Today we named a field.

Pete’s has farmed many different fields over the years; some are little spots, hidden behind houses or divided up by woods and rivers, some we’ve been farming for fifty years, and some we’ve picked up in the past few years. Our style of farming means that we’ve walked (and crawled, hands and knees) every foot of every field we’ve farmed. You get to know their secrets- their hidden rocky spots, the places that stay cool and keep the summer spinach from bolting, the spots where the fog creeps in and protects the fall crops from the early frost. You get to feel the history of the Connecticut River Valley, rolling back through the ages, in the ground beneath our feet.

Each of those fields, with their unique and hidden personalities, has a name. “Head over to Romie’s and get a bushel of loose beets” or “it’s time to weed those carrots over on the ‘back forty’”. Winter evenings we plan out the working life of that land, when it rests, what it grows. We get attached. We remember the people who let us farm their land, who give us that chance to get attached. We remember Craig, Romie, Charlie, and the family and friends who worked those fields over the years.

This year marked something new, a first in the long history of Janiszyns farming the Valley. Today we signed the papers and for the first time, we own a field we farm. It’s a step toward stability for our business, a field we can feed, maintain, and care for- and know that it is ours forever.

This means that from this point on, that field is Ours. Ours to protect, to nurture, to manage. It means a little piece of that fertile valley will always be farmland- no houses, no fast food joints. That rich loam will never leave, dumptruck by dumptruck, sold off to parts unknown. And it’s, really, thanks to you. Every dozen corn, every bunch of radish, we’ve saved away a little to make this happen.

Now, we’re off to “John’s” to go pick the last of the brussels sprouts and see how that cover crop is coming along.