I participated in my first “crop mob” yesterday at Bellair Farms (CSA).
If you’re already lost — what’s a “crop mob” and what is “CSA”? — you’re not alone. Both are pretty new ideas out of the old world of agri-culture, sustainable and sweet. First, CSA: It stands for “community supported agriculture” and is a way to connect farmers directly with consumers who buy a share in future produce. These “members” pay a sum up-front, before the growing season commences to the farmer, who agrees to do her best to grow good stuff that members enjoy throughout the season. It’s a wonderful way to share in both the risks and rewards of good farming. It’s also a cool, organic (dare I say) community-builder. A “crop mob” is a group of people who occasionally descend upon a farm to offer a helping hand, gratis. They may or may not be CSA members — just people who enjoy the labor of sun and field and are happy to help farmers doing good work.
Yesterday’s crew was a mish-mash bunch, organized (in cooperation with the farm’s owner and full-time field hand) by an ordained minister committed to living generously, joyfully, and responsibly on the earth. The narrator of Genesis chapters 2-3, calls us (in Hebrew) adam, created out of adamah — “human” out of “humus.” Such (that biblical text tells) is our relationship to the land. We planted strawberries, amazingly wee plants with spindly roots and virtually no “crown” (green growth), tucked into the soil among gray-brown clods that did not seem in any way welcoming to the new plants. I asked Jamie, the farm manager, if he worried at all about the quality of our planting, if the sorry little things would “take.” He doesn’t — years of experience doing this sort of thing has shown him that the plants have an incredibly strong will to live, and our situating them even clumsily into the soil gives them enough of what they need to gain purchase and grow. After a tour of the place, with its broad barn, traveling chicken coop, streams, and disparate fields, Neal led us in transition from farm to table. After a Neruda poem about onions and brief ecumenical prayers of gratitude and friendship, we sat down at a long table on the edge of the field and in the evening light shared a potluck meal, wine, bread, more poetry, and song. There are worse ways to spend a Friday.
Godspeed, Bellair Farm, and all those of you who live to grow right and true.
