Sunshine – Many Hands Organic Farm

April 28 2025

Sunshine

Friday, as we worked with the Clark students on planting our lettuce, chard, cabbage, and Asian greens, someone went off to get some sunscreen, and I commented that I thought folks should be wary of sunscreens due to the literature on their potentially dangerous impacts on our health. I listened to this article on the Mercola site on Saturday morning, which wasn’t about sunscreen, but about the effects of Vitamin D from the sun on the skin – Does Vitamin D Mimic the Effect of Anabolic Steroids?

Here is the new stuff that I learned.

“Natural sunlight is the ideal vitamin D source, as it provides benefits beyond vitamin D production. However, make sure to reduce your consumption of vegetable oil before sun exposure. Seed oils and vegetable oils can oxidize under natural light and can thus cause sun damage to the skin (sunburn).”

I am a partial albino, about 50%, and when I was little, I would burn pretty seriously. However, now, with the same skin, I spend many hours in the sun almost every day of the year. The difference is that I don’t consume any vegetable oils anymore (along with eating a significantly healthier diet). As we get into the “sun” season, I encourage folks to do a little research on sunscreens and avoid the non-organic ones, consider your diet and how it affects your ability to take in the sun and utilize the vitamin D most effectively that comes to us free from this marvelous resource.

I think I may have previously linked this excellent podcast of Ari Whitten’s on this topic – Sunlight Secrets – Debunking Skincare Myths with Nadine Artemis

(from The New Yorker)

Expressing Gratitude This Week

We had another student visit this past week – the second year of Jude Fernando’s class from Clark University. As we were eating lunch, and throughout the day we were regaled about stories of elephants chasing cars in Tanzania, life in Liberia and Ethiopia, farming in Sri Lanka, IRA relatives from Ireland, Jewish migration from Eastern Europe, through France and finally to the US, and customs in Andhra Pradesh, India. And we accomplished a lot of good work too, while getting to know each other and bringing our worlds closer together. Thanks, Clark folks, for expanding my horizons and world view.

Many Hands Sustainability Center – Supporting Food Sovereignty

Thanks to Dave for bringing us down to zero for the Worcester Fridges!

We are working toward a $2000 account to provide food to the Barre Food Pantry twice per week. I have heard from an anonymous donor that $1200 is already committed. That brings our total need to $800. Should you want to support this new venture, you can donate here.

Donate Now

2025 MHOF CSA

When we start to really get veggies into the ground, the CSA becomes more real, and this week we planted the onion sets, more lettuce, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, and a medley of Asian greens, Swiss chard, kale, and collards.

Only 4 more weeks until the CSA starts. Here is the link.

2025 MHOF CSA

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

Shareholders only received cabbage twice last year. I hope we can get it up to 4 times in 2025. They take up a lot of space, so they aren’t a high priority. Cabbage is a very humble vegetable that offers so much. Cabbage is very good eaten raw as in cole slaw, in sauerkraut as a super digestive aid, and finally, I don’t think I prefer anything more than cabbage for an addition to soup or steamed and served with butter and salt. Of course, there are also cabbage rolls (leaves stuffed with things like rice, meat, onions, and tomatoes).

Brussels sprouts come later and are almost always just available for the fall shares. They are really just little cabbages. We do harvest their tops early in the season and double them with collards, as they are look alikes.

All brassicas – but particularly cabbage and Brussels sprouts – need a lot of good fertility to meet their potential, so are not a slam dunk to raise as one might think.

Circle of Song

The concert, on Saturday, May 17, will be held at 7:00 PM at the Barre Town Hall, 2 Exchange Street (corner of Exchange and Mechanic Streets).

The program includes Earth Song by Frank Tichelli, Fair Phyllis by John Farmer, For the Beauty of the Earth arranged by John Rutter, Go Down Moses, a traditional spiritual, Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, and arranged by the Pentatonix, June Is Bustin’ Out All Over from Showboat and the amazing team of Rogers and Hammerstein, The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Weiss and Peretti (complete with jungle animals in the COS rendition}, the always popular American folk song Shenandoah, Old Man River from Showboat, written by Jerome Kern, Sing Gently by Eric Whiteacre, and The 23rd Psalm, arranged by Bobby McFerrin.

