Intervale Farm Feature: Half Pint Farm
Half Pint Farm, one of eight independent farm businesses in the Intervale, sits on 2.5 acres of land nestled in the Intervale. Emily and Sean Mitchell took over operations of the farm from Mara and Spencer Welton in 2018 after Emily had worked with the Weltons for a few years. They maintain over 400 varieties of heirloom vegetables, including over 100 varieties of rare and heirloom tomatoes, some of which are only grown there. We caught up with Sean to see how their spring season is going and how they are adjusting to their life as farm owners and first-time parents during a pandemic. Here’s what he had to say:
Our spring has been just about as perfect as we could ask for. No early floods to keep us from planting on time. Lessons learned in the greenhouse last year have shown in our plant starts; they are beautiful (Emily is a proud plant mama). Our new addition to the family, Maebh, just turned five months old. She’s a great little baby and already loves the farm.
We made a very conscious decision early on that we would not take our “foot off the gas” as it were. Rather than panic and close ranks, we decided to pivot to a CSA model. We have seen an incredible, emotionally moving amount of community support. We attribute this success to our already strong social media presence coupled with a solid, though basic, commerce enabled website. We are still selling to our restaurant friends, too! We have a bunch of restaurant relationships that are super established and mean the world to us. There are so many farms to choose, we are honored when they choose ours. Our relationship with Gardener’s Supply Company is completely unchanged. It is a huge weight off our shoulders to know that they are still there to help support us.
We have seen such a wonderful response to our CSA, which we call our Food Club. Normally the Food Club has perks like invitations to private dinner events. We had a harvest field day planned with games and pick your own pumpkins from our patch of heirloom pumpkins, but sadly, all events have been cancelled. We had such a response that we have decided to have open enrollment until the third week of May because so many folks wanted to secure a source for local food. We are also donating 20 pounds of produce to Feeding Chittenden for every full share member who joins.
When we are in the field, it’s easy to forget that there is an international crisis happening. Daily chores center us. They give us a moment to keep our bodies busy while introspecting and digesting the world off the farm. Having each other to lean on has been paramount to our success from the beginning.
Signing up for our CSA is an enormous help for us, and we love feeding people and cultivating lasting relationships in our community. To learn more, please visit: www.halfpintfarmvt.com.