Blog

A Note from Layton | Looking back on our 35th Season

October 28, 2024

Quail Hill Farm

Thank you, dear reader, for being a part of our 35th season of Community Farming here in Amagansett. Since 1990, we’ve hitched our wagons to the blazing star of CSA farming, this great institution of the East End that is Quail Hill Community Farm. Year after year, the thesis proves true: that by investing in our Community Farm, we share in the risks and rewards of such an endeavor. This year, 296 shareholders joined the farm, of whom 50 or so bought in for the first time.

And as hopefully all of you now know (and I’m preaching to the choir– forgive me!) that investment is much more than your fair share of string beans. It’s tucking into a table full of cherry tomatoes at the Great Tomato Taste-Off; getting lost in the flower block, reemerging with shocks of blooms for your table; meeting a new friend or running into a neighbor in the potato field (where are the forks, anyway???); and the myriad threads that tie us together as part and parcel of the “great experiment” that is Quail Hill Community Farm. We hope this season brought you joy and sustenance.

Over on Birch Hill and on Town Lane, we’re putting summer fields to rest for the winter, and beginning to bring in some of our favorite fall crops: sweet potatoes, broccoli, and cauliflower debut, and sweet greens like tat soi, napa cabbage and mustard greens make their return to our harvest lists and plates alike. While tomatoes have long since given up the ghost, hot and sweet peppers linger a little longer– if you’re the pickling kind, I highly recommend putting up some peppers to add some zing to your deep winter meals.

The last harvest day of the 2024 CSA season is this Saturday, November 2. Although we’ll no longer be holding formal harvest days, summer share members are welcome to come and glean through November– we’ll still have lots of nice food out there, so please help yourself. We will not have any signage or tools available. Two rules apply to the gleaning time: only take what you need (no bulk harvesting), and only use the pedestrian gate to the left (south) of the big gate.

2024-2025 Winter Shares are available! Pick-ups are Friday/Saturday, biweekly, from November 22-February 28, 2025. Your share will include everything from fresh high tunnel salad greens, garlic, dry beans and smoked peppers, to winter squash and sweet potatoes; kale, brussels sprouts, cabbages and broccoli, to classic root veggies like beets, potatoes, carrots and parsnips– and so much more! Join today!

If you can’t join the farm for our legendary Winter CSA, consider a year-end gift to support the work we do at Quail Hill Farm. Your support makes our mission-driven work possible, including events for CSA members, educational workshops, food access programming and more.

And lastly, we want to hear from you! In a week or two, we’ll be sending around a survey to capture some feedback and ideas for us as we start to plan for next year.

Thank you! And see you in the fields,

Layton