About

Our food system is a thing of the present – with diverse and nutritious meals served up three times daily – but has roots deep in the past. Our practices strike a balance between being progressive and traditional: once upon a time, every home had a root cellar and most farms were draft animal powered. We still keep our vegetables fresh all winter long in our root cellar, and Sal is indeed the driving force of this farm, but a modified air conditioning unit does the cooling in the cellar, and Sal pulls equipment built in the early 1900s as often as she does a dump cart built in 2000.

The family that owned this farmland before Chewonki bought it in the 1960s grew some food for Camp Chewonki for Boys, then the camp next door. What a pleasure it is on a daily basis to be continuing in the perpetuation of that cycle, to be engaged in a long-term relationship with this land that has sustained us for so many years and continues to. Over time, the farm has incorporated many diverse systems and focuses, though the particular combination of animals, vegetables, and forestry that we practice today is largely an enacting of a vision held by Mark Albee, Chewonki farm manager from 1989 until 2005 (and, currently Sal’s farrier).