Eat First

Truxton Academy Charter School

Open house attendees visit the vegetable garden at Truxton Academy Charter School during an open house earlier this month.

 

As August winds down, there's no denying the hint of fall in the air. Branden Brown, co-owner of Trinity Valley Dairy, is looking forward to this year's corn maze adventure on the farm and the deluge of families that will come out to navigate it. He's also excited about the start of the school year. Two of his children will be attending Truxton Academy Charter School. The school -- New York State's first rural, agriculture-focused elementary charter school -- will welcome its first students next week. Landen Brown, 6, will be in first grade; daughter Lillian, 5, is ready for kindergarten.

 

Brown is grateful for an opportunity to choose where his children attend school and how they learn. His son has lots of energy, he says, so a curriculum that gets him up from behind a desk and out of the confines of a conventional classroom is a good thing. "I really like the idea of hands-on learning,'' Brown says. "Kids don't all learn the same way and there should be choices. Plus, it's agriculture based, which is right up our alley.'' 

 

Branden Brown and his wife, Rebekah Poole Brown, have supported the school since planning and lobbying the state for it began five years ago, and Trinity Valley Dairy is one of the school's business partners. "We're excited. We're big proponents of anything agriculture. I have no doubt it will be a success,'' Brown says.

 

Caterpillars in the classroom: Students will learn about the life cycle of the butterfly at Truxton Academy Charter School.

 

The Truxton Academy Charter School has enrolled about 45 kindergarten, first grade and second grade pupils to date and hopes to have up to 140 students in grades K-6 in the next five years. The tuition-free public charter school is in the former Hartnett Elementary School in Truxton. The Homer Central School District closed Hartnett in 2015 due to declining enrollment.

 

For those who are not familiar, a charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the state school system. That gives the schools more flexibility in how they operate and the curriculum they offer. Truxton Academy is governed by an 11-member board of trustees and founding members. The board meets at 7 p.m. the second Monday of each month and meetings are open to the public.  

 

At a series of open houses this spring and summer, prospective pupils met Head of School Sara Petit-McClure and some of the teachers, toured the unconventional classrooms with carpeted floors and unstructured seating, learned about the curriculum, headed outside to have a look at the school garden (currently planted with squashes and pumpkins) and enjoyed healthy snacks.

 

School organizers and volunteers say they want the school to be the heart of the rural Cortland County community. They're on a mission to share with students the importance of rural life and agriculture and the role of agriculture in the years ahead. The school is expected to draw students from Onondaga, Cortland, Madison and Tompkins counties.

 

The school's curriculum will focus on hands-on, project-based learning, incorporating science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) plus the arts. Spanish language classes will begin in kindergarten. Students will get outside for physical education and wellness programs and get their hands dirty in the Rural Life Lab, where they will learn about growing food, composting and raising farm animals. A chef has been hired to prepare farm-to-school lunches, utilizing ingredients from the school garden and local farms like Twin Oaks Dairy (organic beef), Shared Roots Farm and Main Street Farms (fresh produce) and Trinity Valley (milk).

 

An important part of project-based learning is getting students out into the community. There will be field trips, of course, to local farms, businesses and dairy producers.

 

"Students will have field lessons and see, hands-on, the science behind modern-day farming,'' says Carly Arnold Dougherty, co-owner with her husband, Dave, of Food and Ferments, a Truxton-based producer of naturally fermented sauerkrauts, kimchi, beet kvass and other products sold at area markets and stores.

 

Food and Ferments is one of the school’s community partners. Carly Dougherty grew up at Twin Oaks Dairy, her family's farm in Truxton, and lived in Philadelphia for a few years before she and her husband relocated their business to the family farm. She volunteers at the school and has been actively involved from the start in getting it established.

 

"The whole idea is for the students to be able to learn in a hands-on, project based way, connecting to the rural traditions and agricultural region we live in, while also incorporating STEM/STEAM,'' she says.

 

The Truxton Academy Charter School is at 6337 Academy St., Truxton. Enrollment is ongoing. Information: 607-842-6252.

