A crowd hovered at the entrance gate to the West Tisbury Farmers’ Market on Saturday morning, as workers from Morning Glory Farm unloaded 32 bushels of corn intended for sale at the farm’s market booth. The market didn’t open for another 10 minutes, but this crowd was armed and ready, with tote bags and baskets as their weapons of choice.
The summer of 2009 will be remembered for primarily one thing: rain.
“Summer? It didn’t start until the first week of August,” said James H.K. Norton of Norton Farm in Vineyard Haven. “We had no sun for two months. We planted everything in a timely fashion, but nothing ripened because there wasn’t any sun.”
Island farmers, fishermen and sailors all were affected by the bad weather.
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission last Thursday unanimously approved a proposal to renovate and expand Morning Glory Farm in Edgartown, which was under review as a development of regional impact (DRI).
The plan was reviewed by the commission’s land use planning committee last Monday and approved by the full commission last Thursday after 30 minutes of deliberation.
The plan now goes before the Edgartown planning board for review at the local level.
The Island’s largest wind turbine to date went up this past week at Morning Glory Farm in Edgartown. The 50-kilowatt wind turbine sits atop a 120-foot galvanized steel tower.
The project began as an idea three years ago, and on Thursday it took a single day to bring the huge pieces together and assemble it. The turbine now appears high above the landscape to drivers headed out of Edgartown on the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road.
It’s been a long time coming for Morning Glory Farm to expand its farm stand. The farm has been overwhelmed in recent summers by the demand for the local produce they sell. This summer that problem may be averted. The new building has been open since Memorial Day weekend, and a formal grand opening was held on Saturday in the post and beam structure that looks like a miniature version of the Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury.
