Farm Diversity – Many Hands Organic Farm

April 21 2025

Farm Diversity

As in, gosh we do a lot of different things in a day on the farm. When asked what he liked about working here lately, one of our Stetson guys said he liked the fact that we were always changing it up and that it was fast paced (and he said the folks here are so nice too. 😊). I guess that is what I like too, the changing fast pace of things, moving inexorably toward the Summer Solstice, now a mere 60 days away. With the weather finally moving into what I would call spring, the list gets longer, but we are daily taking things off of our pre-game list (life before the CSA starts on June 1ish) and at the same time adding more and more different tasks. Chicken house cleaned and distributed around our perennials – check; firewood all cut – check; down to one burn pile – check; blueberries, gooseberries, juneberries, rosa rugosa pruned – check; tarps starting to come off the fields – check; first spinach, peas, and lettuce planted outside – check. Expectancy is turning to actuality as we harvest bok choi from inside the hoophouses and chives from outside their edges. What could be better, too, than the symphony of the spring peepers starting in the late afternoon and raising in pitch as the evening proceeds? We didn’t have those back in Illinois, and I yearly drink up the symphony for this month. Hurray for spring!

Expressing Gratitude This Week

We always have a great time when student groups come to the farm for a day or for a short visit. This week, we hosted Ashley Holden’s Animal Science class from Bay Path Vocational. They helped us accomplish our most unpleasant job of the year – cleaning out the winter/permanent chicken house. And because we didn’t have enough of the proper tools to keep everyone busy, some of us used our hands! Kids these days are fantastic, however, and all pulled together to fork out the heavy manure pack (chicken manure with hay), spread it around our grapes, blueberries, flowering perennials, blackberries, juneberries, and gooseberries, and then spray and sweep out the house at the end. Here is what we heard back from Ashley – “…The kids all resoundingly said they wanted to return when you have pigs, and that the 9th graders should clean the chicken house next year. Perhaps it will become a rite of passage in the animal science department 🙂 …”

Many Hands Sustainability Center – Supporting Food Sovereignty

Wow, folks, we are now down to only $50 needed for fridge shares. Thanks this week goes to William, who donates every month, as has Yelena for years now. If you wanted to consider a recurring donation, we would be quite appreciative.

You can donate here. Once we reach this goal, we will be aiming to raise $2000 to provide fresh food to the Barre Food Pantry.

2025 MHOF CSA

I received this email this past week in response to a “thank you for joining” –

“You’re welcome, Julie! We have also enjoyed working with Ellen as well! We have done her 2 cleanses, one offered this past January and one just finished April. She is a wealth of information. Our whole way of eating has changed. We’ve lost weight and continue to follow most of her guidelines. I feel a new ability to work with fresh vegetables in a much bigger way this year! We feel much better in our bodies.

I am also joining her for the Nature’s Nectar series starting next week. I’m so happy to have made this connection. It’s just what I’ve needed.

Looking forward to more of your tasty veggies 💖💖💖

Best Regards,
Sandi Babson”

Only 6 more weeks until the CSA starts. No time like the present to join us for some amazing food.

2025 CSA Order Form

Vegetable Foci for This Week – What was in your CSA bag?

Folks received apples 7 times last year during the summer CSA.

Why does an apple a day keep the doctor away, you might ask?

Apples are rich in essential nutrients such as dietary fiber, vitamin C, and various phytochemicals, particularly polyphenols, which have been shown to exert beneficial effects on cardiovascular health. Consumption of apples or apple-derived polyphenols can improve cardiovascular disease risk factors, suggesting a protective role against heart disease. This supports the notion that regular apple consumption may reduce health issues necessitating medical intervention.

Furthermore, apple consumption has been linked to decreased cancer risk in observational studies. Apples may significantly lower the risk of certain types of cancer, reinforcing the idea that incorporating apples into a daily diet could lead to reduced oncological visits. The antioxidant properties of apples, particularly due to their flavonoid content, contribute to the neutralization of free radicals, thereby potentially decreasing the incidence of cancer.

In addition to their direct health benefits, apples’ high dietary fiber content is associated with numerous health improvements. Individuals who consumed apples regularly made fewer visits to healthcare professionals (which aligns with the proverb that eating an apple daily can maintain health and reduce the need for medical care). Similarly, research indicates that high fiber intake, such as that provided by apples, is linked to better gastrointestinal health and improved lipid profiles, factors crucial in preventing chronic diseases.

Finally, apples contain antioxidants that have been demonstrated to scavenge free radicals and reduce oxidative stress, which is known to play a significant role in the pathogenesis of chronic diseases.

