Tim’s got pigs again

And tons of organic food emerging out of the dirt

There was snorting and rustling among the thick oats and clover Tim Friary had planted in a big rectangle toward the back of his Barnstable farm, plenty of cover as well as food -- though the way these piglets are growing they won’t be able to hide for long.  

“They’re gaining four pounds a day,” Tim said, gingerly stepping over electrified wire, adding grain in a trough to diversify the diet. “By October 10, that’s the magic date, they’ll be 240 pounds each.”

The grain didn’t entice them and Tim wanted me to see these little Berkshires, as the breed is called, so he circled and shooed them my way. Eight had arrived from Western Mass just before July 4 at eight weeks old. Two poked out and stared at me, then grunted and turned tail, vanishing again.

“No breeders,” said Tim. “I used to do that, maybe 10 years of raising pigs, but I stopped a few years ago and now I’m done with that. When these are ready I’ll sell them all by the cut, except one I’m saving for my high school reunion. You get about 160 pounds of meat each, lose a third of the total weight to bone and such.”

Between now and then these pigs won’t want for much except freedom to roam, which Tim can’t allow. With acres of produce and people stopping by his farm stand all the time, free-ranging pigs that soon will weigh 100 then 200 pounds is not a great idea. Plus his farm – one of the biggest left on Cape Cod -- butts up to Route 6A in scenic Barnstable and is owned by the county (prisoners used to work it making food for themselves and others), so control and decorum are necessary and pigs don’t understand that, smart as they are.

Tim’s main claim to fame is not pig farming. He’s the most prolific organic food farmer around. He’s fond of saying that all farmers need a “secret weapon,” something to help supplement when weather, weeds and bugs create hardships, but pigs don’t even serve that reliable, steady function. In his case that’s beachgrass, which he grows and sells to people trying to stabilize dunes around houses or bluffs. Not as high-profile as growing strawberries, but it stabilizes his business much like the grass tamps down blowing sand.

Looking at acres of rolling farmland, starting closest to Route 6A, he intones the names of food he and his team create.

First is butternut squash, “butter babies” on three quarters of an acre, half of that harvest donated to food banks every year (just that donation is more than two tons of squash, to give you an idea of his productivity). Eastham turnips are coming, cucumbers into a second planting and more squash. Peas and edamame were plowed under because weeds came too fast given hard rains and the price wasn’t worth the work.

Strawberries did well, lettuces harvested and replanted, beets, a couple types of beans, garlic, three kinds of onions and two leeks, next year’s strawberries, then tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, some broccoli and cauliflower. There are 14 varieties of flowers for bouquets, then rhubarb, pumpkins, watermelon. Up top are potatoes and sweet potatoes near the beach grass (and pigs).

All told it’s about 30 varieties of produce on 10 cultivated acres.

“The diversity kindah kills me,” said Tim. “You always have to be running around doing different things. If I could do bigger blocks, say 20 variations, that would be good.”

But he has 75 pre-paid, committed customers in what’s called a CSA, Community Supported Agriculture, and they like getting different things week by week, otherwise they might feel they aren’t getting their investment’s worth.

Every year is different, yet every year much the same. That’s farming. Tim’s been at this a long while, he’s 68, and confesses to getting tired sometimes and wanting to simplify if he can.

But then, hell, there haven’t been pigs around for awhile and seemed like a good thing to do so he got more complicated again, planted oats and clover, put down a little hut to shield those Berkshires from sun and rain, and now he’s checking the electric fence regularly.

With a loyal, older crew plus college-age, ag-interested summer help, Cape Cod’s best farmer is making it work one more summer.

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