Real Organic Project certifies Groton farm

While she was born and raised in Lynbrook, Long Island, local Groton farmer Pegi Ficken has had an avid interest in agriculture for as long as she can remember.

“When I was 2, maybe 3 years old, I pulled my mother’s amaryllis up out of the ground because I just wanted to see how they grew,” Ficken said.

She remembers it well because it took her mother “three years to get a flower on it, and she was not happy with me at all.”

Ficken has come a long way since then with her love of the soil, as her Snowy Fields Farm has just been certified organic by the Real Organic Project (ROP), a grassroots, organic-farmer-led organization started by farmers who were farming organically since, in Ficken’s words, “before the USDA defined the word ‘organic.’”

Ficken is extremely proud to have received the designation because she has worked hard over the years to get to where she is today.

While she lived on Long Island, Ficken attended the Brooklyn Friends Quaker School through the 10th grade and then attended Malverne High School, graduating in 1967.

Ficken graduated from the chemical engineering program at New York University (NYU) in 1973 and wanted to go to medical school.

In June of 1973, Ficken married her husband, William (Bill) Ficken, whom she had met in math class at NYU.

After applying and being waitlisted at nine medical schools, Pegi was not able to attend any of them, so she ended up taking a summer job as a gardener at a private estate in Rye, New York.

It turned out that the head gardener on the estate wrote articles for the “Brooklyn Botanic Gardens Handbook,” which Pegi began reading. That was a pivotal point in awakening a drive in her to read all kinds of books and magazines about gardening.

“The more I read, the more I started questioning what really made sense, especially where chemicals were concerned,” Pegi said.

The Fickens moved to Joliet, Illinois, in 1974, and Pegi landed a position as a production engineer for Olin Corporation.

“That was an interesting time,” Pegi said. “I was the first woman to ever work there. The average age of the employees was 59, and I was 23. I had to work really hard to be accepted because I wasn’t ‘one of the guys,’ and I had to show all their wives that I wasn’t a threat to them.”

Pegi ended up quitting in 1978 and taking a job as the utilities manager for Petro Chemical in Morris, Illinois.

In 1980, the Fickens welcomed their first daughter, Susan, and Pegi left Petro Chemical. More children were added to the Ficken family: Edward in 1982, Katherine in 1984 and Christopher in 1987.

At some point between Katherine and Christopher, the Fickens moved to Wisconsin because Bill took a job there.
Susan and Edward struggled in school, not because they were behind in their academics, but because they were so far ahead of their peers.

“Edward was reading at a 12th-grade level in third grade, so I ended up homeschooling all four of them from 1986 right through their high school years,” Pegi said.

During their youth, the Ficken children were avidly interested in animals and heavily involved in the 4-H Program.

“That’s pretty much where having a farm got started,” Pegi said. “All four of my children had three cows each, and each one also had their own goat herds so they could show them every year at the Wisconsin State Fair. At one point, we had 125 goats, so we set about building a milking parlor for them and the cows.”

The Fickens had just begun selling the goat and cow milk when milk prices suddenly dropped. That was another pivotal point in Pegi’s life.

Pegi and Bill parted ways, and Pegi divided the 200-acre farm into 40-acre parcels, sold them and began to think about her next step in life.

“I never really liked Wisconsin because there were no springs or streams and very few trees,” Pegi said. “But I always felt drawn to upstate New York.”

With her heart and mind set on following that draw, Pegi took a road trip, bought a farm in Tioga Center and made plans to move her family and animals there, but once they arrived, the sale fell through, leaving Pegi in a dire predicament.

Pegi rented a house in Sayre, Pennsylvania, boarded her animals and just started driving all over, looking for a new farm to purchase. It was on one of those drives that she found her current home and farm on Sovocool Hill Road, where she has been ever since.

Staying true to standards to protect soil health and animal welfare, Pegi, with a lot of help from her children, has raised numerous animals and grown a plethora of crops and flowers through the years.

Cows and goats have not been a part of Pegi’s farm over the past few years. She has chickens and raises white turkeys, but her focus now is organic gardening, and she felt very strongly about getting certified by the ROP.

“The basis of organic growing is soil health, but the USDA has recently approved hydroponics as organic,” Pegi said. “This has many people outraged because how can you be improving the soil if you don’t use any? Certification by ROP, unlike USDA certification, is free but rigorous. My farm had to meet USDA certification, but ROP has additional requirements.”

Pegi’s primary focus now is certified organic garlic, elderberry plants, black and red currant plants, aronias, and jams and jellies because she also obtained a home kitchen license.

It is very evident that Snowy Fields Farm is Pegi’s pride and joy, but her delight with her new status from ROP certainly seems to be her crowning glory.

Groton on the Inside appears weekly. Submit news ideas to Linda Competillo, lmc10@cornell.edu or 607-227-4922.

In brief:

Sciencenter family fun

The Sciencenter will be presenting fun family activities at Groton Memorial Park on Sykes Street at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22 and again at 10 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 25, sponsored by Groton Recreation.

All activities will be family friendly and appropriate for children ages 5 and up. These free events will be led by a Science Center educator and all supplies are provided. Register at tshq.bluesombrero.com/Default.aspx?tabid=2198940.

Youth football camp

Groton Recreation will host a fall football camp every Saturday from Oct. 17 through Nov. 7 at Groton Memorial Park on Sykes Street.

Third- and fourth-grade students will meet from 11 a.m. to noon. Fifth- and sixth-graders will meet from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

Come work on your skills at this fall youth football camp series. A safety-focused setup includes making space for social distancing, time for sanitizing equipment and built-in water/mask breaks.

This will be a fun, safe and memorable experience through skill development, drills, agility and fun games. It is a free program, but pre-registration is required at tshq.bluesombrero.com/Default.aspx?tabid=2198940.

Groton Rural Cemetery

The Groton Rural Cemetery Association will hold its annual meeting for lot owners at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27 at the Masonic Building, corner of Main Street and Lincoln Avenue. This meeting will be followed by the annual meeting of the association’s Board of Trustees.