Danbury News-Times, January 2007
Farm Provides Fresh Goods Year Round
by Donna Christopher, The News-TimesFriday, January 26, 2007
Winter has its own special bounty. Some dark leafy green vegetables do OK in colder temperatures, no surprise to farmer John Holbrook whose gardens in greenhouses and outdoors have consistently produced crops over the past three years. Right now he's growing spinach, lettuce, mustard, swiss chard, arugula, carrots, beets, scallions, radishes and potatoes.
It's a drizzly January afternoon, near freezing, though Holbrook doesn't seem to mind, padding around the 13-acre farm he and wife Lynn bought in 1968. This is the first winter the couple decided to keep the farm market business open all winter.
As he makes his way to the first of five greenhouses on the property, Holbrook pauses at an outdoor raised bed, reaches down, and plucks off some leaves, shakes off droplets of water, then offers a taste to a visitor with this assurance: "It's OK to eat."
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"We grow everything using only organic practices," he added. "There's no herbicides or pesticide."
Inside, he peels back the corner of a blanket made of polyester used as protective insulation for the plantings of lettuce, scallions and other vegetables, also growing in raised beds.
It's not heated, and although the outdoor temperature was near freezing that day, inside it was probably about 20 degrees warmer, he said. The covering adds about five degrees of protection. If there's a cold snap, and the temperature drops to 15 degrees, he'll bring in portable heaters to protect the plants.
But it hasn't happened yet.
Farming vegetables, no matter what the climate, has served John Holbrook well. He's had growing success, year after year, and little damage from deer or other animals despite lack of fencing.
A farm mainstay in summer beside the produce is fresh flowers; both grow in abundance. He attributes some of this to the location of the farm.
"We are at the same latitude as Rome, Italy," he said, noting Holbrook produces heirloom tomatoes in 45 different varieties.
The greens growing this winter are for sale in the farm market open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Other items for sale include fresh cow's milk from two local dairy farms, cheese, jams, sauces, breads and jams.
Lisa Tenore, 40, of Redding, stopped in to buy six gallons of the milk that comes from New Pond Farm Education Center in West Redding and Grassy Hill Dairy in Woodbury.
She said she comes by three times a week and buys six gallons each time. Her four children, 8 through 18, drink a lot of milk and "love it."
"It's thicker and creamier and it tastes better," her daughter, Shanna, 16, said.
"It gives an all-around better taste in coffee," added Lisa Tenore, who also shops there for organic vegetables, describing the convenience like "having your own garden."
Lynn Holbrook bakes pies, cookies and scones. Breads, such as hard-crusted artisan, are made by a baker in Westport.
"What we don't grow we buy from other sources," she explained, noting produce obtained from other farms is "grown naturally."
There are also fresh eggs, from 12 to 18 dozen daily from the Holbrook's 400 or so free-range chickens.
"We have to support other small family farms," said John Holbrook. He worries about the future of farming in Fairfield County where 287 farms can be classified as family farms, according to Linda Piotrowicz, marketing representative of the Connecticut Department of Agriculture.
"Farmers have to have savvy business plans today to stay successful so they try innovative things, growing vegetables in the winter," she said. "And there's more diversity in terms of what they're growing."
Some, she said, grow ethnic vegetables. An example at Holbrook Farms is a green called vitamina, slightly bitter and used in Korean cooking. Upon hearing of Holbrook's current crop, Piotrowicz said, "He seems to have found his niche."
Holbrook, a Brown University graduate who spent many years in marketing, grew up in New Jersey but spent time on his grandparents' farm in Pennsylvania. "He's the one with the green thumb and the marketing sense," said his wife.
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Lynn Holbrook is a native of eastern Kentucky; her father was a lawyer but her family lived on a working farm. There she learned to ride horses, milk cows, and can and freeze food.
"I grew up with a comfort level," she said.
Holbrook enjoys the challenge of what comes next. He's eager to "find out if we can successfully grow a broad enough range of winter crops to make it attractive for people to come and buy produce," he said.
He's modest about his input, and credits a higher power when it comes to yielding crops, especially this time of year. In fact, nature's been good to the Holbrook Farm year round.
Holbrook explained that's because they recently donated $3,000 to help victims of the genocide in Darfur, half of the money collected in a jar from customers of the farm market and half the Holbrooks' contribution.
"If God wants us to keep doing this we'll keep doing it," he said.
The farm market is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Holbrook Farm is on Route 53 (two miles south of The Sycamore Restaurant) in Bethel. For information call (203) 792-0561. Farm provides fresh goods year round