Grossmann's gets a grower

Buckwheat has come to Malverne. No, not the Little Rascal — the crop.

Grossmann’s Farm’s new farmer, Bill Walsh, has already broadcast buckwheat seed across the fields of the century-old farm, marking the start of the next generation of farming in southwestern Nassau County.

Walsh, who declined to give his age, came to Malverne earlier this month from Simsbury, Conn., where he transformed an abandoned, fallow farm into a successful organic dairy and vegetable farm. Walsh sold milk, yogurt and cheese retail and wholesale as well as at farmers markets, and on occasion even delivered milk directly to his customers’ homes.

It was Walsh’s expertise in community-farm restoration and his understanding of “agricultural culture,” as he calls it, that made him an appealing candidate for the farmer’s job at Grossmann’s Farm. The Nassau Land Trust, the nonprofit land preservation group selected to operate the farm, hired him early this summer.

“We were so impressed by his passion for taking on the challenge of restoring a farm from scratch,” Leonore Russell, chairwoman of the trust’s Farmer Search Committee, said of Walsh. “He said that if this was already a working farm, he wouldn’t be interested.”

Lloyd Zuckerberg, founder and chairman of the Land Trust, said that hiring Walsh was “the next logical step in our efforts to return the former Grossmann Farm to its status as an important part of the Malverne community.”

One reason it is logical is because Walsh is all about roots — grass roots, that is. He said he wants to work with the Malverne community to turn the old farm into an operational, tillable grange. It is Walsh’s hope that “people from the community who have a special interest in what we’re doing here will become a major support base of the farm and get invested and involved,” he said. “This property will be a nexus for how people can organically and productively grow food in their own backyards and can become a catalyst for other farms across Nassau County.”

Some Malvernites have already expressed interest in joining the effort to revive the farm. Several, including local chiropractor Dr. Pennie Schwartz, have been working on the effort since the farm closed in 2007.

“Watching our new farmer, Bill Walsh, plant the first cover crop brought tears to my eyes,” said Schwartz, who sits on the Land Trust’s Grossmann Farm Subcommittee. “Because after working to preserve the farm for three years, the farm will be growing again.”

Walsh hopes to see some growth soon: By mid-September, he said, he expects white buckwheat blossoms to blanket the farm’s fields. “It grows thick and lush,” he explained, “and smothers all the weeds you don’t want around. It also adds lots of biomass to the soil.”

Buckwheat planting is just the first step in the process of transforming the property into a working farm that will sell fresh vegetables and other produce directly to the public. And that is something Schwartz can’t wait to see. “For the next 100 years,” she said, “we’ll be carrying on the tradition of farming in Malverne that has been with us for the past 100 years.”

Information on the progress of the farm, upcoming events and volunteer opportunities can be found on the Nassau Land Trust’s website, nassalandtrust.org.

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