Generation Next: Younger Farmers Making Their Mark at Kimball Fruit Farm
Photos by Joyelle West
Earlier this year David and Amanda Wadleigh took over ownership of Kimball Fruit Farm, a historic property in Pepperell that has been cultivated since the 1800s. Along with 176 acres of agriculturally protected land, the young couple also acquired a legacy.
The original owners raised cows, but after a fire destroyed the farmhouse the land was sold to the Kimball brothers, whose family runs regionally popular ice cream stands in Westford, Lancaster and Carlisle.
The previous owners of Kimball Fruit Farm, Carl and Marie Hills, bought it in 1990 from Carl’s father; his aunt was a Kimball cousin by marriage. For generations, the farm’s apple orchards have been the main source of income, producing fruit that was sold on consignment to a wholesaler.
“The year Carl and Marie got a bill rather than a check from the wholesaler, they changed the farm’s focus to retail sales,” says David.
The farm’s orchards now grow 50 varieties of apples as well as half a dozen varieties of pears and plums; nectarines and peaches—both yellow and white—and cherries. All that fruit in addition to pick-your-own strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, apples, pumpkins and flowers plus a variety of vegetables and herbs are sold at the farm’s on-site store. You can also find it at several farmers markets in the Boston area including Harvard Square, Davis Square, Central Square and Union Square.
Kimball Fruit Farm has been a focal point for more than half of David’s life. He started working there after school at age 15 and stayed on during summers and semester breaks throughout college, increasing his responsibilities from clerking in the farm store to organizing picking crews and running the farmers market operations.
After graduating from Eastern University in Pennsylvania in December 2011, David came back to the farm to work full time while waiting to start graduate school in the fall. But farming had grown on him; working in the fields was more rewarding to him than the prospect of research and classroom work.
The farm even had a role in the story of David’s proposal to Amanda. “I remember I was working on the roof of the greenhouse when I told Marie that I was going to ask Amanda to marry me,” he recalled. “I guess you can tell you’re a farmer when you measure time by where you were working.”
A big influence on David has been the mentorship he received from the farm’s former owner, Carl. “From my earliest days working at the farm, Carl always explained his reasons for an action. He’d tell me, ‘This is why we’re doing this,’” David says. “He taught me how to prune by showing me why he’d cut a certain branch and not another. Every time he showed me a task, there was a reason behind it. He taught me how to work hard but work smart.”
Five years ago, Carl approached David with the idea of selling him the farm. His two daughters have careers of their own and were not interested in running it. Because the farm is in the Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) program, there was a lot of red tape and the couple had to prove that they were up to the task of keeping the farm in preservation.
“Carl and Marie helped set us up for success,” says Amanda. “This farm is their legacy and they wanted the sale to be fair to all of us.”
David and Amanda worked closely with staff from the APR program and got financial help from Farm Credit East Bank and a USDA grant for new farmers. The process was so congenial that the older couple and the new owners all drove to the closing in the same car.
During their first season as farm owners, David and Amanda chose to make few changes in the farm’s operations. “Carl and Marie were good stewards,” David says. “They were good at being environmentally conscious, installing solar panels to cover most of the farm’s electricity costs.” Now the panels, erected in a field adjacent to the farm store, also shield an assortment of herbs that thrive underneath them.
A large greenhouse behind the farm store is dedicated to tomatoes. About 1,800 plants are hydroponically grown in a custom blend of nutrient mix and watered on a computer-automated schedule “to control any curve ball Mother Nature throws at the tomatoes,” says David. A second greenhouse is for cucumbers. Salad greens grow in three high tunnels.
The most noticeable change in the farm since David and Amanda took ownership has been more exposure on social media. With posts and videos on Facebook and Instagram, “we want people to feel a connection to our farm,” says David. Among his earlier responsibilities was managing the farmers markets; although he no longer has time to attend them himself, David remembers the importance of making a connection to the farm with customers from the city.
And not only customers: The farm also has developed connections with area chefs and supplies produce to several restaurants in the Boston area including A Tavola in Winchester, Bistro 5 in Medford, Littleburg and American Flatbread in Somerville.
Littleburg’s chef/owner Graham Boswell met David when he operated a pop up around the corner from the Davis Square Farmers Market. Now Kimball Fruit Farm is a supplier of produce for Boswell’s brick-and-mortar restaurant. David has also continued a relationship with Green Leaf, a farm-to-table restaurant in nearby Milford, NH, that sends its chefs to the farm to get better acquainted with the methods used to grow the produce they buy.
As new owners, David and Amanda are balancing consistency with the need to change and adapt. For example, they’re continuing Carl’s practice of no-till planting. Some of their own environmentally conscious changes include switching to biodegradable plastic mulch in the fields. They also plan to expand their use of hydroponics to include a separate greenhouse for salad greens for winter farmers markets.
They’ve continued promoting heirloom tomatoes, a special interest of the farm’s former owner. “Carl was one of the first farmers in Central Massachusetts to grow heirloom tomatoes,” David says. He’s continuing the tradition with 48 varieties of tomatoes, including Cherokee Purple, Pink Bumble Bee and Pineapple.
This past spring the farm introduced two sizes of Bloom Boxes, containing starter plants of salad greens and herbs in the small size with nine additional vegetable starter plants in the large size. These one-time-purchase items joined the Harvest Boxes and Fruit Boxes that customers can purchase online on a seasonal, weekly or one-time basis.
David and Amanda are continuing the relationships Carl developed with other farms in the area and sell their products such as eggs, cheese, milk and ice cream in the farm’s store. “We’ve gotten so much support and encouragement from our neighbor farms. Folks have gone out of their way to give us advice,” Amanda says.
An initial challenge the two young farmers met was educating themselves on business issues. They both completed a course on farm business at the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship in Keene, NH. Amanda has taken over management of the farm’s on-site store, which features home-baked fruit pies and cider from their apples.
The main floor of the farm’s original barn is now used for packing produce for farmers market sales, as well as for Fruit and Harvest boxes. Ripe tomatoes are stored in an air conditioned room and apples in the basement cooler. A cider press is put into use in the fall.
Another difficulty for the new owners has been finding the time to plan ahead. For the past 15 years, David became skilled at managing the picking crews, but now as the owner, he’s responsible for planning tasks for all the employees. “He needs another David,” Amanda jokes.
“If I got a question I couldn’t answer, I’d always say, ‘That’s a question for Carl,’” David adds. “Now, there’s a lot of stress in being the person in charge.”
Fortunately, the couple has been able to retain a loyal, seasonal and seasoned crew from Jamaica hired through the H2A guest worker program. “Some of our picking crew have worked summers at the farm for more than a decade,” David says. “We literally could not run the farm without them.”
As they ease into their new roles as farm owners, David and Amanda, parents of two young children, are creating a legacy of their own. “I’ve been here so long and have put so much of myself into the farm,” David says. “It’s something I want to pass on to our kids.”
This story appeared in the Fall 2022 issue.
