About Star Bright Farm

Walt Whitman said it best: "We all need beauty as well as bread, places to play in where nature can heal, cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike." On our 130 acre organic farm, with weathered wood and stone structures, ponds, fields and timber, we live close to the earth where the beauty of nature and the force of the elements are on full display.

Nearly 25 years ago, we stumbled upon this crumbling, 150-year old farm in need of a family to love it. Through the thicket of brambles and falling down structures, we saw a place we would call home to raise our family. We moved in the day after our son Patrick was born, along with our 2-year old son, Peter, and 2 Jack Russell terriers.

Stone by stone, barn-by-barn, pond-by-pond, field-by-field, we have rebuilt and nurtured Star Bright Farm into a destination whose lifestyle and style have been featured in numerous national magazines.

A quarter of a century later, our eldest son Peter, has come home to Star Bright Farm with a degree from the University of Vermont in sustainable agriculture/community development, and a certification in permaculture, to commence the next chapter of the Star Bright story, which has begun in earnest with the beautiful lavender and blueberry fields.

At Star Bright Farm, we view the practice of farming as a human creative expression, observant of the blueprint that nature provides; our goal is to foster a durable ecosystem that generates human wellbeing and regenerates environmental health.

We begin by following the description of our rolling landform to find where our planting begins. What sit down with a system of farm planning referred to as Keyline Design, where planting activity unfolds along winding rows, off contour. Here we slow the water flow down the landscape. While water collects, it flows horizontally along the winding rows and seeps into the soil where foster life in plant roots and microbiology alike.

Since soil life is the foundation to any healthy environment, we want to retain the buildup of our soil biology. This means a pathway of minimal disturbance. If you look to the soils of a Midwestern prairie or the forest floor, natural environments are filled with life that is intended to stay. Our practice of durable life stems from a selection of perennial crops.

Perennial production requires less environmental disturbance, since the plants live for years. Their undisturbed root zones provide habitat to beneficial fungi that cannot establish in disturbance based systems. It harkens the give and take of nature, where life is rewarded to those who provide it in return.  In the undisturbed space between our rows, we sow seeds of pasture, protecting the soil with a nutrient rich blanket of green and seasonal color.

Share with us, in the years to come while the farm enlivens with a diversity of life that digs deeper into the earth and spreads across the landscape. Below is a more simplified list of our farm practices

• Crop Rotation

• Seasonal Cover Cropping

• Companion Planting

• Trap Planting

• Farm Made Microbial Inoculants (A Korean System of cultivating Indigenous Microorganisms)

• On Farm Composting

• Pest and Disease control through Foliar and root inoculation of Beneficial microorganisms, supplemented with Certified Organic, OMRI approved products when needed

• Perennial Landscape Design

• Keyline pattern perennial design (off-contour bedding)

• Intensive Diversity

• No-Till, Minimum Till Bed management

• Hand Cultivation

• Use of only OMRI approved, or certified organic fertilizers, crop supplements and mineral amendments