About six years ago, Chelsey and Casey Greer launched a farm booth on the honor system. A few years later, the company attracted enough traffic and they decided to transform it into a company, Moodus' Walden Farm.

Now, the couple sells their products at stalls at the end of the driveway and farmers markets in Higganum, Ivoryton, and Chester all year round. They are part-time farmers and work full-time—Chelsea is a teacher at Wyndham and Casey is an engineer at the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant—but their goal is to restore Chelsea’s family farm to a farm of their choice that can be run full-time.

Helping them take the next step is a new irrigation system that they will install with the help of the Connecticut Department of Agriculture’s Farm Transformation Grant, which this year includes new categories for new farmers like Greer Grants.

The tractor attachment they plan to buy will raise the Walden Farm's planting bed and cover it with black plastic film to prevent weeds from germinating on the bed. The bed sheet is irrigated with the drip tape underneath, which is more effective than overhead irrigation. Casey says this means the whole family can use less water and spend less time pulling up weeds.

"I just came back from the field and there are weeds everywhere," Casey said. "We are a small family farm and sometimes can't keep up with other things in life."

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The department provided grants of US$497,000 to 24 projects, and the program was redesigned into four grant categories to suit the industry: new farmers, R&D, innovation and diversification, and infrastructure investment.

Four-root farms in East Haddam received an infrastructure grant to develop a new irrigation system-this is necessary because the wells they installed when they started installation seven years ago have dried up, and they maintain flower beds and vegetable beds in the dry spring of this year The watering year is a challenge.

Yalloningle, who manages the farm’s infrastructure, said that the small farm in East Haddam had difficulty getting water. They drilled 400 feet deep, but until they opened it hydraulically, the well was still not producing much. But the well started filling again, and fracturing every three or four years seemed unsustainable, so they applied for a grant to drill more productive wells.

Taylor said: "For a while, maybe a month ago, it became a bit within reach, and then we encountered a big storm, so it hasn't become terrible yet." "At least there is enough for us to move on. , But you don’t want to limp, you want to flourish."

Four plants grow flowers and less common vegetables like broccoli, squash, and peppers—"weird and beautiful things you've never seen in the grocery store," Taylor said. They are sold at farm stalls, community-backed agricultural shares, and farmers’ markets in Madison and New Haven.

A post shared by Fourroot Farm (@fourrootfarm)

“There will always be more projects, but it feels like, once we can solve our water problem, this is the last infrastructure project to start,” Alanentele said. "We have a bunch of greenhouses, we have a deer fence, and we have a cleaned and packed house built a few years ago, so it feels like the farm has reached a very good place-water is our last big problem."

Taylor said this is the second time that Sigen Farm has received a farm transformation grant-it has already received grants in 2017 to build their washing and packaging plant. He said that he thinks the new category is a good way for the plan to adapt to the changing face of Connecticut agriculture and the growth of start-up farms and newcomers entering the field such as Walden.

Greer said that some form of Walden Lake farm has existed for nearly a century, but it disappeared for a while after changing from a dairy farm and a cattle farm to a small farm that only raised chickens and vegetables. 

Chelsea Greer has been helping the family farm all her life, and when she married Casey, he used his degree in civil engineering to further develop the farm-even though his agricultural experience was limited to helping his mother grow vegetables He said, East Lyme's garden. 

Casey said that in the past few years, he asked local farmers and message boards to find out the ins and outs of farming, including nearby farmers who helped him learn how to operate a baler.

"I know where the hay comes in and where the hay comes out, but I am confused about all the mechanisms in the middle," Greer said. "But for the past two or three years, he has been explaining the details of every entry and exit, and how to adjust the baler to make it work."

The Greer couple are looking to develop a two- or three-season self-picking business-selling hay, fruits and vegetables to save enough money to buy thousands of strawberry and blueberry plants and turn 15 acres of forest into an orchard of apples , Peaches and pears, he said.

"We are definitely a work in progress, but installing this attachment for the tractor will speed up the timeline for us to be able to move to our own pick operation," Greer said.

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