organic food

A Productive Year

December 14, 2022

An aerial shot of the farm taken from a drone that shows the many row crops growing and students working — Photo by Timothy Hursley

It has been quite an eventful year at Rural Studio Farm.

Three students return from the field with harvested produce

The morning sun in the summer greenhouse with workers busy tending crops — Photo by Timothy Hursley

With the start of the new academic year in the fall, we had to say goodbye to Jackie Rosborough, one of our student assistant managers.

An assistant manager stands with a shovel in front of the tool shed — Photo by Timothy Hursley

Jackie, along with our other assistant manager, Laurel Holloway, was an integral part of what made this year so successful. Though we are sad to see Jackie depart, we are thrilled to welcome a new student assistant manager, Ambar Ashraf from Atlanta, to our team!

A student sorts sweet potato roots that have been harvested

Two students use a broadfork to prepare a bed for planting

In the spring, we began piloting our CSA program to students and staff, which delivered several hundred pounds of fresh seasonal produce, herbs, and flowers to members across 30 weeks.

The yellow, pink, red, and white thick stems of the harvest chard are striking as students work to bundle them for the CSA

A worker checks her list and surveys the prepared CSA bags

The CSA allowed us to grow a wider variety of crops for the first time—many of which were very successful, like Chinese cabbage, kohlrabi, fennel, and shallots. It’s our hope that we can broaden the scope of the CSA’s membership for next year’s growing season to include the broader community of Hale County.

A giant bouquet of flowers picked from the farm

This past year, we also began working with the Black Belt Food Project and Project Horseshoe Farm to donate several hundred pounds of extra food to their produce stand, which runs on a “take what you want, pay what you can” model.

To help harvest for and run the produce stand, and to help with the farm in general, we welcomed two new Project Horseshoe Farm fellows, Lauren Widmann and Sonja Lazovic, who have succeeded past fellows Maggie Rosenthal, Ellie Hough, and Bess Renjillian.

A volunteer smiles as she harvests snap beans in the field

A student smiles as she holds a harvest apron full of picked snap beans

The Farm also hosted two events this year: a local food and sustainable agriculture summit and dinner in March and the Food for Thought event in October (with the Newbern Library and the Black Belt Food Project).

Two little girls laugh and play during the farm dinner with other diners enjoying themselves in the background

Finally, our Farm Manager, Eric, began graduate school in Auburn in the fall, pursuing a degree in crop, soil, and environmental science. The Farm continues to thrive and expand, and the next year is going to be even more productive!

Another view of a flower harvest with marigolds, celosia, gomphrena, zinnia, salvia, spider lilies, and more

A row of fresh carrots with colors from purple to orange to yellow

Tags: eatlocal, farmhelpers, freshfood, organic food, rsfarm

Rural Studio Farm and the Black Belt Food Project

September 26, 2022

West Alabama has a new nonprofit working in Greensboro: the Black Belt Food Project (BBFP), started by our friend Sarah Cole of Abadir’s. The BBFP aims to build a stronger, more inclusive environment for children and adults through food-based educational opportunities. Eric Ball, Rural Studio’s Farm Manager, joined Sarah’s newly formed board, which includes Dr. John Dorsey, Director of Project Horseshoe Farm; Stephanie Nixon from Hale County Library and founder of Sacred Space, Inc.; and Amanda Storey, Executive Director of Jones Valley Teaching Farm.

Sarah Cole is standing smiling at a range, seasoning some dishes

Sarah has already collaborated with Rural Studio on several events, like preparing all the excellent food for the Moundville Pavilion Project celebration (made with produce and flowers from Rural Studio Farm).

An overhead shot of a flower arrangement next to some food

A close-up of a homemade cake adorned with multicolored edible flowers from the farm

But now Rural Studio is building a relationship with the BBFP to begin to offer Rural Studio Farm as an educational resource with the broader West Alabama community. Notably, in October, Rural Studio, Newbern Library, and the BBFP are putting together a food event called Food for Thought: A journey through food, history, culture & taste.

And since Rural Studio Farm is producing more food than we can use, this week we started sharing extra produce with the BBFP to be distributed to the public at pick-up points in Greensboro, like in Project Horseshoe Farm’s new “store” space at their headquarters in downtown. It’s a “take what you need, give what you can” market stand.

Meanwhile, on the Farm, we’re moving into Autumn. We are harvesting some of the last warm-season crops like pinkeye purple hull peas, okra, peppers, zucchini, and squash. Sweet potatoes are filling the greenhouse, and we are starting lots of cool-season crops: lettuce, arugula, carrots, kale, spinach, chard, turnips, radishes, broccoli, cabbage, rutabagas, and more.

A student dumps pinkeye purple hull peas into a harvest tub while more students pick peas

A shot of newly emerged turnip seedlings that pop with emerald green

Tags: corn, eatlocal, events, fresheating, freshfood, harvest, organic food

Spring Dinner Farm Event

April 7, 2022

We had an exciting weekend of excellent food and even better company as we gathered with some of our neighbors here in West Alabama for our first Rural Studio Farm Dinner and Lecture Event!

A wide shot of the long table with guests sat around it and the sun's striking horizontal light projecting spears of light over the heads of the attendees

Rural Studio Farm has grown immensely in the past four years, and we have reached the point where we are refining and improving our practices even as the farm continues to expand. Production has increased each year, and there is no sign of this letting up. By all accounts, we have been successful at achieving the goals we set for ourselves when the farm was reinvented in 2019. Now, we wish to expand the scope of the farm toward engaging more directly with our community, to further develop our productive food system as a resource.

