Garden fresh greens, and healthy, locally grown vegetables and berries will be available all summer long from Ridgefield-based farms.
It’s been a cold year, and operations are running a little behind the calendar at local farms — The Hickories of Lounsbury Road, The Garden of Ideas off North Salem Road, Ridgebury-based Veronica’s Garden, and Simpaug Farms, which is in Suffield but owned by Ridgefielders.
All the farms sell at farm stands in town, and also have community-supported agriculture, or “CSA,” programs, in which people pay in advance for weekly shares of the land’s crop yield.
Two are participating in local farmers’ markets — Veronica’s Garden at the Sunday market in Georgetown, and Simpaug Farms at the Ridgefield Community Center’s Thursday farmers’ market.
“Weather’s wacky,” said Joe Keller of The Garden of Ideas. “It was very cold. It just took a long time for soil temperatures to get up high enough for germination, even in the hoop houses. …
“As long as we get heat, sunshine, rain, we’ll be all set,” he said.
The Garden of Ideas, at 653 North Salem Road, does have produce coming.
“Spinach, arugula, beets, turnips,” Keller said. “Carrots are coming along, lettuce, chives, herbs,” he said.
“Just planted out the warm season crops — tomatoes, peppers, eggplants. Also just planted potatoes and onions,” he said.
“Sometime in July, mid-July, we’ll get peppers, eggplant. Cucumbers will begin in early July. Zucchini this year, early July. Tomatoes late July, early August
The Garden of Ideas isn’t participating in local farmers’ markets this year.
“No, we’re concentrating purely on the CSA and our farm stand, which has increased in traffic over the past couple of years,” Keller said.
The farm stand is at 653 North Salem Road, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week.
“The CSA signs-ups have been pretty good. Spring — 50. Summer is 75ish. And fall is 50,” Keller said.
The spring CSA got off to a late start, so the summer program will start June 11.
“I do have a few slots left for summer, not many,” Keller said.
Information is on the website, Gardenofideas.com.
The Hickories
The Hickories, the largest of the active Ridgefield farms, is at 136 Lounsbury Road in the Farmingville area.
“The property is just over 100 acres. We farm about 35-36 acres of that. The rest is in open space,” said Mary Jawlik, the farm manager.
The property is owned by the Brewster family, but development rights were sold to the town some years ago so its use is now limited by a conservation easement.
The farm stand is off Lounsbury Road.
“Right now we’re just open on weekends, 10 to 5, Friday through Sunday,” Jawlik said. “Starting the first or second week of June — it depends on when our strawberries come in — we’ll be open every day from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The Hickories isn’t planning to participate in farmers’ markets. “We’re not doing any this year. We have our hands full with our CSA and our farm store, and we wholesale,” Jawlik said. “Wholesale to restaurants, mostly.
“The CSA is great,” she said. “We are in our last week of our spring share, and we’ll start our main season the second week of June, which will go through the end of September.”
There’s room for a few more summer sign-ups.
“We’re at about 150. We’re looking for maybe another 15, 20 families, if people are interested.”
It’s early in the season.
“We have things like lettuces, radishes, carrots, scallions, kale, chives, a lot of the cooler season crops,” Jawlik said. “In the coming weeks, early June, we’ll have strawberries, peas, and asparagus, and toward the end of June, that’s when we have things like tomatoes, squashes, peppers, eggplants. Right now it’s the cooler season crops.
“We actually start our season in our greenhouses the beginning of February. We have packed greenhouses for a few months. Now, as the weather has finally broken for us, we’re getting as many vegetables out into the fields as fast as we can.
The Hickories also sells some locally grown meat.
“We have a freezer full of meat that we raise here on the farm — our own pork …
“Beef, we don’t raise beef cattle, but our friend Hans Williams works at Apple Ridge Farm on Ridgebury Road. He supplies us with his beef,” Jawlik said.
“Later in the season we’ll have lamb, and more pork.”
Williams’ Apple Ridge Farm is on part of the former McKeon property, off Old Stagecoach Road, a one-time dairy farm that is mostly used as horse farm now.
A part of the property, between Old Stagecoach Road and Ridgebury Road, was sold to the town and is held by the Conservation Commission, and Williams’ cattle graze there, Jawlik said.
“It’s actually through the Conservation Commission in Ridgefield,” she said. “They wanted to keep it agricultural production, so that’s where he raises his cattle.”
The Hickories also has sugar maples.
“We’re selling our own maple syrup that we get from our own maple trees on the farm here,” Jawlik said.
“It’s a lot of fun, actually. The sap runs just as the weather is starting to warm up. When you have freezing nights and thawing days, that’s when the sap runs,” she said. “So we tap our sugar maples, and you draw off the sap and it’s boiled down to maple syrup. …
“For every 40 gallons of maple sap you get, you get one gallon of syrup, a 40-to-1 ratio,” she said.
“We tap about 15 or 20 trees.”
Veronica’s Garden
Bob DiNucci of Veronica’s Garden grows his crops in Ridgebury. Like the other local farmers, he’s been slowed down by the weather.
“The other night it was down to 40. I’m up here in the hills, here. We’re a couple of degrees cooler,” he said.
“I’ve got a lot of stuff I just left in the greenhouses, we’ll be transplanting.”
But things are growing, and soon he’ll be selling.
“I’ve got the cucumbers, they’re looking really good. I’ve got a lot of eggplant, peppers, tomatoes — pretty good-sized plants.”
The weather is finally warming up.
“Supposed to be up in the 80s, so things really take off,” he said. “It’s just when you get the really cold nights, it stunts their growth.”
He’s got help this year.
“I actually have a kid from the high school doing an internship here,” he said.
DiNucci sells his produce at a farm stand in town off Route 35, Danbury Road, across from Girolametti Court near the Peachwave yogurt shop at 32 Danbury Road.
The stand hasn’t opened.
“Not yet, not with the weather we had early on,” DiNucci said.
“We’ll be opening the end of June — 10 to 6, every day,” he said.
He also has a second stand.
“We’re open on Mill Plain Road in Danbury — in front of the Peachwave there, too, right across from the fire station,” he said. “Same time, end of June.”
Veronica’s Garden will be at the Georgetown farmers’ market this year.
“Georgetown, every Sunday, that’s from 10 to 2,” DiNucci said.
He also sells to some local restaurants, such as Bailey’s Backyard and 850 Degrees.
Veronica’s Garden also does community-supported agriculture, with weekly shares expected to start being ready in early July.
“We have a CSA, too. We’ll start the week before the fourth. That goes 17 weeks,” he said.
Information can be found at veronicasgarden.net on the Web.
Simpaug Farms
Though its food is grown on 250 acres in Suffield, up in the Connecticut River Valley, Simpaug Farms is owned and managed by the partner families of Ridgefield Capital, the Ellis, Giordano and Trillo families.
“We’re in town,” said Jennifer Trillo, who helps organize the community center farmers’ market, where Simpaug Farms sells.
“We’ll be starting our fifth year of a CSA,” Trillo said.
“We have a stand and pickups on Tuesday. We’re on the lawn in front of Nancy O on Catoonah Street, 1 to 5:30, just Tuesday,” she said. “It’s really around the CSA pickups. We bring everything in on Tuesdays and shareholders can pick up, and we sell as well.
“And on Thursdays we’re at the farmers’ market, and it’s also our second day of CSA pickup for our shares — so they’re there and they can pick up whatever else they need.”
Simpaug Farms also has drop-off locations in three other Connecticut towns, but Trillo said it’s very much a Ridgefield business.
“Simpaug Farms is very connected to this community. We do a lot of sponsorship and support,” she said.
“We’re a part of this community.”
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