Caroline Pam
Caroline grew up in New York and earned a
degree in English Literature from the Uni-
versity of Chicago. She worked as a journ-
alist before discovering her passion for food
and farming. She studied French cuisine at
the French Culinary Institutue and has also
worked as a market manager at the Union
Square greenmarket in NYC, where she
shared her enthusiasm for cooking with seas-
onal ingredients in cooking demonstrations.
She spent a summer working on an organic
farm in Italy before moving to the Valley to
apprentice at Food Bank Farm. She also
writes about food and agriculture.
Tim Wilcox
Tim is originally from Oneonta, NY and came
to the Pioneer Valley in 2001 to attend
Hampshire College. He spent time working at
the Hampshire Farm and went to Italy to do
research with radicchio farmers in Treviso for
his thesis project. (Pictured here are the first
Massachusetts-grown examples of the radic-
chio he learned about.) Tim is passionate
about Italian cooking, and his desire to farm
comes from the necessity of fresh ingredients
for his favorite dishes like pasta with broccoli
rabe and "risi e bisi"--risotto with fresh peas.
Tim has also spent time farming in New Paltz, NY
and selling the products at the Union Square
Farmers' Market in New York City.
Caroline & Tim were married May 5, 2007 and our daughter Lily was born on February 7, 2008.
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Our Growing Practices:
Are
we organic? We only use products and
techniques that have been
approved for org-
anic agriculture. But technically, we cannot
call
ourselves organic because we have chosen
not to certify with the
USDA. We think this is
an unnecessary step because we have such a
close relationship with our customers. They
know us and what we care
about, and our
vegetables speak for themselves.
This is our new cultivating tractor, a 1951 Farmall Super A.
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Caroline and Tim plant their first garlic crop, October 2005.
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Our Story
We met during our time at the Union Square market; being
both fooodies, italophiles, and farm geeks, the match was a
simple one. In 2005 we started clearing a piece of rented land
behind our house in Hadley, along the bike path. It had been
abandoned for about four years, and by the time we came
along small locust and sumac trees had started to grow up.
We dug out the trees, gathered up all the brush and burned it.
The land was ploughed that fall and we began planting, start-
ing with the garlic.
Tim standing by a massive pile of brush
The next year, a healthy crop of potatoes
We had spoken with the farmer who used the land before,
and he told us, "don't waste your time." Apparently, our
piece of land had been stripped of its topsoil during the 1939
flood, and had not yielded a decent crop of corn or squash
since. We found out what he meant the following spring,
when some of the things we planted refused to grow. But we
were determined, and have since begun to rehabilitate the
soil with large quantites of horse manure. As you can see,
we are able to grow some beautiful crops.
Our New Farm
In November, 2007 we moved to our new location in Sunderland, about 10
miles north. We bought a nice little farmhouse and 7 acres of
prime Conneticut Valley farmland. We now have 2 antique tractors and are expanding our operation.
Preparing the first garlic seedbeds at the new field.
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