Farming is truly a collective endeavor and it can really only thrive when a group of people are working toward the goal of producing something together. We have been working to develop more collaborative relationships at the Farm over the past year, and we are excited to announce that there will be two new farm enterprises starting at Van Noble Farm this year. We are excited to welcome Juliana Quaresma and Maggie Smith to Trumansburg and Enfield! Juliana and her tiny house joined us in the fall of 2021 and is raising icelandic sheep. We’ll share more details about her and her flock soon. This spring we have been lucky to also welcome Maggie Smith and Tidings Farm to our growing community! Read on to learn more about Maggie, her vegetable plot, and work with our beloved draft horses; Chelsea, Missy, & Radish.
My name is Maggie Smith, born and raised in Long Lake, NY, in the heart of the Adirondacks
My business is called Tidings Farm, which I hope captures the good feelings I have about the wave of regenerative agriculture going on right now!
This season I’ll be growing diverse vegetables and dry beans, as well as *small* experimental amounts of grains such as sorghum, popcorn, and dent corn. I hope to be at the Trumansburg Farmers Market from June through October, but this year my main goal is to grow the veggies and beans for my household, and produce a winter’s worth of storage veggies for several households in my extended family in northern New York and Vermont, through a tiny family CSA program.
I plan to use the draft horses at Van Noble Farm for tillage and cultivation, as well as the classic, all-important farm task of hauling heavy stuff to and fro. I actually just purchased several pieces of antique, but used and maintained, farm equipment for this purpose. I will also be implementing a full year fallow for half the vegetable fields each year, so that the soil has a full year in cover crops to recover from the hard work of being tilled and growing produce.
My favorite farm tool is not a tool — it’s the draft horse! I find doing farm work with horses to be quiet, meaningful, and never boring.
I absolutely love farming in community. There are just so many things around the farm that are either really hard or really not fun to do alone. There are also so many useful but expensive tools, and it’s really fabulous to share the use of those things rather than each person getting their own version. And finally, it’s wonderful just to be around other people who are doing something parallel to my work. We can share in the successes and commiserate together about the downfalls of farming.
Maggie Smith
Tidings Farm | Trumansburg, NY