Winter Projects

Just a quick update from us here on the farm.

• We just got back from a conference in Athens, Ohio that focused on The Community Food Secuirty Project grant from the USDA. We' are developing a program to bring more of our vegetables to the low-income folks living in group homes in Montgomery County, MD.
  
• Tomorrow we are off to the PASA Conference (Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture) were will be educated by many exciting topics involved in farming and farming sustainably.
  
• Part of 2007 seed order has been delivered to the farm and after PASA we begin the slow push to start the 2007 growing season. Soon we'll convert the office into a green house again!

Hope all is well and warm for you.
-adrienne

2007 CSA Season SOLD OUT in 24 hours!

We are humbled by the quick response by folks who were waiting patiently to download their CSA commitment form at get it in asap. One person overnighted her form and others hand delivered. It is logical for us to assume that some out there may be asking the following question:
Why do you limit CSA Membership?
We have experienced an overwhelming, positive response to the Red Wiggler CSA program in the past year. Much of this interest has come folks like you who have read news articles, have been browsing websites for local CSA’s, or simply heard about our CSA from friends or family. While the response is positive, exciting, and speaks volumes about people rethinking the way they eat and being conscious of where their food comes from, we cannot accommodate everyone who has shown interest.

There are several reasons why Red Wiggler has to limit their number of memberships each
year.
1. We have a high retention rate. 78% in 2006. In the past, we have offered last year’s members an opportunity to sign back on for the coming year first. This is generally how we determine how many open "slots" we will be able to offer to the public. As you can imagine, happy CSA members stay for a while.
2. Space and fertility. We grow vegetables, flowers, and herbs on a little less than four acres.(The rest of our land is fallow, resting and regenerating in a system of cover crops that are designed to increase fertility for future years.) You can grow a lot on this amount of land, but the land, water, soil, and human resources that it takes to produce a good crop do have a carrying capacity and we must establish a reasonable number of memberships based on this capacity. Overexerting these resources to accommodate a larger CSA is not an option and defeats much of the purpose of our CSA.
3. Red Wiggler Community Farm is an organization that is dedicated to providing sustainable employment for its staff and growers. We seek to find balance between our abilities and our capacity to better serve the community. In order for us to remain within these philosophical parameters, we limit our CSA membership.

2007 CSA open to a limited number of new customers

We are please to open our Community Supported Agriculture program up to new customers begining today. At this time over 80% of the 2006 participating members have re-joined leaving only a hand full of spaces open for new applicants. If you are interested in joining please look over our CSA page on our regular web site and click on the application pdf for more details. Last year the open spaces were sold out quickly since space is limited to a total of 80 "shares". Subscriptions are sold on a first come first serve basis with the exception of a small number of shares which are reserved for low income households in Montgomery County. (Group homes serving adults with developmental disabilities.) Follow this link to see what crops are grown over the season and when we project to harvest those crops. Also, on the left of this page is a history of previous posts in the "archives" that contain lists of actual harvests over the 2006 season which illustrates when crops came in week by week. Please note that every season is unique and we offer no guarantees with respect to variety and quantity to be harvested. We are grateful to our CSA customer base for sharing in the inherent risks of farming along with us. As always we strive to deliver high quality, chemical free vegetables at a value over our harvest season. Harvests begin the first week of June and this "core" season ends in the middle of October. There is also an option to subscribe to our extended 4 week fall season at an additional cost. Please note that we also take two weeks off during the season as well. One week off just prior to our Annual Farm Tour (Art Farm) and also the week leading up to our Annual Supper and Silent Auction. See our Events page for dates and details.

Our growers are excited about the upcoming season. We will begin planting in March and we are expecting a productive season. We hope that you will consider joining our Community Farm as a way to contribute to your own health and well being while supporting our unique program that seeks to serve the community through a multi-dimensional Mission. Our Mission is set up as a set of initiatives that advance our organization towards achieving our organizational Vision.

Red Wigglers Vision is this:
“We create fertile ground to nourish a healthy and inclusive community.”

Red Wigglers Mission
We are community farm that cultivates healthy food through:
• A Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program that provides fresh, locally-grown produce.
• Meaningful employment for adults with developmental disabilities.
• Educational and service opportunities for youth and adults.
• Environmental stewardship.

