Clare Gardens Corner

November Updates – Farm Manager, Anna Metscher, highlights the exceptional work being done at Clare Gardens.

While I truly enjoy all the items we put in the shares, these last few weeks of the season are what it’s all about for me. Beginning to hunker down for winter– roasted veggies, soup simmering on the stovetop, apple pie cooling, evenings coming earlier, and adding another layer to keep warm. It amazes me to think that the onions we’re delivering were the first seeded in the greenhouse on a sunny day back in March. It is this cyclical nature of what we do here on the farm that continually amazes me and brings me back season after season. It’s truly remarkable to be able to provide your tables with healthy and simply delicious food that all started as a humble seed.

We must eat. Even in this transition of seasons, these times of uncertainly. Being rooted in the land offers stability and solace through that change. As we harvest hundreds of pounds of crops into storage over the last few weeks my mind turns to the hunger we ward off, we prepare against. Hauling, washing, trimming, packaging, weighing, recording, storing, all labors of the bounty that nourishes us through the winter. There is a communion of more than us when wine is shared and bread broken. The care and attention we take when growing and preparing food is indeed the nourishment that sustains us, encourages the creation of community, and puts values above profits. It challenges us to take responsibility for the situations we find ourselves in (including politically, environmentally, socially, spiritually) with regard to how we eat.

So, I ask you, next time you sit down to a meal, or at Thanksgiving dinner, consider what sharing a meal really means to you. Not just the mashed potatoes or pumpkin pie, but who you sit with, and the stories you share.