A growing interest

For more and more CSA members, a day on the farm beats a trip to the grocery store

It's 9:30 on an early May morning, already well into the day on Lindentree Farm in Lincoln. A crew of five is planting cauliflower and broccoli in the field, while in the barn basement Susan Viskin and Marilyn Hughes, both of Concord, are planting tomato seeds in small pots.

Supervising the work is farm owner Ari Kurtz, a tall, fit man with gray hair peeking out from under a North Face cap. "A lot of this is like baking," he says of planting, and true to his analogy, the pots will be placed on heated mats to germinate.

First, though, the seeds are watered in an adjacent greenhouse, which is filled with neat rows of what will soon be tomatoes, summer squash, melons, and herbs like Genovese basil. The food will help feed the farm's crew and 275 members, including Viskin and Hughes, who have paid for a portion of the farm's harvest.

Lindentree Farm's community-supported agriculture program, or CSA, is one of more than 80 such programs in Massachusetts, according to localharvest.org, an organic and local food website that maintains a directory of CSAs nationwide. For an annual fee ($650 for a small share or $800 for a large, which can be split) and a work commitment of four hours during the March-to-November season, members earn a weekly allotment of organically grown vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers. Members are vital to the farm's success. In turn, they experience how food is produced.

"We're always doing something different, depending on the time of year," Viskin says. "Sometimes we're out in the field, weeding, planting, or harvesting."

Weeding and planting make up the bulk of the work in May; the first batches of produce are harvested in early June. From then into the fall, members help Kurtz and his paid crew of six part-time and full-time workers picking fruits and vegetables.

"We all need to eat, so [the food] has to grow," Hughes says, eyeing the tomato seeds she's planted.

The growing interest in local food has been a boon to CSA programs. Kurtz sold about 25 more shares this year than he did last year and ran out of shares faster than he has in previous years.

"People want to be a part of local agriculture," Kurtz says. "And a lot of people want to expose their children to it. Some of the kids become converts."

Children are encouraged to help their parents with farm duties. At a table next to Viskin and Hughes, sisters and first-year Lindentree members Stefanie Parker of Acton and Trish Sommer of West Concord, along with Sommer's 9-year-old son, Jonathan, fill peat pots with soil, the beginnings of what will be lettuce.

"Don't worry if you spill any dirt - you can level it off when you're done," Kurtz instructs Jonathan.

Parker, who works part time from home for Brigham & Women's Hospital and has two small children, learned about the farm from a friend.

"I love having so many different vegetables," Parker says. "And I'd like to broaden my children's horizons."

Sommer agrees. "I used to have a garden, and he'd eat snap peas and tomatoes from it," she says, nodding toward her son. "I'd like to get back to that."

All new members of the Lindentree CSA, now in its 15th year, are required to attend an orientation session, where they learn the nuts and bolts of the farm: when to pick up food, how to schedule work hours, how to park.

"We're a family farm, so some of our rules might be different from other places," Kurtz says. "We try to be good neighbors."

On pickup days, members check a board for the amount of fruits, vegetables, and, sometimes, flowers they may take. While most of the produce has already been divvied up, there are some items members pick themselves, like peas, cherry tomatoes, and berries.

Belonging to a CSA really changes the way most people eat. Rather than selecting whatever produce you want at the supermarket, members are given what the ground yields, when it yields it. Along with familiar crops like tomatoes, carrots, peppers, and melons, there are greens like bok choy and tatsoi, which might seem exotic to some. Learning to cook with new vegetables is part of the fun, members say. A weekly newsletter offers suggestions on how to prepare them, and the farm sometimes has cookbooks for sale as well.

"After the first couple of weeks, you don't want to set foot in the store for produce," Viskin says.

Working the land and seeing the results is sometimes a life-altering experience. Steve Tripoli, a longtime journalist who now works at Lindentree two mornings a week, says that after wondering for years what working on a farm would be like, he decided to give it a shot.

"I used to commute into Boston, and when I drove by here, it drove me crazy that I wasn't outdoors," he says.

Now, he and four other crew members are laying Reemay - gauzy polyester sheets used in organic gardening - over beds of cauliflower and broccoli they planted earlier in the day. The sheets, which keep out insects while allowing in water and sunlight, are notably tricky to use: They stick to callused hands, and it's difficult to know until one is stretched if it will be long enough for a row.

"This is the least favorite job on the farm," says James Southcott, a first-year student at the University of King's College in Nova Scotia who is spending his fourth summer working on the farm.

Southcott and Muriel Calo, who oversees the produce Lindentree grows for Field of Greens, a hunger-relief program in Cambridge, pin down the Reemay with what look like oversized clothespins. Meanwhile, crew leader Stephanie Andrews and Meighan Matthews tag-team another row. Matthews says that working on the farm changed her career path as well, nudging her from conflict resolution to food policy.

"Food touches on so many things," she says. "If we can get to know our neighbors through growing food, perhaps that can help build peace."

Indeed, out in the field, with the butterflies fluttering and frogs peeping in the distance, anything seems possible.