I have driven past the Pitney Farm for years. It looked so beautiful one time that I took the photo below in the late-afternoon light, but I knew as I admired it that a farm that is not farmed is a bad thing.
Fortunately, others saw its vulnerability and took action. In 2016, Saratoga Springs city voters and the Pitney family collaborated to create the Pitney Meadows Community Farm to preserve farming and education on the last remaining farm within the city limits of Saratoga.
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| (lovely but lonely a few years ago) |
What a treat when my former high school classmate, Jody Terry, a member the farm's Board of Directors as Education and Program Chair, offered to give me a tour of the property. "I'll show you around the farm first," Jody said. "Then we'll walk out into the field."
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| (an active place brought back to life!) |
Community gardens are a big part of the Pitney farm. I've seen very large lush community gardens where I live in Albany, but these gardens were new to me. Many are in raised beds.
I was baffled by the vegetables growing in high metal frames. "People with mobility issues plant vegetables in them," Jody said. "It's very exciting for someone in a wheelchair to be able to have a garden here."
In addition, one garden plot is a sand box with toys. What a great way to keep kids entertained while a parent weeds!
A few tables and chairs adorn the gravel pathway beyond the raised beds. Jody told me that some students from nearby Saratoga High, who have off-campus lunch privileges, come over in the middle of the day. I could imagine that even a few minutes at the farm made a refreshing change from the loud cafeteria. The Pitney Farm is definitely multi-use.
At the end of the garden walkway, Jody pointed out the Fairy Garden, created by a woman who spends hours intermingling plants and small decorative items into a unique fairyland. Children can spend a long time discovering fairy hide-outs here.
A reading area is tucked in among the sunflowers. The tall bending early fall stalks made an attractive canopy, but Jody told me that this "sunflower house" is even more appealing earlier in the year when the chairs are barely visible through summer's growth. On pleasant Saturdays, a reader gathers children amidst the sunflowers for stories in the garden.
Another row of sunflowers made a division between the garden and field. "We have a contest for the tallest and biggest sunflowers," Jody told me. Children tend to their plants and watch them grow. Raising a new generation of gardeners is part of Pitney's mission, at a time when so many children do not know where their food comes from.
We went into a small barn where another of my high school friends, Kim Fonda, dexterously twisted grapevines into baskets just the right size and shape to fit a sunflower head. These would be sold in the farm store. Patrons could take them home, hang them outdoors, and watch wild birds congregate. I was impressed that so many people share their creativity in so many different ways at the Pitney Farm.
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| (Jody and Kim) |
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| (Kim's sunflower seed creations) |
The store was the next stop on my tour. Even with the growing season on the wane, there was still much to buy here both on the counter and in a refrigerator.
A young couple perusing the shop asked a few questions and Jody explained about the Pitney Farm's unusual CSA. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has become a popular concept worldwide.
For a season fee, the public can become members of a farm and receive weekly boxes of fresh farm produce, usually picked up at a designated location.
The Pitney Meadows Community Farm takes a different spin with its "pick your own" CSA, an experience that brings the consumer even closer to the product. A CSA member here can go into the field, look for signs that indicate which areas of the main farm garden are open for picking, and harvest the produce they desire. This eliminates the oft-maligned problem many people have when their CSA has an overabundance of one vegetable. Of course, much or little is due to the vagaries of a growing season, but 5 lbs. of kale can be difficult to manage before the next box arrives.
The amount of work that has been done here in just two or three years is astounding -- a greenhouse with a pretty door, a flagstone sidewalk, attractive landscaping, all done by a host of volunteers and a few staff members.
Not all volunteers work in the field. Job options are myriad. Besides farm work, volunteers help with events, desk work, children's programming, and a mind-boggling list of ways that help bring new ideas to fruition.
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| (popping corn dries on racks in the Children's Greenhouse) |
Jody and I walked beyond the buildings to the fields. We could not have picked a better day to be outdoors where a sprinkling of bright foliage added color to the browns and tans of October grasses.
The Pitney property is huge, and most of it is not actively being used. Future plans for the land include trails, more vegetables, and maybe even farm animals.
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| (posted signs designate vegetables ripe for picking) |
Our first stop was a field that supplied the CSA. When Jody pointed out the signs posts at the ends of vegetable rows, I knew they designated picking availability. On this day, quite a few pumpkins still lay in neat rows.
We walked over to the high tunnels where plants are started early in the season. Student volunteers had been instrumental in covering the tunnel frames with massive plastic sheeting. "Community" is the operative word here.
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| (high tunnels) |
At home I went on the Pitney Farm website (www.pitneymeadowscommunityfarm.org.) The word "visionary" popped out. Given how much has been accomplished here in such a short time, Pitney Meadows Community Farm is a place to watch and become a part of. Since I don't live close enough to come on a regular basis, I still plan to stop by now and then to see what's available in the shop. And maybe, while I'm there, I'll see if I can find a small inhabitant of the fairy garden.
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| (Fresh vegetables straight from the farm on my kitchen counter) |
