K E E P I N G I T S I M P L E
H i s t o r y, r u s t i c i t y, c l o s e f a m i l y b o n d s m a k e M o o r s E n d F a r m s p e c i a l
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER

Sue Slosek picks a bouquet for the family’s Moors End Farm stand. The 28-acre produce and flower business is primarily run by her and her husband Steve, and their children Abby and Sam. ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

To the small, tightly-knit Slosek family, running a farm is not about expanding, modernizing, sizable profits or any type of glitz. Rather, to them it is about a lifestyle, personal principles and quality.

Steve and Sue Slosek, their son Sam and daughter Abby, work together because they love one another, they enjoy and take pride in giving customers produce they have raised nearly chemical-free, and they want shopping at their Polpis Road stand to remain a relaxing, friendly and memorable experience.

The stand itself is reminiscent of the days when Nantucket represented a simple life. There is an unmistakable attitude adjustment entering the somewhat ramshackle building that invokes a spirit of patience and commaraderie.

STEPPING BACK IN TIME

The colorful vegetables, such as yellow squash and zucchini, baby green beans and cucumbers are in baskets next to water-filled containers holding carrots and beet greens.

All these selections, as well as the incredibly popular heirloom Brandywine tomatoes and several types of sweet corn, rest on well-worn wooden cases. The tiny lettuces, purposely chosen when small for ultimate tenderness and taste, float in an old clawfoot bathtub supported by cinder blocks.

“I remember him saying, ‘I hope you can justify using this land for flowers’,” she said, noting that the farm’s cut flower and bedding plant sales have become a major part of the overall business.

Because the growing season started late after this year’s cold spring, crops are at their peak right now and should last well into September. Melons will be along soon. When the summer vegetables end, they will be replaced by turnips, winter squash, pumpkins and gourds, kale, broccoli, Indian corn, fall beans and radishes.

Bumper crops of maize fill the Slosek’s Moors End fields. Customers appreciate the stand’s rustic simplicity, such as lettuce floating in an old bathtub. Jake Johns, the farm’s jovial Jamaican, has worked Moors End for the last nine years. PHOTOS BY ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

Each sign at the farm is hand-lettered. Instead of computers, a tin cash box sits on the stand’s single “checkout” counter. There are no plastic bags here — the paper bags customers put their vegetables in are all recycled from local markets, often donated by patrons. And then there are the flowers.

Unusual varieties and combinations are lined up in vases on a multitiered piece of shelving that has not seen a fresh coat of paint in years. That, along with the rest of the casual ambiance, is exactly what many people treasure.

“Our customers love it like this,” said Sue. “This is their idea of what a vegetable stand should be like, and I like rustic. I love the conversations we have with our customers. It’s just a really friendly atmosphere we have here.”

WHO DOES WHAT

The Slosek family running the farm today consists of Steve and Sue, both “around” 50 or 60, Sam, 30, Abby, 29, and Arthur “Artie” Forester, Sue’s retired brother-in-law, who lives in East Albany, Vt. and works at the farm every August.

Other than the immediate family, there is Jake Johns, a jovial Jamaican with an amazing smile who has worked for them for nine years and plays an invaluable role in the farm’s operations. He picks, pots and weeds, as well as “just getting things done.”

“And he puts everybody in a good mood,” said Sue.

There are also a couple of other farm hands for the summer, and temporary employees who help get everything started in the spring. But it is really the core family members who make this farm work. While jobs required around the farm may differ from day to day, each person has duties which stay fairly regular through the week.

Though Sue and Abby assist and “spell” Artie at the stand from time to time, he said that is his major responsibility. Artie sets up and opens the stand by 8 a.m. and stays with it, except for lunch and occasional other breaks, until it closes at 6 p.m. His parents used to have a home in ‘Sconset, so he is long familiar with Nantucket and still very attached to spending time here.

“I love coming back. The farm provides me with wonderful access to Nantucket, now that the summer home is no more,” he said. “I like to come when the corn is running. When the corn is running it’s busy, and I like it when it’s busy. When the corn’s gone, I’m out of here.”

Abby spends a couple hours in the mornings and afternoons picking flowers. She is also charged with seeding, planting and picking the lettuce, picking herbs and keeping the nursery watered.

“We all just do what needs to be done,” she said, noting that though her parents have never asked her or her brother to work on the farm, they have helped since childhood and she only took off one summer to stay at a Colorado dude ranch. She loves what she does and who she does it with.

“I enjoy working outside — the flexibility of it — and I enjoy working with my family,” said Abby. “I feel I know my parents and my brother better and in different ways than a lot of people know their immediate families. We work together, we eat together, and it’s a lot of sharing. That’s what makes it sad to think about the fact that one day, Sam and I will have to do it without them. I’m getting married next fall, and it’s just nice to know that my kids will grow up here and they won’t have to go to day care. They will always be around and outside and eating good food.”

Sam is in charge of the tomato crops, most of the field preparation prior to the growing season, picking the corn and irrigating the fields. It is not the money, it is being outdoors and the whole farming lifestyle that attracted him, even after studying management information systems in college and taking a stab at a corporate position.

