Green & Gold CSA
On Halloween night 2019 water rose over the banks of the New Haven River, inundating the fields at Green & Gold CSA, located at Golden Well Sanctuary in New Haven. This came on the heels of a flood two weeks earlier which had destroyed 75% of the vegetable crops still in the ground. The Halloween flood destroyed all remaining crops and entered the barn, outbuildings, house, tractor, and the owners’ personal cars. Loss of crops at the end of the season meant no produce for the last two weeks of the CSA, the last three weeks of the Middlebury Farmers’ Market, and winter markets.
A $5,000 emergency loan from the VFF will allow Green & Gold owner Paige Wener to replace her vehicle and have cash on hand to order seeds, compost, and potting soil to get the 2020 growing season underway. In the meantime she’s on the hunt for a new piece of land to farm next year, hopefully, one less susceptible to flooding.