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By JACOB NELSON

The Christmas season, for people who celebrate, tends to be full of traditions. Maybe it’s watching the same corny holiday movies every year. Maybe it’s making Grandma’s special cookies, a yellowing index card with her faded cursive handwriting...

By JACOB NELSON

In South Deerfield, the North Main Street bridge over the railroad tracks has been closed for repairs since May. “I was joking that we’re probably the only ones on this street happy about the detour,” laughs Kelly Kicza.That’s because cars have been...

By JACOB NELSON

Jared Duval built his farm around Massachusetts’ innovative Healthy Incentives Program (HIP). Since 2017, HIP has helped tens of thousands of lower-income households buy fresh produce grown by local farmers. By most accounts, it’s been a wild success,...

By JACOB NELSON

‘When people say our chicken is the best they’ve ever had, some of that is the breed we’re raising, some is how we’re raising them on pasture, and some is because of the koshering process,” says Robert Friedman of Robariah Farms in South...

By JACOB NELSON

Sometimes, medicine comes from a pill bottle. Other times, it grows right in your backyard, if only you knew how to access it.Blending modern chemistry with traditional wisdom, Blue Crow Botanicals puts locally grown herbal medicine right at people’s...

By JACOB NELSON

When Heather McCann founded her farm, Rustic Outlook, in 2020, she picked a niche that few local farmers have chosen. She decided to make beans her thing.Dry beans, specifically. They’re a pantry staple that lasts for years and a delicious part of...

By JACOB NELSON

Imagine this: It’s 10 a.m. and already near 90 degrees. The hot sun bakes the farm field where you and your coworkers are harvesting. With no clouds in sight or shade nearby, you wipe sweat from your brow and gulp down more water. It’s exhausting...

By JACOB NELSON

AMHERST — As college and university farms go, Hampshire College Farm is not a big one. What they do have in abundance is student energy, and true to the Hampshire philosophy, they’ve celebrated and empowered it.So far, the results have been fruitful....

By JACOB NELSON

“I know people that won’t even touch yellow tomatoes,” says Kate Miller Carl, the matriarch of Roundhill Orchards in Southampton. “To me, if there’s something novel, I want to try it just to see what it’s like.”When Carl and her late husband, Alfred R...

By JACOB NELSON

For people near Goshen, Oliver’s Farm Stand is bringing more local food within close reach. As they do, they’re bringing their neighbors closer together too.Farm stands come in many shapes and sizes. Since 2017, Oliver’s has grown into a nearly...

By JACOB NELSON

It’s rare to try an entirely new food as an adult. Rarer still to realize it was growing under your nose the whole time.Before he started farming them in Leyden, Tom Ashley had never eaten a fig outside of a Fig Newton. Even the idea of fig trees...

By JACOB NELSON

For some people, grocery shopping is just a chore. Maybe it sometimes feels like a race to fill a cart and get out before the fluorescent lights and dizzying array of choices become overwhelming. But not all shopping experiences are like...

By JACOB NELSON

For over two decades, J & J Farms stood alone as the last dairy farm in Amherst. Many other small New England dairies shuttered as the economy shifted even more in favor of mega-dairies, but the Waskiewicz family held on, milking cows while also...

By JACOB NELSON

“This is a farm, but it feels like a wild place,” says Meredith Wecker about The Benson Place. “That’s why I fell in love with it.”The Benson Place is a diversified farm that Wecker runs with her husband, Andrew Kurowski, and is best known for their...

By JACOB NELSON

“In a different life, I think I would have been an artist from the beginning,” says Adrienne Bashista, owner of Passalongs Farm and Florist. “I wasn’t forbidden from a career in art, it just didn’t occur to me. But now in my 50s, I’ve realized what I...

By JACOB NELSON

Jackie Pliska, owner of Wanczyk Produce in Hadley, has dreams of keeping the farm stand business open year-round instead of seven months each year. But first, she has to finish college.Pliska started working at the family business when she was 11. She...

By JACOB NELSON

History is everyone’s story. Its lessons can inform a bright future for everyone, but only if we truly listen to everyone.For almost a year, members of the Storytelling Circle of the Hampshire County Food Policy Council (HCFPC) have been collecting...

By JACOB NELSON

The Upper Bend Cafe and Bruncheonette in Turners Falls aims to be reliably amazing. That means serving familiar breakfast and lunch favorites while unleashing their creativity, squeezing every drop of goodness from farm-fresh local food.“Using as many...

By JACOB NELSON

Local wool for your wardrobe … and for your garden?That’s the idea behind a new project from Western Massachusetts Fibershed, an organization working to strengthen our local fiber economy, right alongside our local food economy.Peggy Hart is a core...

By JACOB NELSON

“Compost is not soil, but it makes your soil better,” says Mike Mahar, owner of Bear Path Compost in Whately. “It adds life to it. If you’re going to take something out of the soil by harvesting, you should put something back in, and compost is...

By JACOB NELSON

Every piece of farmland has its strengths and weaknesses. Often, the most successful farmers are those that learn to see their land’s potential clearly and — with other things in mind like finances and what customers want — build a business around...