“It’s working all day and feeling like you got something done,” he said of his personal satisfactions. “I guess it’s pretty gratifying and it is challenging. I never wanted to be a farmer — I don’t think most farmers want to be farmers when they’re kids. But I wasn’t really enjoying my career after college, I realized my parents weren’t getting any younger, and I like living here.”

Sue has a hand in just about everything, but specifically tackles the farm’s bookkeeping. Steve still holds the reins when it comes to planning and preparing the fields for planting, as well as putting down the black plastic mulch that keeps the weeds at bay. He is also Sam’s chief mentor.

ESTABLISHED ROOTS

The present 28-acre farm began some 250 years ago when there were many of what were called “subsistence farms” on Nantucket, mainly grasslands for sheep and cows. The Slosek’s property had several owners over time, but became a dairy farm in the early 1950s under Fred Linton, explained Steve Slosek.

Linton sold to Bill Moss, who ran the dairy for a short time before going bankrupt. Then Steve’s father, Stanley Slosek, bought the property at a public auction in September 1958 for $30,000 plus some “gentlemen’s notes” to satisfy mechanic’s liens for work on the farm’s equipment.

Stanley Slosek kept the dairy going, selling milk door to door in 1959 and planting some of the land as hay fields. But island dairy farmers began selling out as they faced competition from larger companies, such as Hood, and Cumberland Farms opened a local store. In 1967, Stanley Slosek decided to keep his land, but sold his last cow, and by 1968 the dairy business was over on Nantucket.

Steve was drafted into the Army in 1967, where he trained as an air traffic controller, though he said he has always had an interest in agriculture. He returned to Nantucket in 1971, and that fall he met Sue at the former Preston’s Airport Lounge. For the first couple of years, she waitressed at night and he was a trucker. The couple wed in 1973 and lived in one of the farm buildings, while Steve’s father and stepmother still lived in the main house.

GROWTH OF A PLAN

Since Sue had time to fill during the day, she decided to plant some tomatoes — too many tomatoes, as it turned out.

“I put them in a wheelbarrow by the side of the road and people scooped them up,” she said. “That was what put the bee in our bonnet [to start a farm], so to speak.”

In 1974 through 1975, Steve attended the Stockbridge School of Agriculture. He commuted back and forth in the fall and Sue joined him for the winter. By 1976, Steve was fishing in the off-season and the couple were farming together on Nantucket from spring to fall.

“We became farmers by default,” he joked.

Slosek’s operation started with vegetables; however, Sue soon got requests for bouquets, and tried her hand at flower gardening, despite Steve’s initial reservations. PROTECTING THE FUTURE

In 2001, Steve’s brothers and sister sold the property’s development rights to the Nantucket Land Bank.

The Nantucket Conservation Foundation holds a conservation restriction that will ensure it remains in agricultural use in perpetuity.

Steve retained five of the 28 acres, the minimum necessary to qualify for a farm tax break, and also to allow his son and daughter to have a place to build their own homes. They have a 50year lease to continue farming the land that is under restriction.

From the start, the Slosek’s work schedules allowed them to leave before cold weather hit the island, a pattern that continues to this day. By the end of October, Abby and Sue order flower seeds for the upcoming year. Abby and Sam stay on the farm as its caretakers, with her also maintaining the heated greenhouse and Sam repairing equipment or

other work there is no time

for during the busy summer. Steve and Sue leave for their old farmhouse in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom as close to November 1 as possible for a little respite.

“It’s my pride and joy,” said Sue, adding that she has a lot of family in the area and almost on arrival begins planning for a Thanksgiving dinner serving 30 guests.

It is not all play while the Slosek’s are gone, however. Sue has a greenhouse where she starts plants to bring back to Nantucket and spends about a month doing the business taxes.

LOVING THE LIFE

But while farming is hard and carries multiple challenges including unpredictable weather, labor issues, competition and crop ravages from wildlife, in the end, it is all about quality for the Slosek family — the quality of their products and the quality of their lives.

Steve said the only crop they use a minimal amount of pesticide on is the corn, because without some intervention it would be destroyed by corn borers. “Nobody wants it sprayed, and if you don’t need to, why bother,” he said, explaining that when he was in agricultural school in the 1970s, people were becoming very sensitive and cautious about how the environment was treated. “We became terribly aware, terribly quick before we got into any bad habits.”

At one point in her life, Sue was working in educational television. Though it was satisfying on some levels, it did not suit her personality the way farming does.

“I grew up on a dairy farm. All seven of us kids had to work on it,” she said. “It sure beats sitting in an office. Here, the time goes by so quickly.”

Sue and Steve Slosek are not quite ready to retire from their fulfilling career together but they are edging toward that decision little by little and are pleased to know their children, and perhaps grandchildren, will continue the tradition.

“Farming is a great way of life,” said Steve. “It is tremendously rewarding. Everything you do is for yourself. The person you have to satisfy is the most important person in your life, and that’s yourself, but I’m trying to wean myself out of here completely. I can’t wait to retire and have a nice, little garden.”

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