Core Values
Red Wiggler Community Farm believes in:
1. Reconnecting people with the source of their food and the local community.
2. Creating an environment of respect, cooperation, integrity, and innovative thinking.
3. Ensuring purposeful work and equal treatment for all stakeholders.
4. Fostering opportunities for outreach and meaningful education of youth, adults, and employees.
5. Building local food security for our community.
6. Being a catalyst for community collaborations and volunteerism.
7. Practicing environmental stewardship through ecologically sensitive best practices.

Soon we will be updating the above set of organizational statements to include our "Farmers Pledge" which specifically articulates how we work with the land and our growers to grow healthy crops for our community. These statements are, when taken as a whole, are the nuts and bolts that show how we work each day to create fertile ground to nourish a healthy and inclusive community.

Shannon Varley Transitions

Five years ago this January, I pulled into Frederick with a U-Haul and moved into my first apartment to take my first “real” salaried job after graduate school…I recall that my first weeks of work at Red Wiggler coincided with one of the bigger snow storms in recent MD history….(we haven’t even had a month of hard freeze this winter making that snow storm and that winter seem like a million years ago)…I remember a huge snowdrift lapped up against the sliding glass door at the old farm on Peachtree Road that prevented us using it for a long time that winter.

For many of you that don’t know my story, I came to Red Wiggler by sheer coincidence and happenstance. I happened to cross-reference Red Wiggler during a research project for a neighbor back in my hometown in PA whose son had developmental disabilities while also job-hunting for a job that was far from the farm management position Red Wiggler was advertising for that Fall… I happened to find both quite separately from each other. Thinking that Red Wiggler had been looking for a farm manager for some time, I overnighted my resume just in case the job still hadn’t been filled. Woody still likes telling that story- that my resume arrived in overnight mail. He also likes telling the story that I arrived at the interview with a thick photo album documenting my farming and CSA experience (just in case they didn’t believe me). When I arrived at the old farm on Peachtree Road, I didn’t need to be convinced that I would feel fulfilled in every possible way if I was offered the job. And I was right.

Just as I arrived in those fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants conditions, my tenure at Red Wiggler and in my personal life in the last five years have had the same kind of funny, uncanny flavor that caused my being here in the first place. If you would have told me five years ago what could possibly happen in the next five years time, I would have never believed you. But you couldn’t have convinced me of any other path when I arrived for my interview in the Fall of 2002 at Red Wiggler on Peach Tree Road. I remember standing in my parents kitchen back in PA recounting the interview at Red Wiggler earlier that day and feeling the most complete sense of joy and belonging at being offered the job. And having a very solid and strong conviction that taking the job at Red Wiggler was exactly what I was to be doing at that particular moment in my life.

If I had to think of one word to describe my tenure at Red Wiggler over the last five years, I would use the word, “transition.” I arrived as Red Wiggler was on the threshold of major change and growth. We moved to Ovid Hazen Wells, increased the CSA significantly, moved CSA to all on-farm pick-up, acquired more full-time employees, and increased the number of growers and volunteers by leaps and bounds. And about a million other things too many to mention. And while much of that growth if still happening, my first few years coincided with what I believe was the beginning of the “future” Red Wiggler. I think this was one of the best, most educational times to be a part of a small, non-profit. While there has been an obvious amount of reward and learning and positive movement in the last 5 years, you can’t have those without very poignant periods of struggle and re-thinking and hard work. And those are the moments you learn the most about a job and about yourself.

One of the things I treasure the most from these last five years are the friendships and relationships that any one of us who is involved with Red Wiggler has a chance to establish. From customers since that first summer on Peach Tree Road to the board to the growers and the volunteers, I consider myself very blessed. What a fine group of people working together in different spheres to support the basic mission of Red Wiggler. That is one of the things that makes Red Wiggler so special…it creates an opportunity to bring so many different people from so many different backgrounds together to work toward a common good and a common goal. And that is where I have found the true meaning of what we do at Red Wiggler. I never questioned the meaningfulness of my work. What a wonderful feeling that is. Thank you to all of you who support and have supported Red Wiggler over the last 11 years.

I write to say “goodbye” for now and “thank you” to all of you that have blessed my life through Red Wiggler as I prepare to have my second baby. I resigned in December to stay at home for a little while, be present for my family, and get my bearings. My life has been richer, fuller, and more blessed for having overnighted that resume back in 2002.- SV 01-02-07

Shannon- Thank you so very much- Woody