My husband and I bought 13 acres of "black dirt," i.e. really great soil, 65 miles from NYC and are growing vegetables organically. We were going to have a CSA and a friend of mine was going to run the CSA. Because of a serious illness in our immediate family, my "friend" took over the CSA and then decided to buy vegetables from a conventional grower whose prices were much cheaper than what I and other organic growers were charging. And so, we have tons of vegetables coming in with no outlet. Of course, we could sell them ourselves but have decided instead to donate the produce to homeless shelters and food banks (there is a "gleaners" program run by Cornell Cooperative Extension who will pick up the vegetables and distribute).

A local reporter heard about what we are doing and I reluctantly agreed to being interviewed with the hope of getting a core group of volunteers to help plant, weed, spray and harvest the vegetables (the volunteers will also be able to take vegetables for themselves). Right now, it's just me and my husband and I'm exhausted trying to keep up with the zucchini coming in! But as crops are being harvested, with a little help we could be planting so much more. I'm hoping that with some community involvement, we will be able to grow this farm organically and organically it will grow us.

Having been raised in this society to be "independent" and "self-sufficient" and "private" it is really difficult to change, to work cooperatively with other people and allow any sort of attention via the press being drawn to us. Also, I find that people are not very trusting and suspicious of our "generosity" even though I tell them we're not being altruistic, we just want to make sure we have a good supply of really healthy food!