Learn about sustainable living at the Union Square Farmer’s Market in Somerville

On June 18, 2010, in Latest News, by The News Staff

A new addition to the bustling market this year is the Urban Homesteader's League(UHL) Market Stand, a place where visitors can learn urban living and creative domesticating.

By Julia Fairclough

Amongst the colorful stands of delicate lettuces, plump strawberries, and freshly-baked breads at the Union Square farmer's market is also the opportunity to learn how to take advantage of nature's bounty and make your own bread, or jam, or grow a vegetable garden.

A new addition to the bustling market this year is the Urban Homesteader's League (UHL) Market Stand, a place where visitors can learn skills for sustainable urban living and creative domesticating. Which, by the way, is the big trend these days. After just one year since its formation, UHL has about 800 members, said founder Lisa Gross.

"I love the making part of art," said UHL member Meg Rotzel, who has led skillshares about how to make maple sugar. "I have my own container gardens, I make my own clothes, and I make my own pickles. I like to work with my hands."

The UHL is a community venture dedicated to inspiring and empowering people and communities to shift from a lifestyle of passive consumption to that of active participation. UHL teaches workshops and skillshares on ecological urban agriculture, urban livestock, food preparation and preservation, making your own skincare products and cleaning supplies, urban composting, basic carpentry, green retrofitting, fiber arts, and more.

At the farmer's market, the UHL will offer four different "skillshares" on each Saturday they appear, which involves someone talking about a particular skill, whether it be maple syrup making, how to make pickles, or new ways to introduce organic fertilizers in the garden. Gross hopes that people will come to the UHL table to share their ideas for skill shares. Anyone with a viable idea is welcome, she said.

UHL will also man a "swap table" to share ideas and domestic products. People can donate for a swap bread, cookies, Kampuchea starter, plants from their garden, a prized tomato, homemade jam, etc.

"In addition to having space for swapping, it's about sharing what we have created in our own community," said Gross, an Inman Square resident.

Rotzel heard about Gross and UHL through the grapevine. She organizes programs for MIT, and was the director of the Berwick Research Institute. Being an organizer and lover of the handmade, it was a natural match to join UHL, she said.

In Jamaica Plain where she lives with her husband, Rotzel makes maple sugar from local trees. She will offer a skillshare on the subject during the farmer's market on Saturday, June 26.

Gross wanted a UHL presence at the Union Square farmer's market because Union Square is home to all sorts of unusual projects. She also wants to participate with other area farmer's markets, which are growing in abundance.

She stressed that a big part of UHL is coalescing the community. UHL has grown through word of mouth and tapping into the cultural movement to grown our own food and reconnect to where things come from, she said.

Gross is currently working on a master's of fine arts at the Museum School of Fine Arts. This summer's farmer's market is a part of her thesis, which ponders the creation of collaboratives for participatory work.

And Gross has been busy. UHL has worked with a whole host of other organizations to co-host a potluck for the Boston Localvores, a bike tour with Urban Orchards and Earthworks Boston, and other events with Slow Food, to name a few.

UHL also just started a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the farmer's market project, which you can read about at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1304704540/the-urban-homesteaders-league-market-stand.

The Union Square Farmer's markets take place on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the Union Square plaza. UHL will be there on June 19 and 26; July 17 and 31; August 14 and 21; September 11 and 25; and October 9, 23, and 30.