 

 A vegetable garden grows at Truxton Academy Charter School.

 

All photos by Margaret McCormick unless otherwise indicated.

 

 

 

Fresh Herbs of Fabius

Clockwise from top left: Mahogany tomatoes; a Parisian carrot; lettuce leaf basil and a handful of white currants, all grown at Fresh Herbs of Fabius.

 

Like many farmers, Ken and Elizabeth Nevius grow a lot of produce for chefs. They started out growing herbs exclusively -- hence the name of their business, Fresh Herbs of Fabius -- but before long branched into microgreens, heirloom vegetables and some fruits.

 

They started out on a small plot of land at their home in rural Fabius, in southeastern Onondaga County, and have since expanded to five acres of tiered growing space on the hillside behind their home. They now grow hundreds of varieties of herbs and specialty produce.

 

A field of fingerling potatoes at Fresh Herbs of Fabius

 

I visited the farm on a recent weekday, in the prime of the growing season. Elizabeth showed me around in a golf cart and Ken walked the land. They pointed out a long field of fingerling potatoes, many of which will be used by chef Damien Brownlow at Kitty Hoynes Irish Pub & Restaurant in downtown Syracuse. I was introduced to short and stubby Parisian carrots and Mexican gherkins, which look like tiny watermelons but are said to taste like cucumber. There was so much to see: baby eggplants in various shades of purple, baby summer squashes, pole beans, peppers, heirloom cucumbers and heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and mahogany tomatoes slowly starting to ripen.

 

And then there are the herbs, too numerous to mention all by name: spicy bush basil, opal basil, Thai basil, lettuce leaf basil as big as your hand, which chefs like to use for beautiful wraps and roll-ups. Parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, chamomile, chives, cilantro, borage, fennel, oregano, lemon balm, lemon grass -- the list goes on and on. They also grow fruits, including tiny, tart red and white currants, sour cherries, white cherries, pears and apples etc. Last but not least, they grow nasturtiums, pansies, roses, bachelor buttons and other edible flowers to add color, flavor and artistry to plates.

 

Come fall, they'll have winter squashes and sugar pumpkins. They start everything from seeds in a small greenhouse and are able to grow and offer microgreens, salad greens and some micro flowers year-round. 

 

The Nevius' didn't plan to be niche growers for restaurants. Ken grew up in Connecticut and worked for many years as a manufacturing and production engineer at the former Philips Broadband Networks plant in Manlius. When the company shut down, he worked as a custodian for the local school district and he and Elizabeth researched how to grow herbs.

 

They launched their business in 1999, showing up at restaurants like the former Kettle Lakes Restaurant in Tully with beautiful micro greens and herbs. The late chef Brian Shore, who owned and operated Kettle Lakes and later served as executive chef at the Arad Evans Inn in Fayetteville, was one of their early customers. "He really was an advocate for local farmers and locally grown produce,'' Ken Nevius recalls. Shore helped to spread the word about Fresh Herbs of Fabius.

 

Both Ken and Elizabeth work on the farm and share in the marketing of their produce. Their list of clients includes many fine dining restaurants in Central New York: Defi Cuisine Corp. and The York in downtown Syracuse, and Mirbeau Inn & Spa, Rosalie's Cucina and The Krebs in Skaneateles, to name a few. Clients are emailed each week with a list of what's available on the farm. Produce is harvested and packed by hand, delivered to restaurants and often served the same day it's picked.

 

The Nevius' sometimes grow specific items for specific chefs and restaurants -- like the potatoes for Kitty Hoynes. Chefs are invited to take field trips to the farm and sometimes they do, when their schedules allow.

 

"We're focused on quality, not quantity,'' Ken says. "We grow things for flavor.''

 

For more information on Fresh Herbs of Fabius, call 315-683-5159.

 

Note: All photos by Margaret McCormick unless otherwise indicated.

 

Deep purple opal basil at Fresh Herbs of Fabius.