We finally did it!
Today Acre of Independence Farm sold our organic produce at the Litchfield Hills Farmers Market. This was the first time we ever sold anything, and it was great!
It was also a LOT of work. We woke up at 5 a.m., and picked and washed most of our produce this morning. Hand-washing 100 pounds of beets takes a long time. Then we packed everything up and loaded our truck. But we weren’t ready to leave just yet. We still had all of our everyday farm chores to do. We had to water the garden, feed the poultry, and take care of the new baby chicks making a racket in my office. Once all that was done, we hit the road for Litchfield.
The Litchfield Hills Farmers Market is great! There are wonderful vendors there, many of whom have worked there for years. And any nervousness and first day jitters on our part melted away after we met many of the friendly, helpful, and experienced people to our left and right. What a great group of people! And those vendors had some unique offerings, too. If you want coffee-infused maple syrup, grass-fed Connecticut beef from Laurel Ridge Farm, hard-to-find gourmet mushrooms, or custom-made herbal teas, you need to check out this market.
Anyway, we set up our stand according to plan in a nice spot, and before long, we made or first sale! By mid-morning, we’d sold out of carrots, and customers bought out all of our Chioggia beets shortly after that. When the market ended at 1 PM, we didn’t have much to pack up, most of our produce was GONE!
We have a lot to learn, and will probably made a bunch of mistakes today between waking up and shutting down our stand; we’ll probably make a bunch more between now and next week, when we set up our stand again at the Litchfield Hills Farmers Market.
But hey, we’re farming. We are doing what we always wanted to do. We are working hard and having fun together. We are growing great organic produce, and we are going to keep getting better at it. Every day we’ll think about how we can make this farm better, and deliver hard-to-find, high quality items to our customers. We hope you’ll stick around with us along the way.
See you in Litchfield next week!
Acre of Independence 
I LOVE that this is a reality after years of planning and dreaming!!
Thanks Patty, us too!
Hello,
My name is Peter Rickenbach, I graduated from Nonnewaug with your son and recently found out about this farm and it’s website. I have found recent interest in farming and growing plants of my own and I was wondering if there was any opportunity to volunteer or help out at your farm. Of course it seems much more family oriented which I respect, but if you have any times that would allow me to come to help out and learn some growing and maintenance tips I would appreciate it very much!
Thank you for your time