Our operation started as a couple hundred strawberry plants behind our house in the late 1960’s. Having a fairly large family (four boys and two girls), we were looking for something meaningful and constructive for the kids to do and also be away for them to make a little money in the summer time. A few strawberries led to a few more strawberries and then to a little sweet corn. Then a neighbor said, "would you be interested in using our 8 acres for gardening to keep the weeds down?". We said, “yes.”

As time went along our boys said, “you can’t expect us to work this hard without more and better machinery." So, we bought a tractor and so forth. As the boys were getting older, we could do more so we bought more equipment and rented more land. We marketed at our little stand in front of the house, offered u-pick, and then started going to local Farmers Markets. 

 When the boys reached driving age, we went to more Farmers Markets and started doing a little wholesaling. All of sudden the boys were starting college! Our business got a little bigger - all of the time adding some rented land and, of course, more machinery. By now the girls were also going to market and helping to run the stand and u-pick business.

Before long they all went off to college. Then the day came that all the kids had graduated from college, got good jobs, got married, and were off on their own. Our goal had been met.

Tomatoes ready for Farmers Market

About this time, I retired from Cooperative Extension. Mother and I decided to continue the operation. Of course, we bought more equipment to get the work done since we had less help.

In the mid 80’s we were one of the first strawberry farms to participate in an IPM program (Integrated Pest Management). This program is administered by Cornell University with the objective of teaching growers how to raise strawberries using less pesticides and being more sustainable. A few years later when this concept was initiated for sweet corn, we were again one of the first in the state to participate. Over the years, our farm has been utilized by Cornell University to field test a number of research findings pertaining to IPM. Just last year, one of our sweet corn fields was used to determine the effectiveness of the trichogramma wasp in controlling the corn borer. (It was partially successful.)

As we work to develop a model sustainable berry and fresh vegetable farm, we will continue to utilize all the proven procedures of IPM.

Today we have over $100,000 worth of machinery, own about 80 acres, and rent an additional 40 acres.

We market at the farm stand (out behind the house), go to Farmers Markets 6 days a week, have u-pick, and wholesale to area schools. In addition, together with one of our sons, we own 4 corn roasters. In recent years we have been roasting in excess of 100,000 ears of sweet corn per year - mostly in the Southern Tier and on Long Island.