A beautiful pastoral look at one NYC woman’s quest to save her family farm by turning it into an organic CSA farm. Here is a note from Stefanie Zaitz, the women in the video.

I am the fifth generation to live on this farm.  My great great grandfather built our barn with his own two hands at the brink of the Civil War.  The farmhouse I now live in with my 2 friends / business partners was built around 1810.  This place truly is the old homestead.  My mother grew up here.  I grew up in Monmouth County in New Jersey, but spent every summer here while I grew up.  I graduated from Rutgers with a degree in Psych and Sociology in 2005.  Never thought about farming.  Ever.  My grandmother passed away in 2006, and I started looking into ways to save (read: continue) our family farm.  I looked into 3 options.  Start a microbrewery here, start a winery here, or start an organic farm here.  My timing was best with option 3.  In March of 2007, I began an internship with the Plant Science department at Cook College of Rutgers University.  Cook College runs the largest student-run organic farm in the nation.  There I met my partners, who are mentioned in the video.  They ran the place.

We start every plant from seed starting with onions in February.  This year, we built our own greenhouse to keep our seedlings in.

We currently operate a ONE person CSA.  She gets lots of individual attention, and we are obtaining valuable feedback from her.  This summer we ran a roadside farm stand every weekend.  On the good days, I felt like I was saving the earth and offering people an incredibly high quality product.  On the bad days, I had left a great job for an incredible non-profit in NYC and was peddling vegetables on the side of a highway.  It’s really been a mixed bag.

Next year, we’ve got about 10 shareholders so far.  Pretty good considering it’s September.

We grow 30 different types of vegetables, flowers and herbs.

Hope to see you soon Zach!