Organic Farm Takes Root on Hoyden's Hill

The Fairfield Organic Teaching Farm is coming to life on Hoyden's Hill.

Town Conservation Director Thomas Steinke reported Thursday night that fields on the Hoyden's Hill Open Space have been plowed and seeded with winter rye, and the Fairfield Organic Teaching Farm recently obtained non-profit status. Its first crop, garlic, was planted at the Fairfield Community Garden, several plots of which were borrowed by the group while its leaders negotiate a lease for two acres of the 58.5-acre Hoyden's Hill Open Space with First Selectman Ken Flatto and raise money to do a bird survey next summer.

Pamela Jones, president of the Fairfield Organic Teaching Farm, said Friday that the town mowed fields to be leased by the FOTF and that the group paid Al Popp, from Sport Hill Farm in Easton, to plow the fields and plant winter rye. "It was really a big job. It hadn't been done in many years," Jones said of the plowing. "We were very happy we were able to hire Al Popp and have him do the plowing. He brought his tractor up, he was very hardy. It was freezing."

"We had a very short window because of the cold and freezing weather that quickly came up," Jones said.

The FOTF decided to plant winter rye based on advice from local farmers, Jones said. "It's to make the ground more conducive to cultivating. It has to be taken from kind of its wild state," she said.

The Fairfield Organic Teaching Farm can't plant crops in the soil until after a bird survey is done. The survey has to be done when birds are breeding and likely would take place in May or June, Jones said.

Jones said the town Conservation Commission's requirement that the Fairfield Organic Teaching Farm pay for a bird survey before planting crops was somewhat controversial in that other activities are either scheduled or occurring on Hoyden's Hill for which a bird survey was not required. Those activities include tall nets for a golf course driving range, which birds get stuck in, and building a girls' Little League field and infrastructure for a park on Hoyden's Lane, Jones said.

"There's other stuff going on up there the town didn't require a bird study for...There's other stuff going on up there that's not conducive to the bird habitat. What we're doing is very conducive to the bird habitat," Jones said. "The birds are going to love the farm, and yet we're being required to do the bird study."

Soil scientists have said birds will eat seeds from flowers, herbs and vegetables, as well as grubs and worms that appear from turning over soil and putting down compost, Jones said.

Jones said she wasn't sure how much a bird survey would cost, but she said the Fairfield Organic Teaching Farm needs to raise about $75,000 before it plants its first crops. "Now we can raise money," she said of the group obtaining non-profit status, "and hopefully people will think of us when they write their year-end donations."

Jones said the Fairfield Organic Teaching Farm probably couldn't plant crops on the Hoyden's Hill Open Space until at least next July, and Ed Jones, the town Conservation Department's open space manager, said it may be even longer because the soil hasn't been farmed in about a decade. "Everything has to be broken down, the organics have to be broken down," he said.

Pamela Jones said the Fairfield Organic Teaching Farm could plant crops elsewhere and then transplant them on the Hoyden's Hill Open Space. She said the group would survey local chefs to determine what kind of crops they would be interested in buying and also would consult farmers to determine the best crops to plant.

The Conservation Commission allowed the FOTF to plant winter rye before the bird survey was done, Pamela Jones said.

Meanwhile, Pamela Jones said she received a draft copy of a lease between the FOTF and town, was reviewing it, and hoped to have it back to the town by the beginning of next year. The lease would require approval from the Representative Town Meeting if it's longer than three years; if it's three years or shorter, First Selectman Ken Flatto can enter into the lease with the FOTF without review or approval from town bodies.

The Fairfield Organic Teaching Farm is now planning a series of events, such as a winter workshop series on farming, a sheep-shearing workshop, a local seed bank initiative with Fairfield Woods Branch Library and a "Meal in the Meadows" event at Pequot Library in Fairfield's Southport neighborhood.

Information on the events will be posted at www.fairfieldorganicteachingfarm.org, which also is where residents can find out how to donate to the group, Pamela Jones said.