By the time mesclun mix reaches your plate, it’s been triple-washed, spun dry, and bagged.
But before all that, it starts out as seeds in soil.
Sprinklers cool and moisten the tender lettuce leaves on hot days. Roots hold the plants in soil through days of rain. And about a month after the seeds first touch soil, when the lettuce reaches its prime loft, we bend to harvest and haul the mesclun from field to wash station.
We love presenting you with the finished product: the triple-washed lettuce, the gleaming beets, the fragrant basil.
And yet, we want you to know the joy of the soil, too.
How it’s the soil that does the work of transferring nutrients to the crops, retaining water, holding structure for plants to root into, and imparting terroir: the taste of place.
How without soil, we wouldn’t be able to eat.
We named our farm for the soil.
When the soil is “in good heart” it’s alive and healthy.
The health of the soil directly impacts the health of people — so as you toss your salad or slice up tomatoes, or sauté green beans with garlic and butter, keep in mind these words from Barbara Kingsolver (one of my favorite writers):
“Recall that whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of the dirt.”
How wonderful, how simple. That dirt, that soil grows even our own lives.
Fall Harvest CSA sign-ups are open now!
10% of every full-priced CSA supports subsidized shares for low-income Vermonters. That means your CSA feeds you and helps feed those in need.
Subsidized Shares are available through the NOFA-VT Farm Share Program and The Good Heart Fund.