Produce Ordering
Our website is open for ordering farm fresh produce. Orders must be in by Wednesday at 8 AM.
Please pick up your produce on Thursday between 2PM and 6:30PM in the big red barn at Cedar Rock Gardens.
We will be adding more produce and variety as it becomes available each week.
I also do have seed garlic for sale still. Please inquire for a good time to purchase!
Fall Farm Update
Hello friends,
Our wonderful crew had their last day on Friday, and the farm has already settled into that peculiar quiet that follows months of constant motion. The greenhouses are filled with cold hardy greens and the days are noticeably shorter the clocks changing today is not helping that one at all. After so many months of early mornings, long days, and seemingly endless lists, there is something both lovely and a little strange about it all.
Of course the farm is never really finished. We’re busy planting garlic into the beds we just finished digging potatoes out of. The carrots are still coming from the field – growing sweeter with every cold night. We’ll continue our weekly produce pickups as long as the crops allow, hopefully right into January! November is arriving with a glorious stretch of sunshine here in Gloucester.
This season was a little different for us at Cedar Rock Gardens.
For the first time since we started this farm back in 2014, Tucker and I divided our responsibilities in a very different way. Tucker stepped away from the daily operations of the farm and seedling nursery to focus on other projects this season, leaving me to manage the day-to-day business and growing season on my own, alongside our small but mighty crew.
Tucker was still a wonderful sounding board when I needed advice, but the daily decisions, the planning, the inevitable problem-solving, and the responsibility of keeping everything moving were mine to navigate. And goodness, was it humbling.
Spending so many years building something alongside another person, I didn’t realize just how much of the work is quietly shared. There were responsibilities I had never needed to carry entirely on my own or sometimes at all, decisions I had never made without a second set of hands or eyes, and more than a few moments when I wondered how on earth I was going to get it all done. But we did it. And looking back, I am enormously proud of what we accomplished. I’m proud of the beautiful plants that left our nursery and found homes in your gardens. I’m proud of the food we grew, the harvests we shared, and the relationships that continue to grow around this patch of land in West Gloucester. I’m so proud of and grateful for our crew, who showed up day after day and put so much care into the work. And I’m proud of myself, too.
I think the moment I really found my footing came toward the end of summer, when we began transitioning the farm into fall production.
Our summer crops were a little bit of a shot in the dark this year. There was too much going on with the seedling nursery still in full swing at planting time. We made decisions on the fly, tried to keep up with everything that needed doing, and while things grew and we harvested plenty, it wasn’t quite the season I had envisioned. There were beds that frustrated me every time I walked past them, crops that hadn’t lived up to their promise, and more than a few things I would have done and will in the future do differently.
But one of the wonderful things about farming is that you get to begin again. Sometimes without even waiting for another year. As we started clearing summer crops and preparing beds for fall, I felt something shift. There was a tremendous satisfaction in turning under the crops that had been haunting me all summer and getting a fresh start. Suddenly, I had all these beds to work with, a clean slate, and a plan I felt confident about.
Fall growing is much more familiar territory for me because it is what I have been most involved with in years past along with running the pack house. I have my feet back under me after a busy spring seedling season to fully participate in the fall planting. I know these crops, I know what they need, and I know how to make them thrive. For the first time this season, I felt like I wasn’t just keeping up with the farm. I was actually a few steps ahead of it.
And the results have been beautiful. Beds full of fall crops, wonderful harvests, and satisfaction of watching a plan come together pretty darn close to how I’d hoped. somewhere between pulling out tired summer plants and putting new ones in the ground, I found my groove.
I’m also completely and thoroughly exhausted.
There were so many good moments tucked into this season.
We welcomed familiar faces and many new gardeners into the nursery in April, watched the greenhouses fill with seedlings. We spent time teaching and talking about growing food through our first series of workshops, sharing what we’ve learned over the years and, as always, learning a few things ourselves along the way.
Arlo got an early start helping in the greenhouses this spring, Fae is becoming a very handy farm apprentice. Both of my kids joined me at the Backyard Growcery to sell vegetables many times this year. We welcomed some ridiculously adorable baby cows for a visit in April. There is something pretty special about raising kids alongside all these plants, even if it means that some days the farm and life feels like one very elaborate juggling act.
In the middle of it all, we received some incredibly kind words from customers about our plants, our crew, and the experience of visiting the nursery. Those messages meant more than you might realize, especially during a season when I was learning to carry so much of the responsibility myself. It’s easy to get buried in everything that needs doing and the ways things have gone wrong that I forget to look up and see what has actually been built. Hearing that people feel welcomed, supported, and excited to grow their own food was a lovely reminder of why we do this in the first place.
As I look back on this year, I know that a farm is never the work of just one person. Even when the responsibilities shift, there is an entire community helping to make it possible.
To everyone who came through the farm gates, trusted us with the beginnings of your garden, picked up a bag of vegetables, attended a workshop, stopped by the farmers market, told a friend about us, or simply checked in to see how things were growing: thank you.
Your unwavering support is what allows us to keep doing this work. Small farms are not easy businesses to run, and the economics of growing good food and healthy plants don’t always make much sense on paper. But then there are the conversations at the nursery, the photos of your gardens, the familiar faces returning year after year, and the knowledge that what we grow here matters to the people around us.
Those things mean more than I can properly put into words.
After twelve growing seasons, I still feel incredibly fortunate that we get to do this here, in this community, with all of you. So, as we tuck the fields in, plant the garlic, and turn our attention to the quieter work of winter growing, I am happy to have this season moving behind me and very much looking forward to the next one.
I’m also looking forward to a little more time with my family, and perhaps a few mornings when the first thing I think about isn’t what needs watering. Although, knowing me, I’ll be looking through seed catalogs before the holidays.
All the very best,
Elise
Cedar Rock Gardens
P.S. We’re not quite done feeding you! Weekly produce pickups will continue through the winter as long as the crops keep growing. Keep an eye out for what’s available each week. There’s still plenty of goodness coming out of the ground.
