Heartwood Farms is a 32-acre integrated farm maintained by a team of interns, apprentices, and residents of Heartwood Cohousing Community.

 

Principles:
We seek to create a sustainable, resilient food system that provides for our local community. We follow practices that go above and beyond organic standards. We treat the farm as an ecosystem in which each organism contributes multiple benefits to the whole. We behave as stewards of the land, aiming to create, nurture, and give life.

 

Heartwood Cohousing Community:

Heartwood Cohousing is a vibrant place to be.  Children run and play throughout the cluster. Many people work out of their homes.  We share meals, resources, a love of outdoors and we care about each other.  We celebrate together.  We help each other out.

 

If you choose to be an intern here you will share in these things too.  The community will welcome you into our family.  The Farm will pay for two meals a week for you to eat with the community and you will have access to our shared resources. You will have many opportunities to meet and get to know many people who have lived very different lifestyles.

 

Interns:
Each season a team of interns from near and far work together to run the farm. During the growing season, they live in their own community near the farm complete with an outdoor kitchen, composting toilet, solar shower, tarp covered hut for each intern, and teepee. Potable water is stored in a large tank all season. Drinking water is retrieved from a nearby spring. The stove and refrigerator are run off of propane tanks. No electricity is used. We work together, cook together, brainstorm, sing, create and play together.

 

Management:
Interns are instructed by the Farm Manager, Bevan Williams, and Farm Manager Apprentice, Cameron Duhaime. Interns have various focuses, but still obtain knowledge of how the farm works as a whole. Continuous cooperation exists between the farm and the Heartwood Cohousing community in order to make appropriate decisions on changes and growth at the farm.

 

What We Grow and Nurture:
The farm consists of  intensive vegetable gardens, row crop fields, and grazed pastures. A wide variety of different vegetables are grown in the gardens and fields. The pasture is home to our egg-laying chickens and two dairy calves, Ria and Lily. Fruit trees grow in all areas of the farm. Bees are kept in the gardens to assist in pollination and provide us with the nectar of the gods. A variety of birds live in birdhouses in the garden, cattails and willows in the wetland, and oak trees surrounding the intern village. Our ancient cottonwood, Lady Grace, leans over the farm and glows gold during harvest time.

 

Where the Food Goes:
The majority of produce grown is distributed to Heartwood residents, interns, and CSA customers. Some is sold commercially to local natural food stores and restaurants. We are also interested in helping create and support a local food distribution center.

 

Local Wild Life:
In addition to cultivated plants, we harvest and consume various wild plants. …Some people call these “weeds,” but they are actually super foods! A weed is simply a plant whose qualities have yet to be discovered and accepted by humans. We harvest amaranth, comfry, dandelion, nettles, thistle, wild onions, mallow, and many more to cook with meals or make into green drinks.