| Good Earth Farm |  |
 May 22-28, 2024 9:00am to 5pm |
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| Good Earth Farm | |
May 22-28, 2024 9:00am to 5pm |
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This land has had a long history before we came to it.
Our family farm is in Weare, New Hampshire on a parcel of land that is located on N'dakinna, the traditional ancestral homeland of the Abenaki, Pennacook and Wabanaki Peoples past and present. We acknowledge and honor with gratitude the land and waterways and the people who have stewarded it throughout the generations. We hope to live and work on this land in ways that show respect for their stewardship of the earth.
According to the maps in The History of Weare, in the 1800s the land was farmed by the Cilley and then the Cram families. They built a home and outbuildings (in what is now woodland). There are stone cellars and foundations remaining, as well as lengthy stone walls that surround our field and woods. As far as we can tell, the land was farmed continuously by local farmers for the past two hundred years. The land was farmed as a hay field by a dairy farm in New Boston in the latter decades of the 20th Century.
Just to the north of the farm, behind the greenhouses, is the Weare Town Forest, which in the 1800s was the site of the Town Farm.
We began farming the land in 1996 and built our home and greenhouses the following year. The land has a conservation easement with the Piscataquog Land Conservancy.
Our field is south-sloping and is surrounded by many acres of woods. The four greenhouses are located at the top of the hill and receive great sunshine and a constant breeze. It is an ideal location to grow organic bedding plants.
We have been certified organic farmers since 1987 and have been farming here since 1997. We have been growing transplants (or seedlings) for sale for 30 years. We are committed to following organic principles and no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, growth retardants, fungicides or fumigants are used in our greenhouses.
All our plants are started from seed in our own greenhouses. We grow the plants in a compost-based potting soil. For decades we have used the wonderful potting soil from our good friends at Ideal Compost in Peterborough, NH, who will not be making commercial quantities of potting soil this year. This year, 2023, we will be using a certified organic compost-based potting soil from Vermont Compost in Montpelier, Vermont. We have found that plants grown in a compost-based potting soil are different from plants that are not grown organically. When you put a compost-based plant into the soil, it has a root ball of nutrients surrounding the roots and will hold its own and grow quickly.
The greenhouse work is done primarily by Linda and Dave and a wonderful crew who are skilled greenhouse workers and who provide tremendous help in the spring, especially the peak of the spring rush.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please let us know. We are open to trying new crops and new varieties. If we can help you with any information to make your garden better, we would be glad to try.
We also sell vegetables during the summer and fall through Local Harvest CSA, a multi-farm CSA located in Concord, New Hampshire. There are 6 certified organic farms and a certified organic baker in Local Harvest CSA. We supply vegetables and fruits to about 250 families for 26 weeks a year (with spring, summer and fall shares). If you are interested in Local Harvest CSA, the website is full of information about share sizes and how to sign up: http://www.localharvestnh.com. Our farm grows primarily greenhouse tomatoes, herb seedlings, garlic, peaches, and some root crops for the CSA.