The Neighborhood Farm  is a small, all natural, vegetable and flower farm in Wayland, MA.  We grow a wide range of vegetables, herbs and flowers but we specialize in heirloom tomatoes and garlic.  We also grow hundreds and hundreds of varieties of seedlings each spring, and encourage everyone to try growing something.  We lease land from Mainstone Farm on Old Connecticut Path, and have an on site, year round Farm Stand.  We also attend local farmers markets including Needham, Roslindale and Jamaica Plain. Due to COVID, the Farm Stand is closed, but we are taking online orders for self serve pick up at the Farm.  We have a new online store. We will be adding tons of seedlings and gardening supplies as the spring progresses.  And by late spring/early summer we’ll have a lot more food on there.

Stearns Farm CSA is a nonprofit, 2-acre farm located on Edmands Road in Framingham. All of the vegetables, flowers, herbs, and berries are grown using organic methods. Stearns Farm is one of the rare CSAs that allows sharers to participate in the fieldwork, giving them a hands-on opportunity to learn about raising the food they eat. Stearns offers several share options to fit all kinds of lifestyles and schedules. {check with them to see how COVID is affecting this offering}.

The Food Project’s mission is to create a thoughtful and productive community of youth and adults from diverse backgrounds who work together to build a sustainable food system. They provide locally grown, freshly picked produce for purchase through a 20-week CSA share program. The deadline for summer CSA sign up is June 5, 2020. Produce can be picked up 94 Concord Road, Lincoln, MA 01773 on Tuesdays or Thursdays.  

Why EnergizeWayland recommends these farms? We’ve heard good things about them, that simple. If you have a farmshare from them, or from another farm, a Testimonial here, or email us. Energi zeWayland does not receive money from any of these farms.  

Local food has fewer”food miles” on it, which means fewer miles sitting in a refrigerated, polluting, gas-guzzling truck to get to your table. According to this source, in the US , conventionally distributed food is often said to travel 1,500 miles from farm to plate, which is responsible for 5 to 17 times more CO2 than local and regionally produced food.

But transportation accounts for only 11 percent of food’s greenhouse gas emissions. The majority of total food emissions happens during its production phase, accounting for a whopping 83 percent of total household emissions worldwide (the majority is non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions such as nitrous oxide and methane emissions).

You can address the production part of the “foodprint” as well by buying local at the market, because local farms are small farms and mall farms more readily adopt climate friendly practices that curtail these emissions. They often use fewer pesticides, rebuild crop and insect diversity, enrich the soil with cover crops, create border areas for wildlife, and produce tastier and more nutritious food. Many small farmers are even working on sequestering carbon!

Local, and hence decentralized production also reduces food safety risks, as long-distance food can potentially be contaminated at many points on its journey to our plates.