com.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.