In a throwback to its earliest days, The Lawrenceville School has resurrected its farm — only now, in a tip of the hat to the school colors, that farm is known as the Big Red Farm.
By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
In a throwback to its earliest days, The Lawrenceville School has resurrected its farm — only now, in a tip of the hat to the school colors, that farm is known as the Big Red Farm.
When The Lawrenceville School opened its doors in 1810, the school was self-sufficient and raised food for the students on its own farm. By the early 1900s, there was even a dairy farm on the site of today’s Lawrence Township Community Garden plot, which belongs to the school.
But as the years went by, The Lawrenceville School dropped farming and began to rely on food service companies to feed the students. The school held onto the land and leased it to farmers, who raised crops on the land.
Fast forward to 2013, and students at The Lawrenceville School are again feasting on the produce raised on the school’s farm. And township residents, too, may share in the bounty by patronizing the Big Red Farmstand, which is open twice a week.
The Big Red Farmstand, which is at the end of a gravel driveway next to the Lawrence Township Community Garden on Main Street/Route 206, is open Wednesday and Saturday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. It offers seasonal food, ranging from basil to zucchini — and flowers, too.
School officials have set aside 15 acres off Route 206, near the Lawrence Township Community Garden, for the Big Red Farm. Only 1.5 acres is in production now, but there are plans to double that number in 2014, said Jake Morrow, who tends the farm. His wife, Emma Morrow, is the farm manager.
The farm grows an assortment of vegetables, said Mr. Morrow, who also teaches Latin at The Lawrenceville School. There are about 50 laying hens, as well as a flock of sheep. Hand-spun wool yarn, straight from the sheep, will be sold in the fall, he said.
Much of the produce is sold to Sustainable Fare LLC, which is the private school’s food service provider, he said. Sustainable Fare LLC was founded in 2007 by Gary Giberson, who was The Lawrenceville School’s chef and who is now the food service company’s chief executive officer.
Produce from the Big Red Farm also is sold to Lawrence Township restaurants, ranging from Chambers Walk and Acacia to the Wildflour Bakery and Café, Mr. Morrow said, adding that “we grow food in Lawrence and we sell it in Lawrence.”
Mr. Morrow said school officials had looked into the possibility of starting a farm. The school is in the “really amazing position” of having purchased many acres of farmland over the years, including the land on which the Lawrence Township Community Garden sits, he said.
”One of our missions at the farm is to be experimental and to promote what sustainable agriculture looks like,” Mr. Morrow said. “I feel that’s an important part of what we do as a school farm. The Lawrenceville School feels a public responsibility for the greater good of Lawrence Township and the world.”
Those experiments include finding ways to reduce the farm’s dependence on fossil fuels, as well as improving the land’s fertility through measures such as growing cover crops — clover, oats, rye and buckwheat — to fix the nitrogen in the soil, he said.
Mr. Morrow and his wife are experienced farmers, having worked on organic farms in Pennsylvania. Ms. Morrow, whose family is originally from Princeton, grew up on a farm in western North Carolina. She earned a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Ithaca College.
”I spent a lot of time outdoors as a child. I have a love of being outdoors and being active,” said Mr. Morrow, who earned a bachelor’s degree in classics from Boston University and a master’s degree in humanities from the University of Chicago. He became interested in farming later on.
”I have a love of being reflective, of living the ‘life of the mind.’ What I discovered is that agriculture is a wonderful crossroads between the two worlds. Small, diverse agriculture requires a lot of thinking, reflecting, observation and attention to detail,” said Mr. Morrow, who graduated from Princeton High School in 2000.
Mr. Morrow, who has taught Latin at The Lawrenceville School since 2011, said that when school officials expressed an interest in starting a small farm, he and his wife jumped at the chance to get back into farming.
The project finally got off the ground in the spring. More than a dozen students from The Lawrenceville School worked with the MorRows.
to start seedlings in the school’s greenhouse, spread compost and prepare planting beds. They also transplanted the seedlings to the farm. “(The farm) is a real work in progress. We are trying to find our way,” Mr. Morrow said.