Stone Soup Collaborative Farms

Sharing the local vegetable harvest with friends and neighbors
from Argyle and Corinth ............................to Bangor and Brewer, Maine

Do you remember, or long for, the days when fresh vegetables were as close as your own back yard... or Grandma and Grandpa's garden? The days when the grocer's shelves held eggs from just outside of town and every Saturday, small farmers brought their extra produce to town to trade for coffee and flour, and maybe some tobacco or a bolt of cloth? ...When the only food was "slow food" and most of it was locally, and naturally, grown?

My grandpa, retired from the railroad, was one of those everyday farmers. He didn't have hundreds of acres, just the land around the family home. The hands that worked that land were his own -- and those of my grandmother, my aunt, cousins and mine. He planted and we weeded and hoed and picked and "put by" for our families and what was extra on Saturday, Grandpa would carry to market in town.

I remember, mostly, the strawberries and the corn. No matter how much he grew, there were always folks coming out from town wanting to know if we had any extra. Often, visiting on summer vacation, I would be given a basket or a gunny sack and dispatched to the berry patch or the corn field, for I was quick and careful. The folks would set on the porch and visit until I returned, hopefully with sufficient berries or ears for their needs. Grandpa would state a price, often much lower than the folks expected for food this fresh and delicious and equally often they would insist on his keeping the change.

Grandpa didn't "grow for market." He didn't focus on what would sell best, or bring the biggest profit. He didn't put his plants on chemical fertilizer "speed," but he did "push the season" a bit. His intention was not to get a jump on the competition, but to augment Grandma's canning and the dwindling supplies "down cellar" with fresh greens. And everyone, certainly, waited for that first vine-ripe home grown tomato!

He planted with an eye to family needs, but also with the desire to have extra to share with those in town who did not -- or could not, even in those self-reliant days -- grow their own.

And so, now, do we!