2015 State of the Farm

Garden Center

Each year we challenge ourselves to come up with something creative that will engage the imagination of our clientele and make their visit to our farm exciting and memorable. We just can’t stand still for one year. Customers can tell when a garden center has given up. We’ve been to those places that have stopped growing and caring and it’s not pretty. The plants look sad, the displays lack pizazz and the staff seem tired. The customers have resigned themselves to seek quantity rather than quality. Lucky for us our customers drive us to excel and improve. We live in an incredible gardening area with a very intelligent gardening population and again in 2015 we promise to do our best to provide an exciting and rewarding horticultural experience.

We were very happy with 2014 garden center sales across the board. Trees and shrubs showed nice increases which made us feel that perhaps the recession was easing for most folks. Vegetable starts again showed the biggest gains as more and more people seem determined to grow their own food. According to our greenhouse trade magazines, the fastest growing gardening segment is males age 25 to 35. Seems everyone is a “foodie” lately, concerned about their health and interested in how their food is grown.  The trend for 2015 is supposed to be multi‐colored vegetables like carrots and potatoes, micro‐ greens and heirloom tomatoes.  

Container gardening still remains popular and we are on top of all the new plant introductions that will make your gardens sparkle. In 2014, calibrachoas again reigned supreme as our number one selling hanging basket/container plant. European mixed hanging baskets sold out quickly so we have greatly increased these unique floral displays for 2015. Indian Summer petunia offered shades of peachy/apricot/coral colors and sold out the quickest of any of the specialty plants even though we grew a boatload. Wonder what will be the next big hit?  Our theme for the display greenhouse this year will be the “Wizard of Oz” and we’re anticipating having a lot of fun with the props and crops that will highlight the displays.

Most of our crew is back from last year and we are eager to show you why Walker Farm was selected by the Vermont Nursery and Landscape Association as 2014 Retailer of the Year!

Farm

Last year was a phenomenal milestone for our family farm. We were selected by the Vermont Land Trust to continue the stewardship of the beautiful Elysian Hills Tree Farm just a mile away from us. While this was a large economic investment, we decided that the opportunity just could not be passed by. Extending the season with the addition of a thriving and quality‐conscious established business was good for our employees and good for the long term interests of the farm. Bill and Mary Lou Schmidt were great teachers and while we still have much to learn, we were able to enjoy a very successful sales experience. We met most of our goals for the first year which included:

  • Renovation of a meeting room to a larger retail area to cross merchandise our fall produce with Christmas tree and wreath sales.
  • Expanding the “Tagging” tree weekends in October to include more family‐friendly activities like farm animal interaction, cider pressing, free baby pumpkins for kids, free snacks.
  • Extending December sales times on Friday evenings to accommodate working families.
  • Purchase of some existing farm equipment as well as a new mower and chainsaw.
  • Re‐designing the wreaths to offer more artistic choices.
  • Plowing some land for organic pick‐your‐own strawberries, raspberries and black raspberries.

Future plans that we are pondering for the tree farm:

  • Becoming the first Certified Organic Christmas tree farm in Vermont.
  • Exploring a Cut‐Your‐Own tree option.
  • Better parking facilities.
  • Renovating the barn for events and functions.
  • Planting aronia berries, black currants and other lesser known fruits.
  • Farm‐to‐Table events that might include live music, foot or bike races.
  • Cooking, canning, pickling, wreath making classes.
  • Rhubarb, strawberry, sweet corn festivals.
  • Mobile kitchen that could also be used at the main farm.

In short, we feel obligated to share the forests, hiking trails and scenic beauty of Elysian Hills with our supportive community to help bring everyone closer to local agriculture.

Later in the summer we noticed that a 4 acre field adjacent to our back property at the main farm was being offered for sale. While we weren’t especially looking for a larger mortgage payment, we discussed the idea of purchasing this nice piece of cropland that we would be able to irrigate and decided it was too good an opportunity to pass up. In late summer we closed on the field with Robert and Margaret Evans and are looking forward to rotating some of our crops to some fresh acreage. This will give us a chance to rest some of our fields in cover crops and might also cover a possible loss of a field that we had been renting but which is now on the market and might be lost to agriculture.  

Thanks to the growing interest in our fall and winter Community Supported Agriculture programs a new greenhouse was purchased to expand winter greens production. The new structure we call “Waffle House” in honor of a favorite eatery, completes a row with two other high tunnel structures in our back field. Unfortunately we didn’t stop with one additional greenhouse purchase. A deal came up on Craig’s List for two “moveable” four‐season structures called “Rolling Thunders” that again was too good to pass up. (Are you seeing a trend here?) The addition of these growing houses that are able to be moved on railroad‐track type pipes will expand early season production as well as late season crops and perhaps let us start a Spring CSA with greens for those who just can’t wait for the early June vegetable stand opening days. We hope to post a YouTube video when we do the moves!  

For 2015 we will continue our efforts to improve food safety through a University of Vermont program that will prepare us for new rules coming soon from the USDA. Implementing additional safety procedures in addition to what we already have will put us in a good position to meet all the requirements in advance. Cleanliness is the most important aspect of our produce business.

Even though most of Vermont had one of the best growing seasons ever, we were in a nasty band of wet weather that supplied us with over 10 inches of rain in July, typically one of our driest months. That amount of rain causes lots of foliar problems when it’s hot and humid and subjected us to our first ever incidence of late blight in one of our tomato fields. Luckily we had other plantings and were able to protect them with organic copper. Still, our melon crop was subpar and our potato crop never really sized up well. Farmers have a saying “Dry year lose the crop, wet year lose the farm”! Our diversification of crops and raised bed system prevented us from having a disastrous season and in fact we had bumper crops of greens, onions and sweet potatoes. In fact, even with the loss of a few crops, Walker Farm’s own organic produce sales were up considerably.

A big reason for the increase in production and sales has to be attributed to the quality crew that we continue to attract year after year. The revolution in local agriculture has fostered a youth movement that views agriculture as a viable lifestyle and exciting occupation. We’re lucky to be able to work with a crew that values the same ideals that we embrace.  

The main reason we have a successful farm will always be the loyalty and dedication of our clientele. We cannot thank you enough for supporting our farm, family and staff with your hard earned dollars. Your patronage has enabled another generation to continue what our ancestors started here in 1770. Our two kids and now even our young grandchildren are invested in continuing the pursuit of excellence that you have come to expect. Each year we assess our direction and adapt to the needs of our customers while holding on to our core values to supply beautiful plants for the spirit and healthy organic produce for the body. Hope to see you in the spring.