Not long ago, Tim Leavitt, Farmer Kev’s father, came to our house to deliver eggs. The Leavitts have 5 hens, and most of the eggs we eat come from those hens. Usually, we swing by the Leavitts’ house to pick up the eggs, but since we know Kevin’s parents, and since they were out and about, they decided to deliver the eggs to us. (How cool is that?)

Naturally, after Tim delivered the eggs, we chatted a bit. Farmer Kev is a third-year student at the University of Maine at Orono, and we speculated about what Kevin would do when he graduated from college.

“He’d like to get a farm,” Tim said. “With the profits he’s made from his gardens, he’s bought quite a bit of equipment, but he can’t buy a tractor until he has a place to keep it.”

“Like his own barn,” I said. “Oh, I wish he’d come back to the Winthrop area to farm, and I know a lot of people, including other farmers, who feel the same way.”

Tim smiled. “We’d like to have him stay in this area, too.”

“Could Maine Farmland Trust perhaps give him a grant. I know land is so expensive.”

“Maybe,” Tim said, “But one of the biggest problems around here is finding open land that hasn’t been developed. It’s not easy.”

Open land that hasn’t been developed. I should have thought of this as a problem, but somehow I hadn’t. This part of Maine is so rural that it seems as though there is plenty of land. In one sense there is, but much of the land around here has trees, lots of trees. You might even call this area “heavily wooded.” Now, trees are great, and so are woods. We want to have them. In fact, we need them for the health of the planet. But to grow vegetables, open land is needed, and Tim is right. Much of the open land around here has been sold for house lots. While land can be cleared, it is a heck of a process as well as an expense.

This lack of open land for farming in the Winthrop area could become a serious problem as the price of fuel goes up, and food becomes ever more expensive to ship across country. I’ve become interested in a movement called Transition, which started in England. The Transition Movement focuses on how towns might become more resilient to deal with the problems brought about by climate change and peak oil. There are Transition communities around the world, working on projects ranging from CSAs, local currencies, and seed swaps as well as many other projects. Winthrop is in the “mulling” stages of becoming a Transition Town.

But let us return to the problem of finding open land that hasn’t been developed. This, in turn, leads to the question: Could Winthrop feed itself if push came to shove?

This is a question I’ll be asking local farmers. It will be interesting to get their take on the subject, and I will, of course, be writing about their responses as well as more about the Transition Movement.

And, now, readers, I have a question for you. Could your community feed itself?

This summer, my husband, Clif, and I joined Farmer Kev’s CSA program. (Click here to read a piece from my archives about Farmer Kev.) Starting in June, each week Farmer Kev delivered—that’s right delivered—a crate of freshly picked, organic vegetables. How we loved it! I will admit that early in the season it was a challenge to keep up with the plethora of greens—spinach, lettuce, Swiss chard—but we rose to the challenge and found such good recipes that we’ll be making them again next year.

The deliveries stopped in September, and Clif and I both felt somewhat at a loss. After feasting on such wonderful organic abundance, we were both reluctant to go back to buying vegetables at the grocery store. Then I had an idea. Why not ask Farmer Kev if he would sell us some of his keeper crops—potatoes, squash, carrots, beets, and garlic—if he had a surplus? I asked, and he did.

So we ordered and bought 50 pounds of potatoes, 10 pounds of carrots, 10 heads of garlic, 10 pounds of beets, 4 pounds of green peppers, and a bushel of squash. Since we don’t have a root cellar, the potatoes and squash are stored in baskets in our bedrooms, which tend to be quite cool in the fall and winter. The carrots, peppers, and beets are squished in our refrigerator.

These vegetables will probably not see us through the winter, but they will at least take us part of the way through the season. Already, we are enjoying roasted squash with sage butter; baked potatoes sometimes served with just butter, sometimes stuffed with chili; carrot tarragon soup (Here’s the recipe!); and, of course, the garlic in many things. In Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian there is a beet gratin recipe that I’ll be trying, and I’ll be poking around for other dishes that feature beets. My friend Kate Johnson has enthused about the joys of roasted carrots, and we’ll soon be roasting some of Farmer Kev’s carrots.

Between the CSA and the extra vegetables, Clif and I paid Farmer Kev $290 this year, and we agree that this was money very well spent. Not only were those organic vegetables delivered to our doorstep, but they were also incredibly clean and fresh. (Apparently, Farmer Kev has quite the system for cleaning vegetables, and next year I hope to get pictures of it for the blog.)

While I plan to expand my own little gardens, I also know that there’s a limit to what I can grow on this shady lot. Someday, perhaps, we will open up the land so that we can get more sun. Nevertheless, I will certainly continue buying vegetables from Farmer Kev. Not only are we doing our part for local agriculture, but we are also eating pretty darn well.

Last weekend, I found out some sad news: Saturday, September 3 was the last day of the Winthrop Farmers’ Market. They are closing shop early this year because supplies are running low. I’ll miss my Saturday morning bike rides to the farmers’ market—buying fresh food and talking to the vendors. (However, I still have an “in,” so to speak, with Farmer Kev for vegetables. He has surplus to sell to his CSA customers.)

I admit that this early closing caught me off-guard. On this blog, I had planned to feature a profile of each of the Winthrop Farmers’ Market vendors, and as the market usually runs until October, I thought I had plenty of time to include them all. Wrong! I missed two of the vendors, and I hope to write about them next year.

But I did manage to talk to Richard Reed of R & L Berry Farms on 22 Berry Road in Readfield. As the name of the farm suggests, Richard and his wife, Leane—hence R & L—specialize in berries, blueberries and raspberries, but they grow vegetables as well. Berries are sold at the farmers’ market, and at their farm, when the berries are in season, Leane and Richard allow customers to pick their own. In addition, Leane makes berry pies,  jellies, banana bread, and zucchini bread to sell at the farmers’ market.

They also sell honey, and right now they have 20 hives. Leane and Richard plan on adding 10 more hives and want to focus on honey and honey products: creamed honey, honey sticks, honey hand-creams, combed honey, and, of course, jars of honey. With honey having a much, much longer shelf life than fresh berries, it is easy to understand why the Reeds want to increase their honey production. And, honey is certainly delicious. On oatmeal. In green tea. On toast. In bran muffins. There are lots of good ways to use honey.

Leane and Richard have been growing and selling berries and vegetables for seven years.  To further diversify, Richard has been learning how to make beef jerky, with much guidance on safety issues coming from the University of Maine at Orono. He plans to buy beef from Wholesome Holmstead, one of the vendors at the Winthrop Farmers’ Market and a farm that has been featured on this blog.

I love berries and honey, but what I really love are Richard’s whoopie pies, which he, rather than his wife, makes. Small—just the right size as far as I’m concerned—moist, often studded with mini-chocolate chips and thick with cream, these whoopie pies have become a Saturday treat, and I will miss them. I can and probably will buy Wicked Whoopee Pies at the grocery store, and Wicked Whoopies are very good. But Richard’s are better. He has a knack for making them, and I hope his enthusiasm for beef jerky doesn’t interfere with his whoopie pie production.

I’ll be looking for whoopie pies next spring when the farmers’ market opens.