The garlic cloves are beautifully arranged for planting

Three women students display peanut plants they have just pulled, each thick with peanuts to be dried and picked

In order to expand, we felt we needed to establish new relationships and cultivate current ones with others in our community who might benefit from our growth. So we created a small event to bring folks together with a tour of our farm, followed by some introductions to and celebrations of our guests’ work. Most importantly, the evening culminated in sharing a fine, locally sourced meal together, courtesy of Brad Hart who flew in from Santa Fe along with his partner, and Rural Studio consultant, Johanna Gilligan.

A close-up of the sumptuous salad of local ingredients: pears, lettuce, pecans, beets, radishes, and celery leaves

This was an intimate gathering with few students, and it was meant to emphasize smaller-scale efforts in sustainable agriculture and investments in our local food system.

A guest serves herself some exquisite salad as the farm manager smiles, the sun shining brightly between them

A view of the long table tapering into the middle distance with people gathered and eating

An outdoor gathering of people mingle before they are served dinner at a long table

The event unfolded outdoors on a beautiful Saturday evening. The sun shone with a gentle wind as Farm Manager Eric Ball guided our guests around the farm.

People mingle and mill about during an observational period of the farm tour

Guests participating in the farm tour form two rows of people gathered down the twin aisles of the glass-and-steel greenhouse

Then, several of our guests participated in mini presentations about themselves and their work: Sarah Cole from Abadir’s Pastry and the Back Belt Food Project in Greensboro, AL; Meg Ford from Alabama Audubon in Greensboro, AL; Nicole Dugat from Schoolyard Roots in Tuscaloosa, AL; Jamie-Lee Steenkamp from Bois D’Arc Farm in Uniontown, AL; John Dorsey, as well as fellows Maggie Rosenthal, Bess Renjilian, and Ellie Hough, from Project Horseshoe Farm in Greensboro, AL; Olivia Fuller, the commercial horticulture agent for West Alabama, from the Alabama Cooperative Extension System; and Johanna Gilligan, who founded Grow Dat Youth Farm in New Orleans, LA. We also heard from Emefa Butler from C.H.O.I.C.E. in Uniontown, AL and Jovita Lewis, the Hale County Cooperative Extension coordinator. Finally, we were happy to have our friends, and fellow growers, Chip and Laura Spencer from Marion Junction, AL in attendance.

One can see the varied expressions of those watching a pecha kucha style lecture given by a guest

A side view of the farm dinner guests watching a mini presentation of another guest's work

We had a fantastic evening together and are looking forward to seeing how the farm can expand with these invaluable relationships!

Tags: celebrate, community, eatlocal, freshfood, organic food, rsfarm, spring dinner

Peanuts: come shell or high water

October 28, 2020

Since Rural Studio Farm is a not a commercial farm, we get to grow a wide variety of crops that many other small-scale organic farms might find inefficient to grow, in terms of space and time. Lately, we have been enjoying such a treat: peanuts.

A tiny peanut sprout emerges from a soil block

We began peanuts in soil blocks way back in May before transplanting to the field. As they grow, the plants produce little yellow flowers, which then fade and produce a peg, called a peduncle, that pushes several inches underground to produce the tasty little morsels. Typically, they require around four months to mature, but are low maintenance and pest-free, making them a great crop for us to grow during the summer when Eric was without his usual student workers.

Students dig up peanut plants and collect any stray peanuts

Two students delicately dig up a peanut plant, revealing all the peanuts that have grown underground

A few weeks ago, we dug up the plants and left them to dry in the greenhouse for several days.

Students pick dried peanuts off the peanut plants

Eric holds a ten-gallon tub of dried peanuts en route to the kitchen

Then we separated the peanuts from the plant and took them to kitchen where our cook, Catherine, made some delicious boiled peanuts for our lunches. We got 10 gallons of dried peanuts from about 80 linear feet of plants.

Rural Studio's cook, Cat, boils a large pot of peanuts

Tags: freshfood, harvest, organic food, peanuts

It is all about ingredients

March 9, 2020

Each week we celebrate one ingredient from the Rural Studio Farm during a special lunch and discussion (led by Elena Barthel). The ultimate goal of the these Thursday lunches together is to learn about healthier eating habits. We suggest using fewer ingredients and higher quality, organic produce in our meals. Our own farm salad is always part of our celebration with a good dose of Tuscan olive oil.

The first ingredient we celebrated this year is tomato. Tomatoes can be grown in our greenhouse in early March and in the field garden in May. They can be eaten fresh in the hot summer months and easily preserved to be consumed during both the fall and the spring semester as tomato sauce.

Ode To Tomatoes by Pablo Neruda

The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer, light is halved
like a tomato,
its juice runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes its ease on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife sinks
into living flesh,
red viscera a cool sun,
profound, inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile, happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we pour oil,
essential child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper adds its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding of the day, parsley
hoists its flag,
potatoes bubble vigorously,
the aroma of the roast knocks
at the door, it’s time!
come on! and, on the table, at the midpoint
of summer, the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile star,
displays its convolutions,
its canals, its remarkable amplitude
and abundance, no pit,
no husk, no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers its gift
of fiery color and cool completeness.

Tags: ingredients, olive oil, organic food, tomato