Written by Kate

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It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact  moment that our story for Noka Farm begins, which I’m sure is true for most first-generation farmers. For me, it first began in childhood with family dinners and gardening with my parents. Sprinkle in a liberal dose of summer barbecues with extended family and elaborate Thanksgiving meals at my Grandmother’s. My childhood centered on good food, family, and hard-working parents.

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Beginning in middle school, I became more and more interested in gardening. My parents owned a large property on the outskirts of town, and my mother had numerous established flower gardens. I would spend spring cutting back last-year’s growth, weeding, freshening the mulch, and getting everything ready for the summer’s beauty. Summers would be spent weeding, watering, and trying to convince my parents to let me plant more flower beds. By high school, I was able to convince them to have a couple tomato plants and some other sporadic veggie plants, but it was never “enough” to satisfy my desire to grow food.

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I’m not sure if back then I would have readily chosen “farming” as an occupation, had I been asked. Despite having grown up in tiny-town Vermont, where everywhere is surrounded by farmland, I did not grow up directly around farms, so that lifestyle was mostly foreign to me. It was always expected that I would go to college and pursue that “big dream”. It was very important to my parents that I continue my education, as neither of them were given that opportunity when they were young. And since I wasn’t focused on agriculture as an occupation, I will admit an agricultural degree was not on my radar at that point in my life.

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While at college, I began thinking more critically about “adult” topics, especially our food system. However, I will again admit that this is not the point in my life where I would take the plunge into sustainable agriculture. I will say, when Chris and I got our first apartment together, I did beg our landlord to let me plant a vegetable garden. He grudgingly agreed to let me have a small 4’x4’ raised garden bed, although I think he only agreed to it because it was already existing in the back corner of the property, albeit half-broken down and very sorry looking. I spent that summer attempting to shore it back up and get some vegetable plants to grow. Little did I know, the neighbor’s cat had been using that garden bed as an outdoor lounge space since before we moved in, and he was not willing to share “his” space. He would constantly chew on my plants, dig them up, and do everything he could to keep me out of there. Suffice it to say, I did not grow very much food that year.

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We only stayed in that apartment a year, then moved into a rental house across town.  Our new landlord was adamant that I was not allowed to create any garden beds, so I had to placate myself tending to the existing flower beds along the front of the house. I will say, those were the best-looking flower beds in the neighborhood by the time I was done with them! Soon after moving into the rental house, we learned I was pregnant with our first child. This is the point when I took the plunge into examining our existing food systems.  

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I quickly learned, through reading anything I could get my hands on and watching as many videos and documentaries that I could find, that our food system is broken. I wanted to provide healthy, sustainable food for my children, and overall, my family, which meant I needed to know where food came from, and the people that grew it. I took as many courses as I could find online on farming, sustainable agriculture, raising your own meat, and the best practices for farming and growing your own food. I started planting vegetable plants in containers, as that was not “against the rules” with our landlord. I quickly fell in love with the incomparable joy that comes from producing a tangible product, and knowing that you’re feeding your family healthy, nutritious food. I was enamored with the tiny miracles happening all around me, as seeds turned into food that tasted better than anything I had ever eaten.  The solution to so many of our country’s health and environmental problems became clear to me: eat more local food.  And I was hungry to be a part of the solution.

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In August 2018, Chris and I purchased our house. I had big dreams of plowing up the back lawn space for farming, building chicken coops and pig pens in the side yard, while still having plenty of space for our children to run around. I spent the last few weeks of that summer planning out where I was going to build my raised beds, where I wanted to plant our berry bushes, which trees I wanted removed to accommodate the new chicken coops. Then a big wrench was thrown into our plans, which ground all my dreams to a halt. In November of that same year, while in Connecticut at a family funeral, we received a phone call from a neighbor that our house was on fire. After making the 4-hour drive home, we arrived to learn our house, and all our belongings, were a total loss. I stood on our deck looking into what used to be our kitchen, and just cried. It took me months of slogging through insurance paperwork, documenting the lost belongings, and starting the long, grueling process of tearing out what was left of our house so we could rebuild before I began to get my hope back. I began rereading all the articles and books, watching all the videos and documentaries over again, with a growing sense of purpose and passion. THIS was my moment; THIS was why we had been dealt the rough hand we had been given. This was my opportunity to rebuild our life, with an even-greater focus on agriculture, sustainability, and holistic farming.

