by Crops Manager Matt Celona
Welcome, New Farmers!
We have new farmers to introduce to you! Beginning Farmers Avril and Will, as well as part-time Fieldworkers Andrew and Laura. And welcome back to Sarah and Josh!
Avril studied computer science as an undergraduate and graduate at MIT before working in text analytics for four years. She had been volunteering with gardening and food access organizations for the past two years before deciding to give crop production a try. Avril will be assisting Josh with all aspects of sales to chefs.
Will is a recent graduate of Colby College. He was working as an intern at Merrill Lynch before deciding to invest more deeply (yep) in farming. Will had spent all of his high school summers working at the Food Project with Tim Laird, former Crops Manager here at Drumlin, so he is already familiar with some of the systems Tim put in place here years ago. Sarah will be relying on Will for help coordinating our CSA programs.
Andrew recently graduated from Hobart College where he majored in environmental studies. He is passionate about sustainability, and his most recent job was assessing energy management systems for companies looking to reduce their carbon footprints. Andrew will be helping us on our busiest harvest days.
Laura is a glass fabrication artist and graduate of the Mass College of Art. She has a vision of having her own farm one day, and, in addition to helping with harvests, she will be organizing the Friday flower harvest and making bouquets at market.
I feel really lucky to be working with this group of talented and dedicated people. Thanks, all, for your great work!
Volunteers Already Putting In Hours
Over the past several days we’ve focused on planting onions and are about to finish the marathon in record time—only 3 of the 65 trays remain! We’ve been getting lots of help from high school seniors who are doing service projects with us—many thanks to them!
Volunteers from National Grid were the first to help us in the field this past Thursday. On that cool and rainy-ish day, the job was to rescue baby carrots from a carpet of weeds—not an easy task in the best of conditions. But as is most often the case, the volunteers seemed thrilled to be outside and willing to keep working in the conditions.
Volunteer Fred Costanza has been maintaining equipment, mowing roadways and field edges, and plowing a new section of the Van Leer field. Thank you, Fred!
Union Square Farmers Market Opens Saturday
Our first big harvest is this coming Friday ahead of the first Union Square Farmers Market on Saturday. We hope to see you on opening day!
Your Farmers