Theology Meets Ecology

Bread baking is an art, a skill and an avocation, and after 30 years of success in New York City’s competitive food culture, master baker Sarah Black has come home at last to bake at Seminary Hill Farm (SHF) in Delaware, Ohio.

Now working just 27 miles from her hometown of Marion, Sarah admits to feeling like Dorothy Gale in the film based on The Wizard of Oz, discovering that, all along, happiness had been hiding “in my own backyard.”

The winding road to SHF began years ago when Sarah read Wendell Berry’s essays about sustainable agriculture and stewardship. “It seared my soul,” she says, but not until she was back in Ohio in 2015 as baking director at new-concept bakery Flowers and Bread in Columbus did she look further.

Sarah embraced her job, taught bread classes, released a cookbook. Still, she yearned for more.

In March 2018, Sarah discovered Seminary Hill Farm, on the greencampus of Methodist Theological School of Ohio (MTSO), through farm manager Noel Deehr’s (#smileyfarmgirl) Instagram feed.

Nothing if not determined, Sarah wangled an invitation to visit the farm and meet Tadd Petersen, the 35-year-old director of MTSO’s Farm and Food Department, which includes catering and dining as well as the farm.

A Unique Opportunity

Despite growing up in Indiana on a “family homestead,” Tadd rejected farming and used his philosophy degree from Liberty University in Virginia to secure a job as a process engineer for a plastics plant. “For five years. I wore a hairnet, eye protection, the whole shebang. One day I was standing at my extruder wondering ‘What the heck am I doing here?’”

He quit his job and took a nine-month organic farming course at Michigan State University. In 2013, Tadd was a married father of three. He was teaching farming skills to returning citizens for Job and Family Services in Toledo when MTSO President Jay Rundell and Kathy Dickson of Community Food and Wellness recruited him.

“My wife and I saw problems with the food system a decade ago,” Tadd says, “and we had a vision of growing food for our family and homesteading.” But he saw a “unique opportunity” with SHF. “The farm is one way that MTSO can positively impact food-system inequities.”

SHF received its organic certification in 2014. That September, Tadd contacted Noel, a fellow student at Michigan State.

Noel saw the same promise that Tadd had seen. “Two weeks later,” she says, “I was here. Tadd and I are a good team. He’s the mastermind, I’m detail-oriented.”

Farm and Mission

Part of SHF’s raison d’etre is to connect MTSO’s 150 graduate students plus faculty with locally grown good food by serving it in the dining hall. SHF produces about 20% of that food, with the rest coming from local farmers. That includes 100% of the protein, which is pasture-based and non-GMO. Even the cheese is local.

Executive Chef James Akers, formerly executive chef at Ohio Wesleyan University, wants to “show people it’s possible to provide local food right here in Delaware every day.” He is laying plans for cooking classes and community-oriented events, like the upcoming Little Winter Tours, that involve local businesses.

Chef de Cuisine Brian Murphy, a Culinary Institute of America graduate, says “At SHF we can do what the French are so good at— food that is seasonal and local and utilizes every possible part of the meat or vegetable.”

The culinary team (including 20-year-old Daejah McCormick) cooks 140 student/faculty lunches every Tuesday through Thursday, and handles all on-campus events that require food, whether for 60 or 600.

Growing Bigger by Growing Smaller

In 2017, SHF grew 46,000 pounds of produce on 10 intensively cultivated acres. In 2018, the number of community-supported agriculture (CSA) harvest subscription members rose to 300.

In 2019, the plan is to double production—using only 3.5 acres.

Tadd is confident that this will work, counterintuitive as it seems. “We are using a biodiverse, intensive, market-style farming,” he says.

“We use smaller spaces and maximize production,” using labor-intensive techniques like transplanting seedlings by hand and seeding with a precision seeder.

It’s complicated. Spreadsheets exhaustively detail each crop variety— that’s 90 varieties of 30 different vegetables—and when to seed, transplant and harvest.

The staff of nine, including two apprentice farmers, is ever alert to increasing production. For example, farm foreman Taylor Green, 28, “keeps everyone moving,” while experimenting with companion plantings like mushrooms in an asparagus field.

SHF also provides eggs from its 180 free-range hens, guarded by three vigilant geese with puffy, Elvis-like topknots. If a hawk invades, the geese honk wildly in warning.

SHF sells at farmers markets in New Albany and Linden—Linden, Tadd says “because it is a food insecure neighborhood [meaning it lacks access to enough good, nutritious, affordable food], and there was a campus-wide initiative to live out what we’re trying to do in terms of food justice.”

CSA Innovations

CSA harvest subscriptions are the backbone of farm production. Customers buy seasonal shares, then pick them up weekly at either German Village or the farm. Meat shares are also available from local farmers through SHF.

Instead of a standard, no-choice “mystery box,” customers choose what they want from Noel’s enticing produce displays, paying for it in CSA credits. Farm staff greet them by name, answer questions and chat.

Laura Elliot of Marysville says that her pediatrician recommended a CSA to encourage her children, Katie, 10, and Max, 9, to eat vegetables.

“I bring the kids right off the school bus,” she says. “They pick out the vegetables. They had never eaten peppers before. It’s been great!”

The bread CSB (community-supported breads) is Sarah’s idea, beginning with holiday baking, then continuing through the winter months. “We are hoping to have bread pickup every Saturday,” Sarah says, “and eventually include winter vegetables, soups and sandwiches.”

“I thought it was a great idea,” Tadd says. “People enjoy that value added product, and we are using local heritage grains.” (See below, “Baking Biodiversity.”)

Sarah bakes 100 loaves per week—100 beautiful loaves of a quality seldom seen in local bakeries. Whole Wheat Rye and Honey loaves and Milk Bread are standards, and any occasion may inspire a tasty newcomer.