A Trip to the Farm

When Colin and I first moved to Brooklyn, we had a conversation about farms in the borough. "There's no farms in Brooklyn," I said "this is Brooklyn." Colin, however, was not convinced. As it turns out, he was right. Yesterday, we visited East New York Farm as part of a volunteer trip of Sustainable Silver, the greening initiative group I am a part of through my school. East New York Farm is located in the place of its title, about five miles east of our apartment. It turned out to be a sunny but chilly morning, and we biked over with our friend Shane, also of Sustainable Silver. As it turns out, the farm is really more of a large garden, but it is admirable in its community involvement and environmental justice promotion. A tour of the farm revealed teh various vegetables and fruits grown there through the season as well as a large compost pile, a rainwater collector, and two honey bee colonies. As it was the end of the season, our job included pulling the long beans off the fence that they had weaved themselves on and removing the weeds in the path. Despite the destruction aspect of the job, I thoroughly enjoyed the work and found it meditative and productive- and it made me very excited to have my own garden in the spring. When we took a break for lunch, we wandered over to the farmer's market where a few stands were selling homemade Caribbean food. We tried some patties, which were like miniature pot pies, rice and peas with barbecue chicken, and a fish fry- a sandwich of fried fish. The food was new to me, and tasty, if a bit heavy. After lunch, we completed the long-bean-taking-down, and Colin single handedly removed the fence. Then, a full-tummied ride home.
I really enjoyed the community aspect of the farm and hope to have more volunteer days there in the spring.