Grace Jenkins is a relatively new member of Circle of Song who brings lots of dance skills to the group. She has arranged a dance for the Circle of Song production of I Won’t Say I’m in Love from the musical Hercules. The protagonist is played by Emma Dooley, and other dancers besides Grace are Michele Tranes and Siobhan Moynihan.

Come and celebrate mid-spring with Circle of Song. The concert is free, and refreshments will be served. Donations graciously accepted. Interested in joining?

Contact me at julie@mhof.net or 978-257-1192.

Quabbin Community Band

I know there are a bunch of you out there who used to play an instrument and would love to get back at it.

Rehearsals start on Monday, May 5, and run from 6:30 – 8:30 pm. They are every Monday (except Memorial Day) through August 4, and we have concerts on nine Sunday evenings starting on Sunday, June 15 and ending on Sunday, August 10. Concerts are at 6 pm and start in South Barre at Nornay Park. Concerts in July move to the center of town and are played on the bandstand on the Common. Membership is free. It being a summer band, it is fine not to come to every rehearsal or every concert. You can reach out to me if you are interested, but tentative. Margaret Reidy, a lifelong musician and music educator, is our excellent conductor.

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.

It’s Not Food – It’s Food-Like Substances

It’s Not Food – It’s Food-Like Substances

Thanks, Jack Mastrianni

Here is some interesting history about big tobacco and junk food.

Can Plant Health Help Repel Flea Beetles?

Can Plant Health Help Repel Flea Beetles?

This is from AEA, and includes a lot of good info on why flea beetles happen and some great strategies for dealing with them.

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.

Here is some common terminology when discussing epigenetics and gene expression

Heterozygous – An organism with two different gene variants (alleles) passed down, one from each parent. Can alter the function of the gene’s production by 20-30%
Homozygous – An organism with two equivalent gene variants passed down, one from each parent. Can alter the function of the gene’s production by up to 80%
Wild Type Gene – The most common type of a particular gene found in a population, not a variant
Up-Regulation vs. Down-Regulation – relates to whether the functioning of a gene in response to a stimulus is increasing function or slowing it down
Allele – a specific variant of a gene
CoFactors – compounds or ions that act as a catalyst in a reaction
Oxidative Stress – occurs when an organism has too many free radicals (molecules with an unpaired electron, making them reactive and potentially damaging). Antioxidants (such as vitamins C or E) can donate electrons to neutralize them.

Farm Doin’s

The lists get longer, and luckily, our accomplishments each week stack up nicely. This past week was no exception. Stu and company made progress on our new steps leading to the east side of the barn. I think he will be happy that Danny is coming back today after being gone for almost a month.

Jim and Justin finished cutting and piling the firewood. We just need to now find some time to split and stack it.

Vegetatively we were able to plant the seeds and seedlings listed above, after a few hours of bed prep which included taking off tarps and putting them away, hoeing up any weeds or brassica bodies still in place, raking out the beds, making rows and actually getting the seeds and plants into the soil.

We almost finished weeding and pruning the red raspberries, but ran short of time.

Marissa and Drew completed their early Wednesday morning foliar spraying of our small fruits and veggies that are up and almost up. We also spray transplant drench before we plant and add some NCO ProGro to the planting furrows.

The baby chicks arrived on Wednesday and are doing well. This is a reminder to order 8-week-old layer pullets for June 16 – $25 each. They are running low.

We have been watering, or nature has, our shiitake logs, and continue to get nice harvests. We are gorging on these mushrooms this week.

In the greenhouse, we started a few more onions and leeks just to be sure of supplies, then a raft of flowers on Tuesday, and Clark students and I started the celery, celeriac, basil, and tulsi on Friday.

Brandon and Amanda took a Clark crew to weed grass out of the orange house and then tucked everyone in with leaf mulch.

Matt and the crew dug and hauled a big rock out of the orchard. I ordered some gravel for Matt to spread in the annex entry, in the pond field, orchard roadway holes, and at the roadway entrance to the pond field on our property line. Very exciting to upgrade the infrastructure.

Shantel, Alexandria, and John are back on Saturdays now and they and Sophie and I cleaned out the root cellar, washed up the remainder of the carrots and beets, sorted potatoes, and left that space tidy.

Amanda and I filmed a bed prep sequence from tarping to row making…