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I spent the summer of 2019 building raised beds in our back yard, despite the construction going on behind me. I would start my seedlings inside, watching the tiny miracles of nature as they would sprout and grow. I would sit in my garden, transplanting them outside, and later harvesting their bounty, listening to the saws and hammers and men’s voices in the construction zone behind me, but what I was really hearing was encouragement on my new journey. And Chris, bless him, was the most supportive husband I could have ever asked for. For a man who grew up in one of the largest town’s our small state has to offer, with almost zero experience with farming or gardening, he sat there encouraging me to follow my dreams, and to make them the best I possibly could. I used that summer to confirm the biggest questions in my mind: could I farm every day? And would I enjoy it? Yes and yes. Wholeheartedly.

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It was then the dream of Noka Farm began, as well as the desire to teach others how to grow their own food, be more sustainable, and more self-reliant. At that time, I also had a full-time job at the state’s only female correctional facility. There, I oversaw the facility’s gardens, and taught the women I supervised how to grow food. I was able to teach them how to plan a garden, how to care for various types of plants, and the skills and sustainable gardening practices they would be able to bring home with them to grow healthy food for their own families. I helped start the process of expanding that program into the facility's kitchen, to also teach them how to cook with the different vegetables they grew, and how to preserve that food to be enjoyed year-round. I left that position in June of 2021, to pursue my farming dream full-time.

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In my heart, Noka Farm existed before we had a house to live in. The business paperwork was completed, the seeds on order, the first order of chicks picked out and on hold before the coop was even built. My evenings were spent poring over excel sheets, developing a website, and binge watching YouTube channels of other farmers and homesteaders. Every time I needed a boost of courage, Chris was right there encouraging me to keep moving forward with farm plans and to step into the uncertainty of owning a business. I used the name of our children to inspire the name of our farm, and I smile every time I hear it. From the moment our first vegetable seeds emerged from the freshly tilled ground, my sense of purpose exploded, and the rest is history.

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Each season the farm evolves to suit the needs of our growing family, as all sustainable businesses tend to do. Our farm infrastructure is built piece by piece, using mostly our own labor, so that we can avoid the stresses of debt. For 2023, I’ve decided to expand the farm again. I’ve begun plans of creating our own on-farm self-serve farm stand, to host not only our own products, but other local farmers, and I cannot even describe the excitement it brings me to think about all the gardens that will be grown in my community with our seedlings, or the families nourished by our food. We primarily raise vegetables, herbs, and cut flowers for CSAs and farmers markets, plus our spring seedlings. We also raise chickens for both eggs and meat, and last year added quail to the mix. We are hoping to expand into the world of rabbits this season as well. Despite our farm evolving every season, the core of our business remains the same: there is nothing more important to us than sharing healthy, fresh food and beauty with our community.

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Farming, as a lifestyle or a profession, is not for the faint of heart. We’ve experienced more than our fair share of hardships thanks to the house fire, weather, storms, droughts, pests, and more. But we persevere because we believe that our work is important. In its most simple and pure state, food is a powerful impetus for change. We have nourished dozens of FarmShare members with weekly deliveries, and countless friends and community members at our local farmers market, many being families choosing to give their children the healthiest start they can, or those who are trying to be more mindful of their own food sustainability. We have donated hundreds of pounds of food to seniors in our community. But it’s the hundreds of meals in between all those major life moments that are powering the local food movement and bringing meaning to our harvests. We are so grateful for the honor of being YOUR farmer.

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With peace and cheer,

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Kate, Chris, Noah and Kaden