Kingsbury Market Garden (284 Route 100 Warren, VT ) is a unique agricultural venture. The historic farmstead on Route 100 in the Mad River Valley was conserved by the Vermont Land Trust in late 2007 and sold to the VT Foodbank (VFB) the following year. The conditions of the sale were the following: the owners would grant public access along the property to the Mad River Path, they would protect permanent riparian buffers through no till practice, and the remaining acreage would be used to produce food in an ecologically responsible manner, a portion of which would be distributed to food shelves and meal sites throughout the state of Vermont. The farm is now in its 2nd year of vegetable production. Bound by our lease with the VFB, we must provide 30,000# of produce to the Foodbank annually. Having accomplished that, we are allowed to run our own for profit business off the farm.
Our business is twofold. We wholesale vegetables to local restaurants and stores and we manage a wonderful little farm store/bakery, right on the premises. 95% of what we sell is either produced in our fields or in the surrounding region. Our tractors and irrigation pump run on B100 which is supplied to us by Nava Biofuels in Northfield, VT. Our hearth ovens are powered by the energy collected through two solar trackers. Our walk-in cooler utilizes the Freeaire System which harnesses cold air from outside when the mercury drops. We have four movable greenhouses which allow us to extend the growing season by almost 5 mos. without any energy – save the sun. We have plans to build a Pain Mound System which will warm the radiant floor of our starter house. We will soon be bringing in aged manure which will be combined with vegetable waste to produce our own compost. We put away stores of food all season so that we can cook with our own ingredients year round. And we are stocking the local food shed with a significant amount of highly nutritious calories.
Vegetables are our currency. The sun gives us power. Our waste gives us nutrients.
The farm store is open Th, Fr, Sa, Su 11-6.
284 Route 100 Warren, VT
www.kingsburymarketgarden.com
GET Aug2011 page 22
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