Our apples have not been that beautiful, though this year we are redoubling our efforts to combat the scab on them. Meanwhile, they make great applesauce (which we consume 365 days per year), and we hope you can get around their look and appreciate their incredible taste.

We provided beet greens 4 times last year. Beet greens are the young beet thinnings, which we thin out so that big beets can grow to their full size. I like them in stir-fries, egg dishes, and soups.

Beet greens present a more concentrated source of vitamins, minerals, and bioactive compounds than mature beets. They offer distinct health benefits that could contribute to enhanced nutrition, making them a valuable inclusion in daily dietary practices. While mature beets serve a different nutritional role, primarily offering carbohydrates and natural sugars, beet greens provide a broad spectrum of micronutrients critical for optimal health.

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Exalting Exudates –Advancing EcoAgriculture

Exalting Exudates: 7 Amazing Traits of Plant Root Exudates

7 Amazing Traits of Plant Root Exudates – read this fascinating article by John Lea and learn about:

Feeding the Microbiome
Building Stable Soil Carbon
Creating a Disease-Suppressive Microbiome
Altering Soil Chemistry
Taking Up Micronutrients
Retaining Water
Exclusion of Toxins / Heavy Metals

How do you optimize exudates?
Help us end exudate ignorance!

It is a must-read!

Volunteering at MHOF

We would love to have you as a regular for a large produce share, or when you can make it for a share that day – M, T, W, F – 8-12 with lunch and/or breakfast at 7:30, or Saturday starting with breakfast at 7 and working until 9:30 am.

Sophie is back on Saturdays

This Week’s Recipe from Jennifer: Saffron Morning Glow Oats

Saffron Morning Glow Oats is a sattvic, heart-opening breakfast designed to harmonize the mind and body at the start of your day. The oats provide stable grounding energy and are especially balancing for Vata, while the warming spices like ginger and cardamom gently stimulate digestion, helpful for sluggish Kapha or cold Vata digestion. Saffron, a revered Ayurvedic rasayana (rejuvenative), enhances emotional well-being and promotes subtle energy (ojas). Blueberries add a sweet-astringent touch, cooling Pitta, and walnuts offer nourishing, unctuous qualities. The use of ghee deepens the digestive support and brings a comforting richness, while a final touch of cream or warm milk enhances sattva and satisfaction.

Get the Recipe at Jen Zen Living

Gut Health

The points below are from Kiran Krishnan’s course “Build Your Resilient Gut Biome and Beyond at Rebel Health. Check out Rebel Health for lots of good info and you can always google Kiran on the internet if you want to go deeper faster.

Jaclyn Downs is featured here and for the next few weeks discussing our genes and how they impact our microbiome. After a little background we will cover various common human genes and how they impact our functionality.

Genetic Impacts on the Gut and Microbiome
Functional Nutrigenomics

What to Expect When Working With Me — Functional Genomic Nutrition

A Healthy Microbiome plays a critical role

in modulating the immune response
maintaining the integrity of the mucosal barrier – harmful pathogens can trigger an inflammatory response

Dysbiosis – low diversity and keystone species – can lead to increased gut permeability

As a result, substances can leak into circulation, promoting inflammation and potentially elevating levels of inflammatory messengers in the body (in an attempt to put out the fire)

Immune-Related Genes and Gut Health

There is constant communication between the microbiome and the immune system
Any gene that affects our immune system will have downstream effects on our gut and microbiome
The microbiome itself influences immune responses

Our Genes control every single enzymatic reaction in our bodies

Our ability to process nutrients
How efficient certain toxins and substances are cleared from the body
How fast or slowly things are made or degraded by the body
Transport ability
Receptor ability
Genes contain instructions for making an enzyme
Enzymes are what make every single reaction in our body take place; from how each nutrient is transported or metabolizes down to what type of earwax your body produces
Enzymes require specific nutrients (co-factors – minerals, vitamins, phytonutrients, proteins) to do their jobs, just as specific fuels are required to run certain machines.

Farm Doin’s

Stu and Justin got started on our stairs up into the barn from the wash table while the rest of us pruned Juneberries, Blackberries, Gooseberries, Rosa rugosa, and our refrigerator tree.

Gavin is very competent with the pole saw

Tuesday centered around cleaning out the chicken house and using the mulch around our perennials. The folks from Bay Path were very competent and fun to work with.

At lunch, Jack shared insights with these future vets about the practices we use to raise healthy livestock and the politics surrounding concerns about bird flu.

In the afternoon we made huge progress on bed prep – 5 down, only about 100 to go.

Wednesday focused on planting lettuce and spinach after starting seeds in the greenhouse. And Matt and Justin finished off digging out the big rocks into the annex entrance. They moved on to severely cutting back the quince bush and taking down our old clothesline ensemble.