A sprouty, muddy preview of a Coming Attraction: The Sylvester Manor 2026 CSA

From the frolicking chickens to the weeding, digging, planting farmhands, the 7-acre, food-growing field at Sylvester Manor is a beehive of activity that includes bees. Most of the April action is below ground, but come June, people who signed up for a share of this year’s CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) will be eating well. 

Farm manager Matt Celona gave the Reporter a preview of what’s growing. Planting started on Feb. 23, and already the greenhouse is full of seedlings ready to transplant into the fields, such as sweet peppers, shishito peppers and bunching cauliflower, instead of the traditional head cauliflower. 

Bunching? Celona explained that bunching cauliflower grows like fingers of cauliflower as opposed to a head like a volleyball. “It cooks a lot more quickly because it’s small, and I love to chop it and saute it very quickly,” he said.

Well under way is the first of the three rounds of tomatoes that will be on offer starting in June. The first round are all cherry tomatoes, grown in the greenhouse, followed by two rounds of field tomatoes, cherry and full size. To complete your salad, scallions are growing in a section of the field covered by a protective tunnel, and the first round of bokchoy has already been harvested and donated to the Shelter Island Food Pantry and CAST.

The flowers are also coming up nicely, and most of them are just as edible as the lettuce, including violas, snapdragon, butterfly weed and dianthus.

One greenhouse held crates of seed potatoes, including a beauty called Pinto with skin that is gold, red and tan. “See how it looks like a Pinto horse?” Mr. Celona said, holding a potato up for me to see its thin colorful skin that requires no peeling.  “You wouldn’t want to peel any of these because they’re grown organically and a lot of the nutrients are in the skin,” he said, pointing to the Carla Rosa and Yukon Gold variety called Natasha.

Nearby plumes of garlic leaves were snuggled up in leaf mulch from the property; garlic being the other ingredient in the roasted potato dish I was dreaming of.

Onions are already transplanted to the field, along with shallots, radicchio, and celeriac. Seven kinds of lettuce are sprouting, including one called Crispino, a loose flavorful iceberg variety. There will be three varieties of beets; red, orange, and candy stripe. Kale, fava beans, and four varieties of strawberries will be available early in the season, and blackberries and raspberries, as well as several varieties of winter squash and pumpkins that will extend into late summer.

“Our team of farmhands is responsible for all the beautiful work that’s been happening here,” said Mr. Celona. Farmhands April Adkison, Elias Currier, Jacob Yankee, 

Billy Brennan, and Nick MacAskill were too busy pruning rosemary plants, starting the sweet corn seeds, and spreading lime to talk to a reporter, but the fruits of their efforts are already sprouting, and will truly show when the first CSA distribution happens on June 13. CSA shares will be distributed every Saturday through Oct. 31.

If that has whet your appetite, you can learn how to take part in CSA at sylvestermanor.org/community-supported-agriculture/ or email [email protected]

A 21-week share of berries, herbs, vegetables and flowers costs $785, and each week’s share will feed 2-3 people. A Farmstand Credit is another option, that will provide $550 of credit for $500.