Between high taxes, expensive land values, and newly built homes butting right up against their borders, New Jersey farmers have so much more to contend with than weather. Many are hanging on by their fingernails,” says Bonnie Blader of West Windsor, who is at once a wife, mother, writer, teacher, environmentalist, activist, food writer, and passionate conservator of the farming way of life. “People don’t understand the issues related to farming survival and just what a marginal economy it can be.”
We’re all spoiled by the sweet juicy corn, succulent tomatoes, fat dark berries, apples, zucchini, beans, spinach, arugula, peppers, pumpkins, potatoes, leeks, and lettuce and so much more that we get at farm markets throughout the spring, summer, and early fall. What we may not know is the marginal existence many of the participating farmers are squeaking out and how their very survival depends on our support.
Helping people understand the issues — chiefly, the local sourcing of food and the challenges facing farmers on the urban fringe — is Blader’s mission. Not unlike a politician who has a public declaration of their principles and intentions, Blader has a manifesto of sorts, in the form of two books that act as both her guiding light and a way to help others understand the urgency behind her voice. “What Our Friends Like to Eat” is a cookbook, just released in time for the holidays, produced by the hearts and minds behind the West Windsor Community Farmers Market, which just wrapped up its seventh season featuring local products every Saturday morning in the Vaughn Drive parking lot of the Princeton Junction train station. “It’s grand, really, with recipes from people who frequent the market, and lots of connections to area programs like the Farm to School Network and school gardens and vignettes from contributors to introduce their dishes,” says Blader.
“For me the accomplishment was creating not only a community document, but an awareness-raising document too. Between the farmers’ voices speaking of the harsh reality of farming on expensive land, to the sense that there are people trying to make links that can improve the quality of life in our communities and that there’s room to join in, we have a little more than a cookbook. For me, it’s a manifesto by stealth, and I love the fact that we pulled it off.”
The cookbook was preceded by another book called “One True Thing About Farming: An Oral History of the Farmers of the West Windsor Community Farmers’ Market, 2004 to 2009.” In that book, New Jersey farmers tell the stories of their lives in farming — with anecdotes about their sturdy ancestors who settled the land, to the philosophies and hard work that guide their daily lives, to interesting behind-the-scenes tales of what it means to be a 21st century producer of food. The book includes the stories of such fabled local standbys as Griggstown Quail Farm, Terhune Orchards, and Cherry Grove Farm.
And no book about New Jersey farming would be complete without the story of the Stults Farm, technically located in Cranbury, but straddling the border of West Windsor and Plainsboro, feeding generations of residents since Clifford Addison Stults first purchased the then 93-acre farm in 1915 and began growing potatoes and wheat. Today the farm sprawls over 200 acres of gorgeous preserved land and is still worked by the Stults family, whose main source of income now is seasonal sales through the farmstand and “pick your own.” They also grow wheat and soybeans as rotation crops. They are regulars at the West Windsor Community Farmers’ Market from May through October every year.
It was back in 2004, when the farmers’ market was just opening for its first year that Blader answered an ad in the Trenton Times announcing that the market’s co-founders — including Beth Feehan of West Windsor — were looking for volunteers. “So I put up signs every Saturday morning, set up tables, and generally pitched in to help wherever I was needed,” Blader says. “At the end of first year, they suggested we give our participating farmers a gift, a book telling their stories. I drove all over the state and interviewed 17 different farmers, getting an interesting cross-section of farmers’ stories, a snapshot of the greater farmer community at that time in history. The book became important to me as a documentary. Our first version was informal. But five years later, in 2009, we decided to expand the book and make it more formal. We included some of the original farmers as well as seven new interviews, hired Amy Jolin as our designer, and produced it through blurb.com.”
In addition to her writing credentials, which include freelance credits with Edible Jersey and Edible Hudson Valley, Blader has an eclectic resume woven, as she explains, by a common theme. “I do work that is environmentally connected, primarily land use and food.” She is a member of the Master Gardeners of Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Mercer County, a group of volunteers who are knowledgeable about a wide range of gardening subjects and share information and programs with the community.
She and her husband of 39 years, Steven, a litigator with Szaferman, Lakind, Blumstein & Blader in Lawrenceville, divide their time between their home near High School South and a home in New York’s Hudson Valley. There, she is a Master Forest Owner in the Catskills region, which means that she educates private land owners about such issues as timber cuts and managing wildlife.
Blader was born in Passaic. Her mother was a homemaker and her father a salesman. His job took the family, which also includes Blader’s older brother and two younger sisters, all over New Jersey, including the towns of Clifton and Livingston up north. When he was home, her father was an enthusiastic gardener, Blader says. “His garden was amazing, with rows and rows of eggplant and green peppers and tomatoes. I’m sure I did some reluctant weeding, but I certainly enjoyed eating everything. I remember some of the best times of my life in the woods, swinging on vines, just playing, when kids just hung out, way before things became so organized. That’s when I developed a love of the outdoors that I tried to cultivate in my own children.”
Blader graduated from Rutgers in Camden with a degree in English in 1971. It was there that she met her husband whom she married her junior year. Then came daughter Enid, now 35, who teaches film at California State Monterey. Ruth, a writer and mom who lives in France, was born almost two years later, and then, 21 months after that, Esther, who now lives in Oregon and teaches second grade. When they were raising their children, the Bladers lived in Titusville near Washington Crossing State Park. It was an idyllic childhood for them, says Blader. “We walked outside a lot along the Delaware Raritan Canal; we went to the penny candy store almost every day; we made delicious foods like pumpkin bread. It was an old-fashioned way to bring kids up.” The family moved to West Windsor in the mid-’80s, and Esther graduated from High School South.
In 1984 Blader earned her teaching certificate from Trenton State (now the College of New Jersey), and in 1986, she started teaching at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School back when there was only one campus on Clarksville Road. The very next year, Community Middle School was opening, and then-principal Art Downs asked her to teach. She wrote the reading literature curriculum and taught there for three years before returning to the high school, where she taught journalism, language arts, and writing until 2000. She also managed to find the time to earn an MFA in writing from Vermont’s Goddard College.
Blader is convinced that New Jersey farmers can survive and even thrive, but it’s going to take awareness and support to succeed. Chief among her concerns are the conversion of farmland to developments, which has already happened so much all over the state and particularly in West Windsor and Plainsboro where many a McMansion now stands on land that once grew food.
Blader says: “These lands are valuable for farming, but when you have high land values, you have developers who see dollar signs and that goes against the farmer’s ability to do his job and make a living. New Jersey has wonderful land that produces flavorful food and I hope farmers can continue but they can’t if they don’t have that local awareness of how precarious it is. It’s up to the local community to decide.”
And just what power can any of us have? “If you want local farms, you have to support your neighbors,” says Blader. “If you shop at supermarkets, put pressure on them to support local farmers. Go to your schools, and if you don’t want your children eating chicken nuggets all the time, ask how they can use local farm products. Ask farmers to freeze their vegetables to use during the school year. It comes down to enacting choices. Choose local produce instead of the stuff that comes from Mexico. There are political and social decisions, and sometimes it means paying more.” But, as Blader so fervently believes and is spreading the word, “it’s worth it.”
Editor’s note: “One True Thing About Farming: An Oral History of the Farmers of the West WindsorCommunity Farmers’ Market, 2004 to 2009” and “What Our Friends Like to Eat” are available at www.blurb.com.
