Highlights from Vermont Open Farm Week

Last week marked the fourth annual Vermont Open Farm Week! Farms all across the state opened up their fields, barns and pastures for a number of different fun activities, as a way to connect the public with Vermont’s farmers and the beautiful agricultural landscape.

Here at City Market, we sponsored three different events throughout the week; a Mozzarella Making class at Bread and Butter Farm, a Farm Tour at Blue Ledge Farm & Fairy Tale Farm, and a Crop Mob at Pitchfork Farm. With all three of these events, we were able to explore different parts of Vermont and offer our Members an opportunity to meet their farmers!  

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Bread and Butter Farm is an organic veggie, beef, and pork farm located in Shelburne. In addition to growing and caring for the vegetables and livestock, they have a number of other events that take place on the farm. From sunset yoga classes, their ever popular Burger Nights, to Mozzarella Making classes, they have it all! Phoebe Tucker is a member of the Bread and Butter farm team and taught the Mozzarella Making class during Open Farm Week. Participants loved learning about this fast cheese making process, walking around and learning about the farm, and especially being able to taste the cheese they made at the end. Don’t miss out, and sign up for one of the two Mozzarella Making 101 classes we are offering in September, here!

Next up was our annual Open Farm Week Farm Tour. We traveled to Blue Ledge Farm in Salisbury where we met Hannah and Greg Sessions, the owners of the goat farm and cheese operation. It was fascinating to hear about their transformation through the years, as they started out milking just 4 goats, to now running a 100+ goat farm and successful, award winning, cheese operation. We started the tour by trying some of their delicious cheeses, got a tour of the cheese cellar, and at the end we were able to meet some of their goats. Baby goats (kids) are just the cutest!

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Our second stop on our tour was Fairy Tale Farm, a small sheep farm located in Bridport. Alissa Shethar is the owner and head cheesemaker at Fairy Tale. The farm was originally settled back in the 1800s as a sheep farm, and continues to raise sheep today. When Alissa purchased the farm, she decided to keep the name, Fairy Tale, and has continued that theme by naming the different cheeses she makes after different mythological creatures. When we first arrived to the farm, we were greeted with a deliciously creamy cheese platter Alissa crafted for us—a welcome opportunity to gather together inside from the rain. After the weather cleared, we took a short walk to the barn, met her chickens, saw the sheep, and then walked over to her cheese room and got to see her new gelato making machine! We ended the tour on a sweet note by trying the gelato Alissa has been testing with her sheep’s milk. Fingers crossed we will be seeing some sheep’s milk gelato coming soon to City Market!

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The last of the three events was a Crop Mob at Pitchfork Farm down at the Intervale Center. Pitchfork is a diversified vegetable farm that offers a flourishing CSA, and sells fresh produce to local restaurants, cafes, and markets. To wrap up our Open Farm Week events, we brought a group down to the farm to help with some end of summer projects. On Saturday, the group helped with weeding beds of golden beets and seeded parsley in the greenhouse. It was great to spend some time with one of our local farm partners and lend some extra hands on the farm.  

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As we move into the fall, we are looking forward to returning to our regular class schedule, packed with a variety of educational cooking classes, lecture-based classes, and events. Check out our September class listing here. Hope to see you at a class soon! 

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