At the end of the dirt road off Pine Street next to the Needham dog park, visitors are met with the earthy smell of freshly turned soil and ripe produce. Long rows of green leaves and vines full of tomatoes, eggplants and parsley are getting ready for the morning harvest by the staff at the Needham Community Farm.
In the 1950s, the plot of land that the Needham Community Farm (NCF) now calls home housed Nike Missiles. With the Cold War long since over, the team at the farm has been able to transform this area into a place for the community to come together and grow flowers and produce.
“I’d like to say from rockets to radishes,” said Susan Shaver, president of the Needham Community Farm. “You know, kind of like from land housing war to land housing a place to feed the community,” she said.
The Needham Community Farm is separated into two parts: the commercial growing section where farm staff grows produce for CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) boxes and food donations, and the other half of the farm which is made up of 150 raised community beds available for individuals to rent. Currently, the NCF is working on a farm-extension project that will result in more beds to support the CSA and food donation program. The donations go to the Needham Community Council food pantry and the farm’s Mobile Market distributes produce to four Needham Housing Authority sites.
Avery Westa is the farm manager and one of the main visionaries behind the newer look of the commercial side of the farm. “Avery was looking around and noticed the rows were too far apart and not as efficient as they could be,” said Shaver. Moving the rows closer together allowed for more produce to be grown, increasing the output of the commercial farm for both the CSA boxes and for the produce donations.
On the expansion land, squash blossoms and other vegetables spill over into the narrow path. While harvesting parsley with other staff members, Sasha Fraser, the assistant farm manager, explained about the volunteer groups she leads that support the farm.
“Anything from prepping beds to planting to, if we’re making new beds, helping us move wood chips or compost,” are just a few of the tasks farm volunteers can expect to help out with said Fraser. “Some volunteer tasks are more glamorous than others, but all are necessary and oftentimes the ones that are the least glamorous are the most helpful.” If volunteers do want to come and help harvest crops ﹘ one of the more highly sought-after tasks ﹘ the farm currently offers five volunteer spots on Tuesday and Friday mornings. Fraser encourages young people to come out and volunteer. “Specifically within community-building volunteer groups it can be pretty cool because they’re kids of all ages. So we’ll have, like, middle-schoolers working with retired adults. So, the intergenerational relationships and interactions that happen are really, really cool and unique,” she said.
Fraser recently came up with a new way to get more people out to the farm through a Monday night educational program. “Instead of new gardeners coming with their families to have a little area to farm and garden and learn, it’s a community garden bed,” said Shaver. “It’s just a blend. Everybody’s sharing the land and the work and the fruit of their labor.” These educational programs help families learn how to garden in the community plots that make up the other half of the farm.
Connecting with the community has always been a part of the farm’s mission. According to Shaver, when Deb Schmill first started the farm in 2008, “the idea was to get kids outside and to teach them how to connect with the food source.” But the farm has become more than that. “It soon became clear that the commercial side of the farm was growing excess produce,” said Shaver. “And then it really blossomed into, you know, food. Really at the heart of what we do is food donation.” Now, about half of the produce grown on the commercial side of the farm is donated. In 2024, 9,500 pounds of produce were donated to more than 800 people in Needham.
Expanding the farm, especially on the commercial side, is a current work in progress. “You need the right staff in place. You need some cash that you have on hand to do some things, and then you need a really good machine of writing grants to get funding,” Shaver said. The NCF has applied for and hopes to receive a grant in September from the Food Security Infrastructure Grant Program (FSIG) to build a permanent deer fence around the expansion. The NCF has received grants in the past from this state program to purchase a high-tunnel greenhouse and an electric van that is used to bring donations to the community. They also received a three-year grant from the Cummings Foundation that will support ongoing farm expansion.
Continuing to give back to the community through produce donations is extremely important to Shaver and a key part of the farm’s mission. The farm is able to tackle food insecurity by providing fresh produce to those struggling, and Shaver says a lot more people struggle with food insecurity than people understand. “There’s a lot more people in this town and in this country where there’s a lot more invisibility around food security,” said Shaver. “There’s a lot of elderly people who are on very restricted incomes and you could argue that they’re not getting the right mix of nutrients on a daily basis.”
Whatever type of food insecurity it is, whether visible or invisible, the Needham Community Farm is working on combating it and opening up a space for community members to come together and garden both for their own sake and for the purpose of helping their community.
Brooke Lober is a student at Brandeis University
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