KK Haspel, Southold farmer prominent in North Fork farm-to-table movement, dead at 63

Southold farmer KK (Kathy Keller) Haspel, a prominent figure in the North Fork's farm-to-table movement and an energetic proponent of school gardens, died of cancer Saturday. She was 63.

Haspel presided over the 5-acre plot on Main Road known simply as The Farm. She was a practitioner of biodynamics, a holistic system of agriculture codified by the Austrian philosopher-educator Rudolf Steiner, that is designed to harness the forces of the sun, moon, planets and stars, and focus them on the Earth and its plants.

The Farm is also organic but, as Haspel explained in a 2007 interview, organic practices can only take farmers so far. "Biodynamics," she said, "has the ability to heal the earth."

'COSMIC ENERGY'
Those who knew her said she applied the same holistic approach to life that she did to farming. "KK saw everyone, everything as part of the same cosmic energy," said her husband, Ira Haspel, "and she was able to connect to that energy in her plants, and in all of us."

On folding tables set up right alongside the road, Haspel sold preternaturally robust zinnias, vibrant greens, jewel-toned berries, long-stemmed garlic bulbs, fresh soybeans and dozens of varieties of heirloom tomatoes that thrived even when bad weather or blight routed other farmers' harvests.

Many customers, skeptical about Haspel's mystical approach to farming, came to acknowledge that something magical must be at work at The Farm, although that magic may well have resided in the farmer herself. Willowy and graceful, a wide-brimmed hat shielding her sun-sensitive skin, Haspel regarded her crops with the respect afforded to esteemed guests, warning a shrub that a limb was going to be pruned, referring to stray tomatoes in the flower beds as "volunteers."

"From KK's The Farm" became a descriptor of distinction on the menus of such restaurants as North Fork Table and Inn in Southold, First & South in Greenport and Mirabelle in Stony Brook.

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Farming was a third career for Haspel. She trained as a Montessori schoolteacher and taught in Manhattan before establishing a construction business, building and renovating commercial and residential properties on Long Island, often working with her husband, an architect. In 1999, the couple took a drive from their home in Oak Beach to the North Fork to look for a weekend home. Pulling into the driveway of the dilapidated farmhouse, Haspel had a vision. "I saw a field of zinnias -- zinnias, wildflowers and sunflowers," she recalled. "I knew we had to have this place."

MENTORED FARMERS, OTHERS
Haspel took courses in organic and biodynamic farming at the Nature Lyceum in Westhampton and the Pfeiffer Center in upstate Chestnut Ridge. Gradually, she evolved from student to teacher, becoming a mentor not only to farmers but also to people who were drawn to her view of the interconnectedness of all living things.

Haspel increasingly directed her energies to establishing school gardens on the North Fork. She was instrumental in establishing school gardens in Southold, Greenport, Orient, Cutchogue and Shelter Island.

In addition to her husband, Haspel also is survived by her mother, Elizabeth Keller, her son, Max, and his wife, Gaby, and their children, Georgina and William of Brightwaters. She also is survived by brothers Coty Keller and Bob Keller, and sisters Patty Max and Lisa O'Brian. A memorial service is planned for Oct. 18 at DeFriest-Grattan Funeral Home in Mattituck.

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The family requests that those wishing to remember Haspel volunteer their time with a local school garden, or make a donation in her name to the Fiver Children's Foundation (fiver.org) or the Lustgarten Foundation (curePC.org).