In December, 2007, we bought a 6-acre farm in Oak Hill, New York to take a stab first at growing some of our own produce for the restaurant and eventually at raising some animals for meat, eggs, or milk (we’re keeping our options open). Since we have no experience farming, we expect several years of comical mistakes to precede our first significant harvest, but if nothing else we expect to learn a bit about what the farmers we rely on at the restaurant have to go through to supply us with regular cartloads of greens, tomatoes, beans, peas, and fruit.
Our six acres include a horse barn, a smokehouse, a 3 acre pasture, and another 3 acres of lawn. The previous owners kept a couple of horses but in the years before they sold the place, they mostly cultivated parties. We’re letting the pasture grow up this year, and letting half the lawn go unmown, with the idea that we’ll plow it under this fall and start planting in earnest in the spring of 2009.
In the meantime, we’ll document our test gardens, our renovations, and our second thoughts about the venture here.
About Oak Hill:
Oak Hill is a town of about 200 year-round residents located 2 1/2 hours north of Brooklyn. It sits on the north-east fringe of the Catskill Mountains, about 45 minutes west of the Hudson River. If you have a taste for Irish kitsch you may know the nearby town of Durham, which sports a number of Irish restaurants and bars, along with an annual Irish festival.
This year will be the first that Oak Hill will host the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, which will feature 3 days of luminary bluegrass musicians including Dave Grisman, the Del McCoury Band, and Hot Rize.
Oak Hill is also home to a community of the Twelve Tribes movement. In Oak Hill, they keep a very good casual restaurant, offer carpentry and upholstery services, and make commercial signs.