Whereas nature is dancing toward the quiet tones of late fall and winter, our hoop houses harbor stockpile of greens to keep all our plates full of fresh green vibrancy. And our various storage systems enable us to tuck in the full color spectrum (marinara, pumpkins, squash, tomatillo sauce, pickles, currants, elderberries), squirreling it away so you can continue to provision with local, nutritious farm delights. The point here is that although growing season is wrapping up, eating season – that is good, clean, local, deliciousness, is here within your reach!

A few important updates from our farm regarding ordering.

From the beginning of the pandemic, we have been on the ultra conservative side due to both having many immunocompromised customers and since the farmstand is also our workspace and with a tiny team, we are trying to stay healthy in order to keep food available.  Given this, we are going to keep our farmstand closed to self-serve shopping and continue with the online farmstand and system of pre-orders.

Farmers Market End=Change in Pick-up Options

With the Northfield Farmers Market finishing its season on the green, we are going to discontinue that location as an order pick-up option.  On-farm pick-up is available both Tuesdays and Fridays from 4-6 pm and we do home deliveries to Montpelier & West Brookfield on Fridays.   As we move further into the fall, we will consider any needed changes to this schedule to accommodate weather, customers and the farm. 

For those who have loved seeing Donna at the Market pick-up, fear not, she will continue anchoring order packing and you can glimpse her on Tuesdays and Fridays at the farm pick-up to share recipe ideas or other feedback. And if you haven’t followed her spectacular COVID farm fresh cooking images & ideas on Instagram, do check it out. It is one of the many ways in which her creativity and positivity fuel us all.   

Reduced Packing Fees

Due to a combination of having gotten more efficient at our system, the existing pack fees having gotten us through a critical period of adjustment and investment and having received some small grants from Vermont Land Trust, NOFA and the American Farmland Trust to pay for a portion of the additional costs related to changing our food delivery system, we are now able to reduce the pack fee for retail customers to $2.00 and waive it entirely for farmshare members.  Home delivery fees to Montpelier & Brookfield are now reduced to $12/order. 

We want to express our deep appreciation to all of you for rolling with the changes from our self-serve farmstand to an online pre-order system and supporting our farm and other farms deeply through all of these challenges.  We recognize it hasn’t been easy and your encouragement and steadfast support have made a HUGE difference for us.

Season End Staff Transitions

As we wrap up the growing season we celebrate the contributions of our colleagues who we will miss as we advance.

Darienne Chouinard
Half the farm’s life ago, Darienne’s resume stood out immediately.

Besides hailing from Barre and graduating from Sterling College’s sustainable agriculture program, she had chased experience on several sustainable farms and joked that mates described her as a draft pony. Or was it that draft ponies were her spirit animal? Either way, the image is perfect to depict the dogged dedication and extraordinary consistency with which Darienne served this farm for 5 ½ years!  She developed mastery using technologies suited for our scale and adapting them to our low till ecological farming methods, for example muscling the paper pot transplanter through crop residuals (we cut finished plant material instead of pulling, leaving residuals to feed detritivore communities among other benefits).

All the while Darienne was a true renaissance farmer, chasing apple borers, milking goats, army crawling under protect net to harvest early Brussel sprouts, and dedicating tons of hours to transplanting, weeding, watering and mulching and other plant care. In recent years she managed harvests with ease and elegance, tamed and trellised tomatoes, seeded starts, managed our crop planning and yield analysis and was just overall fierce, even to the point of hand to hand (very quick hands!) combat with rodents in the high tunnels. Darienne left subtle signs of encouragement for mates in times of need, anchoring the team with the leadership of both a specialist and caring mentor and mate.

Christina Sulmonte Healy

Two and ½ years ago Christina arrived with notable enthusiasm which combined with her positivity powered many a swarm, prepping beds for planting, solarizing cover crops and leading our mulching efforts with our bale shredder. Her adaptability enabled her to not only jump back and forth between crops and livestock but to do all that pregnant AND then juggle baby Finley here at the farm as COVID-19 turned everything upside down. We were lucky to tap Christina’s special talents and mechanical intrigue.

Lisa Podgwaite

Finally, our thanks go out to Lisa Podgwaite who anchored farm processing this growing season. Lisa was especially deft with pestos and you will enjoy her blanching and canning efforts through the winter with frozen veggies and soups along with lots of pickles and sauces. What a treat for all of us to add such an experienced colleague to also anchor the wash station and nourish us with delicious farmer lunches.

To call these 3 and Donna essential workers was not only true in the COVID parlance but true for this farm and all the delights our shoppers will continue to enjoy on through the months ahead. We, Laura and Mari, are grateful for their efforts in total and especially during this difficult year and we celebrate all the talented folks who have made this place a regenerative farm, ensuring their noble legacy that will last long past the last nutrient dense morsel they themselves grew.