Dear Weir River Farm CSA Members,
Thank you for your patience as we’ve spent time this winter
taking a close look at our Weir River farming operations and working towards a
plan for long term agricultural, financial, and ecological sustainability.
We’ve made the hard decision not to continue offering our vegetable CSA, and to
focus instead on the livestock program and the animals that are the heart and
soul of the farm.
Weir River Farm was founded by Polly Thayer Starr and her
family, and while it provided pasture and amazing views that inspired Mrs.
Starr as an artist, the land available for vegetable production has always been
limited and challenging to cultivate. We will be transitioning the vegetable
fields between the Yellow House and the Red Barn to pasture to expand the space
we have for our livestock program and for grassland bird habitat. This summer,
the fields across from the Yellow House will primarily be planted with a
nitrogen-fixing cover crop that will provide some much needed revitalization of
soil nutrients, as well as a place for our chickens to roam (also adding
nutrients to the soil!). Over the coming year, we will continue to explore
whether to permanently convert these fields to pasture or utilize them in a new
way. In the meantime, keep an eye out in the fall for some fun, new crops
(think pumpkins and popcorn!), that will appear just across from the Yellow
House. And, for those of you who are home gardeners, we hope you’ll come visit
us in the greenhouse this spring, where we’ll be growing a wide variety of
vegetable seedlings that we’ll have available for sale in May.
We know how much you value the chance to get fresh, local
food from Weir River Farm, and we are excited to be able to expand
opportunities to purchase meat and eggs at the farm. We piloted our first ever
meat CSA this winter at the farm, and this summer we will be offering a meat
CSA and a weekly meat & eggs farmstand. We’ll be sending out more
information about these opportunities soon.
If you haven’t had a chance to meet us yet please don’t
hesitate to drop by, send us an email, or give us a call. We’re happy to meet
as many of you as possible before we get into the busy summer season ahead. We
hope to see you at the farm soon!
Best,
Matt Slayton, General Manager
mslayton@thetrustees.org | 781.740.7233
Jim Lough, Livestock Manager
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