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A FARM GROWS IN QUEENS
Change is taking root at the
Queens County Farm Museum
By Alia Akkam
FLORAL PARK - It’s 7:45 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Michael Grady Robertson, director of agriculture at the Queens County Farm Museum, and Kennon Kay, the farm’s garden manager, have just arrived for work. Brief greetings are exchanged, and then Robertson pulls on a pair of heavy-duty rubber boots. His morning will begin on the fields, making his rounds among the animals. Kay takes a sip of her coffee before turning her attention to the farm’s red truck. The day before was a busy one at the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan where the farm sells its produce, and there is a lot she needs to unload.
From my perch beneath a shady saucer magnolia tree, I watch, a little mesmerized. This is Queens, after all. Just a few miles away is the train, the subway, the great bit city. And yet here I am, in the country.
As recently as 50 years ago, it was not uncommon to see fertile farms scattered throughout the borough. Most of these farms succumbed to the creep, creep, creep of real estate development, so it’s striking that the Queens County Farm Museum, located on the border of Queens and Nassau counties, is still here—and thriving. The longest continuously operating farm site in New York state, the 47-acre farm was established in 1697. In the 1930s, it was owned and tended to by Creedmoor State Hospital, but since 1975 it has been owned by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Standing inside the gates, though, you’d be hard-pressed to remember that you are, in fact, still within the city limits. But just barely.
In the early morning the weather is still blissfully cool. It is magically quiet and I am only stirred by the sounds of hens clucking, sheep baahing and geese nonchalantly strutting on webbed feet. Kay and Robertson may be on opposite sides of the farm, yet there’s an understated knowledge that they are working in tandem. As Kay gears up for the day’s harvest in lounge pants, and Robertson casually encourages a sheep to eat the goods from the red pail he’s offering with a “Come on, big boy,” it’s understood they are comfortable here, that they are just as much a part of the farm’s dynamic as the grumbling pig in the background. Soon the trance will be broken, farmhands will trickle in, and Kay will don her floppy straw hat, grab the wheelbarrow and head for the fields.
GARDEN VARIETY
“It’s amazing how many people say ‘we’ve never heard of you,’” says Kay, who notes that the Queens County Farm Museum is one of the city’s best-kept secrets. Up until last year, when she met Robertson at a small farmers conference, she didn’t know it existed either.
Gradually, the secret has been unveiled. In 1988, the farm was visited by just 10,000 people a year; that number has now increased to nearly 500,000 annually, making it the borough’s biggest cultural attraction.
One of the reasons for the growth has been the farm’s presence at the popular Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan. Kay, whose resume includes a stint at Westchester’s highly lauded Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, is responsible for overseeing the two acres of organic vegetable produce. You’ll find all the staples here: peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, carrots, basil and potatoes. But then there are the likes of summer squash, melons, beets, chard, celery, fennel, peas, kale, mustard greens and okra.
The growing season stretches year-round, with a cold-weather greenhouse, as well. The farm also hosts an on-site market manned by enthusiastic apprentices. Now, locals driving down Little Neck Parkway see the signs inviting them to stop in. Plump heirloom tomatoes were in the mix one summer morning, and Queens-bred pork is available Wednesday through Sunday beginning at noon.
ANIMAL FARM
During my first encounter with Robertson, he flicked greens off his white T-shirt, apologizing for being “covered in salad.” It’s clear farming is a passion for him. After working at Hawthorne Valley Farm upstate, he toyed with the idea of opening his own persimmon and pomegranate orchard in Texas. Then he found out about the Queens County Farm Museum, which he joined in 2008. Prior to his arrival, visitors would come to the farm to pick pumpkins, feed goats and walk through a corn maze, getting only a superficial view of a working farm. He pushed for change.
Extensive livestock operations are now one of Robertson’s core programs. “Every farm animal has a story to tell in the development of small-scale farms,” he explains. “Our job is to keep their stories alive. We’re committed to preserving the wisdom of farming.”
Robertson has a strong vision of how the Queens County Farm Museum can be enriched by the presence of these animals. Here, Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs are fed on 60 percent Brooklyn Brewery spent grains and 40 percent hog pellets. There are plans for a new “fiber farm” in the works, raising sheep for wool production; and honey is produced at what might be the city’s largest apiary, under the direction of long-time beekeeper Wally Blohm.
CONTINUING TO GROW
Indeed, change is in the air at the farm. Executive director Amy Fischetti-Bonardi hopes to obtain a New York State wine license this fall, so they can sell their 2006 and 2007 vintages, made from the farm’s grapes. And their biggest upcoming initiative is to create a working dairy.
“There is no other place in New York City where people can learn firsthand where milk comes from and how cheese is made,” Robertson points out. So far, they’ve purchased a dairy calf from Hawthorne Valley Farm, which they will breed next year to begin developing a dairy herd.
These are ambitious plans, but I couldn’t help but think the farm could take a more proactive approach in reaching out to Queens residents. Currently, the farm sells its produce to restaurants in Brooklyn, where both Robertson and Kay live, but none in Queens. And aside from their own market, they participate in no Queens farmers markets, and they don’t have a local CSA.
Robertson insists all these are in the cards: “We want to reach every single borough— eventually.”
Queens County Farm Museum, 73-50 Little Neck Pkwy., Floral Park, 718-347-3276
To get there by car
From Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens (West):
Take Grand Central Parkway East to Exit 24 (Little Neck Parkway). Make right onto Little Neck Parkway and drive 3 blocks to the farm. OR take Long Island Expressway East to Exit 32 (Little Neck Parkway). Make right onto Little Neck Parkway and drive 1½ miles to the farm.
From Long Island (East):
Take Northern State Parkway West to Grand Central Parkway West to Exit 24 (Little Neck Parkway). Make left onto Little Neck Parkway and drive 3 blocks to the farm. OR take Long Island Expressway West to Exit 32 (Little Neck Parkway). Make left onto Little Neck Parkway and drive 1½ miles to the farm.
From the Bronx (North):
Take 95 South to the Throgs Neck Bridge to Clearview Expressway South to Exit 1, Grand Central Parkway East to Exit 24 (Little Neck Parkway). Make right onto Little Neck Parkway and drive 3 blocks to the farm. OR take the Whitestone Bridge to Cross Island Parkway to Exit 29 East, Grand Central Parkway East to Exit 24 (Little Neck Parkway). Make right onto Little Neck Parkway and drive 3 blocks to the farm.
To get there by public transportation
Subway and Bus:
E or F Train to Kew Gardens/Union Turnpike Q46 Bus (eastbound on Union Turnpike) to Little Neck Parkway Stop, Cross Union Turnpike and walk north on Little Neck Parkway 3 blocks to the farm.
Long Island Rail Road:
Port Washington Line to Little Neck Station. A 24-hour car service is located at station; simply pick up the courtesy phone. It’s about a 2½ mile drive.
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