The farm

Founded in 2016, Firefly Fields is a certified organic, diversified fruit and vegetable market garden. The property is just over ten acres with currently about two acres used for strawberries, vegetable production and cover crops; one acre is used for perennial cane fruit and nut trees; and there are two large production greenhouses. The roughly seven acres left over are either actively or passively being managed for wildlife habitat and environmental conservation.

The majority of the crops produced are sold wholesale to the Middlebury Food Co-op, with a much smaller amount going to a variety of restaurants and catering businesses within a fifteen mile radius. The farm also works with two local nonprofits to provide produce and specialty crops for some migrant workers and their families. Excess produce is taken to the Middlebury food bank, HOPE.

My goal for Firefly Fields is for it to be a beautiful place to grow high quality food. I love sharing my knowledge about food production with my employees and anyone else who walks in the fields with me. Ideally, I want it to be a small part of the solution of working towards a better world.

The farmer

My circuitous route to farming started by volunteering at the five-acre vegetable farm at Hidden Villa, in Los Altos Hills, California, a few months after getting a degree in creative advertising. I had recently been hired as the online advertising specialist for the Palo Alto Weekly newspaper and was looking for ways to support my community. I ended up finding a new life direction, though it took me a few years of volunteering at Hidden Villa and WWOOFing on farms in Argentina to realize it.

What drew me to farming was the delicious food, friendly people, and purposeful work. What has kept me farming is the belief that it is one of the most direct ways to contribute to the community, a healthy environment, and my persistent desire to problem solve. Oh, the food, the glorious food has kept me too!

To date, 2024, I have WWOOFed on farms in Argentina, France, and the southern United States. I volunteered and was a journeyman farmer at Hidden Villa. I have worked for an apple orchard, a vineyard, a maple sugar producer, a greenhouse tomato production farm, and two organic mixed vegetable farms in Vermont. And I have started two diversified organic vegetable farms, Firefly Fields being the second.

All of my previous farm experiences have been incredibly valuable and educational. But the ones I draw the most from are Hidden Villa and a farm in Ardeche, France. I gained a deep practical knowledge about how to grow great produce at Hidden Villa. In Ardeche I saw what it looked like to farm with a good work/life balance, something incredibly difficult to achieve.

What else is there to say? Generally I love my work and feel fortunate to have found it!