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By JAMES M. PATTERSON

Barbara Patch credits good air flow at the 1,200 foot elevation of her family’s Lebanon apple orchard with limiting the damage from a May freeze that devastated crops. The Patches saved around 50% of their fruit.The killing frost was just one example...

By FRANCES MIZE

WOODSTOCK — Itinerant slaughterer and sheep-shearer Mary Lake came of age among images of Vermont agrarian life.Lake, who now lives in Tunbridge, grew up in South Hero, Vt., flipping through photo books like Peter Miller’s iconic 1990 “Vermont People”...

By FRANCES MIZE

WOODSTOCK — The sourcing strategy behind the sloppy joes served to students in the Mountain Views Supervisory Union is anything but disorganized.They’re made with beef from Cloudland Farm in Pomfret, carefully selected for the students with the Upper...

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — In light of this year’s poor hay season, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture recently released an online livestock feed directory to connect buyers and sellers across the Northeast, including Canada. Flooded fields and general wet...

By FRANCES MIZE

PLAINFIELD — In 2001, hail battered the apple crop in Paul Franklin’s orchard at Riverview Farm.With his own apples bruised beyond repair, he headed to Poverty Lane Orchards in Lebanon, where owner Steve Wood filled Franklin’s boxes with fruit from...

By FRANCES MIZE

NORWICH — “Make hay while the sun shines” reads more like a taunt than turn-of-phrase wisdom for farmers this summer.Hay could soon be in short supply, with growers saying it’s the worst season for the crop in memory. Flood waters in early July...

By STEVE TAYLOR

There’s a measure of melancholy that always surrounds a farm auction. Chances are it is bringing down the curtain on a life’s work, an ending compelled by bodies aging out, debts that can’t be covered by cash flow or plain old bad luck. The effects...

By ALEX HANSON

The first call of the day, to vaccinate a treasured cow and her calf, exemplifies what Taylor Hull loves about her job.Anna Poulin, one of the daughters in Poulin and Daughters Family Farm in Randolph, plans to take her cow Peaches and her calf to the...

By PATRICK ADRIAN

LEBANON — A proposal by owners of a family farm that would discontinue public access to a collection of trails that cross the family’s property is facing opposition from city residents, as well as the town of Enfield.Under a proposal by the Patch...

By RAY COUTURE

CORNISH — You’d think a family that’s lived in the same house for the last two-and-a-half centuries would know how to throw a party there at the drop of a hat.But for the Fitchs, who have owned and lived on their 165-acre plot of land atop Dingleton...

By PATRICK ADRIAN

WEST LEBANON — With berry season underway, Upper Valley farmers said their pick-your-own patches could use more sunshine to offset June’s rainy days and cool temperatures. A mid-May freeze also killed or damaged many fruit blossoms.While the impact...

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A Vermont voucher program is making it easier for low-income residents to access local foods.Through the Farm to Family Coupon program, approximately $164,000 in coupons are now available to Vermont households with incomes at or...

By FRANCES MIZE

PLAINFIELD — At 2 a.m. last Thursday, owner Norah Lake and her work crew at Sweetland, a 12-acre fruit and vegetable farm in Norwich, were in the orchard, dousing apple, plum and pear trees from a network of irrigation pumps.They hoped encasing the...

By JOHN LIPPMAN

Kacey Knight says she typically hears two kinds of reactions from people when they learn she’s a supervisor on the “kill floor” at Vermont Packinghouse slaughterhouse in North Springfield, Vt.“It’s either ‘Oh, really?’ or ‘I don’t want hear about...

By SARAH EARLE

When Jake Guest arrived at the old Norwich farmhouse where Valerie Woodhouse and Eli Hersh were planning their spring crops last Thursday morning, he did something that still feels a bit strange to him: He knocked on the door.For nearly 40 years,...

By COREY CHAPMAN

After Sunday’s service for Royalton farmer and former state Rep. David Ainsworth, Corey Chapman’s moving eulogy for his friend and mentor started to pop up on social media. Ainsworth died May 31 at age 64. Chapman, a military veteran who now farms in...

By Liz Guenther

May 2It’s been a long winter on our small farm in Corinth. A week ago I looked out my kitchen windows and scanned Hurricane Ridge hopefully, searching for the deepening burgundy hue that means the buds on the hardwoods are swelling. I saw it, but I...