Raising Farmers on Nantucket

Nestled within the windswept scrub pines and sandplains of Nantucket’s south shore are acres and acres of amazing, hard-earned soil. From it, the island gets delicious tomatoes, corn, and strawberries from Bartlett’s Farm and Market. It gets cabbage and carrots from Washashore Farm; herbs and blackberries from Eat Fire Farm; lettuce and radishes from Fog Town Farm — plus whatever else is growing on the community farm at 168 Hummock Pond Rd, also known as Sustainable Nantucket Farm.

Sustainable Nantucket is a nonprofit that supports local farmers by leasing plots of land to them on its eight-acre property, which is owned by the Nantucket Land Bank. Its honor-based farmstand out front is often busy with people browsing the freshest harvests from the community farm. Sustainable Nantucket’s mission is to preserve the character of the community, while sustaining its economic and environmental vitality. Its community farm model speaks to the specific challenges that come with farming on Nantucket, including weather, cost of supplies, housing for employees, and access to land. The nonprofit has introduced initiatives to help make farming more accessible, including their Walter F. Ballinger Mentor Farmer Program, which was established in 2015 to encourage people who want to consider farming as an avocation and try it out on eighth of an acre plots, where they can work and learn alongside professional “mentor” farmers who also work on the property. 

Diame Martinez is in her third year in Sustainable Nantucket’s Mentor Farmer Program. Drive by any morning between 6 and 10, and she’s likely out there, tending her flowers on one of the front plots. Diame is also a full-time gardener and a single mom, originally from the Dominican Republic. Her farm, Peace + Bliss Farm, is mostly a flower farm, but she’s adding some beets and tomatoes this year. She graduates as a mentee at the end of this growing season, and hopes to be able to farm for herself full time.

“That’s what I’m working toward,” Diame told me one morning amid her rows of budding calendulas, cosmos, and lilies. “I love it. I love to be here. I love all the farmers. They love to teach. They really are ready for any question you have.”

A few plots back is Dan Southey’s nearly two acres that make up Washashore Farm. Dan was a mentee himself during the Mentor Farmer Program’s first year. Now, he’s a full-time farmer with dozens of clients and one of the island’s most efficient farms. He does all the washing, bagging, packaging, and deliveries himself. Dan worked in hospitality prior to trying farming.

“I liked the problem-solving part of it and the observation,” Dan said, reflecting on what it was like getting started. “At that point in my life, I wanted to have my own business and not work for somebody else. It’s hard out here. Brick and mortars are really expensive. This was an opportunity to try and do that on my own.” 

Sustainable Nantucket leases the eighth-acre plots to aspiring farmers for less than $200 for the entire growing season, and that includes access to all the shared tools, equipment, and greenhouses on the property. Plus, the hands-on learning. 

Dylan Wallace is the owner of Eat Fire Farm and Eat Fire Pizza. He grew up on the island, has farmed for more than 20 years, and helped start the farmers market as well as Sustainable Nantucket’s community farm. He was the Mentor Farmer Program’s original mentor, and helped write the manual that requires all the farmers there to follow organic practices, including organic compost, fertilizers, pest management, covering cropping, “and everything that goes with doing right by the land,” said Posie Constable, managing director of Sustainable Nantucket. “We’re very close to wetlands, and we wanted to make sure that we maintained the condition of the property in the best possible way.”

Eat Fire Farm leases just under two acres from Sustainable Nantucket’s community farm, and has another two acres at Dylan’s home, where he and his wife Caroline live with their one-year-old daughter. (Their staff lives upstairs.) Dylan and Caroline are finalizing a lease with the Nantucket Land Bank to get an additional five acres, where they’ll continue to grow herbs, perennial produce, and blackberries. Dylan explained how having additional land will allow them to expand on their value-added products such as jams, vinegars, honeys, and solar-evaporated sea salt. 

“It’s an important part of a small farm’s finances. It helps you get through harder seasons,” he told me. “If you have a bad season, usually you’re growing things to preserve and add value to, and you’re selling it the next season. You have a little cushion in what you can sell.”

In addition to the five acres the Land Bank recently granted to Eat Fire Farm, they also gave two acres to Dan Southey’s Washashore Farm, and another two acres to Aidan Feeney, owner of Fog Town Farm, who also mentors on Sustainable Nantucket’s community farm and leases about two acres of land from them. Aidan also grew up on the island, and moved back to start his business with his wife, Natasha, in 2019, after managing farms in New York. 

“I’m hyper-focused on crop selection, just because I’m on small acreage,” Aidan said, “To make a living on a limited amount of land, I need to think about how much space a crop takes up, and how much money I can make with that given space.”

Prior to the Land Bank’s recent push to give more land to local farmers, Aidan would have said access to land was the biggest challenge when it comes to farming on the island. 

“Some of that is being addressed, which is awesome,” he said, adding that he now sees labor and cost of supplies as the biggest farming obstacles. 

“It’s really hard to have employees if you don’t have housing. And a lot of times it’s hard to just get housing for yourself,” he said. 

And when it comes to paying employees, it’s challenging to compete with other trades on the island. “Landscapers start at $25 an hour and it goes up from there,” Aidan said.

The cost of getting supplies over via freight boat also makes farming on the island harder. “We don’t charge more than, say, someone in a Boston market charges, so we kind of just eat those costs of labor and inputs, I think,” Aidan said. 

And the weather on Nantucket brings its own challenges. Windy, cold springs make it hard to get crops started outside without greenhouses. 

“It takes a long time to get things going,” Dan Southey said, adding that island soil is at least 20 degrees colder than soil on the mainland. But fewer frosts and temperate falls means the season extends a bit longer after peaking in July and August, when farmers are busiest, filling ongoing orders for their large restaurant accounts.

“You have to develop different markets for the season,” Dan said. “You have a summer season where it’s this crazy peak, and then it’s about building that fall season, which is about local people, the school system.”

Sustainable Nantucket gets grant funding to buy produce from all the island farms to get healthier, tastier locally-grown food into the school lunch program. The organization also offers a “state of agriculture” class at the Nantucket High School, where they hope to attract new farmers. Posie Constable wants to eventually offer a paid internship program for aspiring farmers. 

“It’s super hard, farming. And I think people come here to learn that,” Posie said. “But people who are passionate and do it well really are our saviors I think. I couldn’t be more proud of what these guys do.” 

Dan Southey reflected on how hard it is starting a first-generation farm. 

“There’s a reason there’s so many generational farms, because it’s not a business that you just get off the ground and running quickly,” he said. “You have to wear every single hat. You’re a farmer, but also a salesperson, your web person, your marketing person, and your delivery driver.”

And this crop of farmers’ ability to collaborate rather than compete is worth noting. When the Land Bank was considering applications for its Mount Vernon property, “we prioritized applications that were cooperative,” said Jesse Bell, executive director of the Nantucket Land Bank. Dylan, Dan, and Aidan “all got together and figured it out. They worked it out amongst themselves in what areas they wanted.”

“We want to be diverse and not as competitive,” Dylan said. “We’re trying to do things that are different, but complement other people.”

At Eat Fire Farm, for example, Dylan stays away from growing the big cash crops like lettuce to make space for other farmers on the island to do so.

Once Dylan, Dan, and Aidan are able to successfully grow on the new Land Bank land, Posie said she plans to slowly and methodically move them off plots on the community farm so she can reclaim the land and “start collecting some new farmers, because right now, I don’t have any room to do that,” she said.

All of the mentor farmers at Sustainable Nantucket’s community farm dedicate a few hours per month to teaching workshops and helping mentees. This year, in addition to Diame, TT Semaha also has an eighth-of-an-acre plot at the community farm. He’s focused on growing greens and produce for Caribbean-inspired cuisine. 

The success of the Mentor Farmer Program has been incremental, and about 15 to 20 people have gone through the program so far. But it’s made farming accessible to people like Dan Southey that it otherwise might not have been.

“Figuring out what it means to farm on an island and the resources that the farmers need — you just don’t really know these answers going in,” Dan said. “It’s all been a process. But it’s been a really community-based endeavor and I feel like a big success. And it’s nice to be a part of.”

Waste Not

If more land is being made available to grow food on Nantucket, there’s also concern about food waste, and making sure what’s grown doesn’t end up in the trash. But many island organizations are working together on this. 

One effort from local retailer Pip & Anchor directs produce from farms like Washashore and Fog Town into food boxes that they distribute to at least 80 food- insecure families on the island. 

“This helps agriculture and while also helping feed the community that needs it most,” said Chris Sleeper, co-owner and co-founder of Pip & Anchor, adding that the program is run in conjunction with Nourishing Nantucket.

The nonprofit organization Remain is also working on creating commercial kitchens to turn produce from farms into value-added products (See story about the Hive, page 18). There are also renewed efforts to direct produce from farms into the hospital, senior centers, and food pantries. 

Where The Land Bank Comes In

Agriculture is one of the three pillars of the Nantucket Land Bank’s mission, alongside conservation and recreation. But until recently, the governing group hadn’t done much for agriculture.

The Land Bank recently revamped its efforts to support agriculture and new farms. 

“There’s a contingent of young, very hard-working farmers on the island who are looking for additional land to grow on,” said Jesse Bell, executive director of the Land Bank. “And there’s been just an interest in general in having more locally sourced foods available, because otherwise it’s coming over on the boat and the freshness factor is not there.

In addition to giving nine acres of its Mount Vernon Farm property off Hummock Pond Road to Dan, Aidan, and Dylan, it also agreed to install fencing, power, and water on the property to help the farmers get started on the land. The Land Bank also granted an additional three acres to Aidan and Fog Town Farm last year. 

“We’re giving them land and the basic level of infrastructure that they need to create a farm,” Bell said. 

The Land Bank plans to hire a full-time agriculture specialist this year to help maintain their new push for agriculture.