Visit to the old Thimble Farm

As I mentioned in the last blog Chris and I made a trip to the old Thimble Farm property. We were delivering some of our old containers so they could find a new home and continue to be used. A lot of our products come in plastic drums ranging from 20 - 55 gallon and some even come in 275 gallon totes. As you can imagine getting anyone to take these items back off-island is very difficult. We have often been able to recycle the barrels to various people. They can be used to float docks, collect rain water, hold saw dust or shavings etc. The totes however have been a bit more difficult. We had three of them with two more coming in full this year. They take up a fair amount of space so it was time to figure this out. My supplier of the liquid fertilizer we purchase in totes had made a sales call on the Island Gown Initiative at the old Thimble Farm location. He inquired if they had a need for totes and they said yes. It just so happened that the first Assistant I hired when the position was created works there now. Matt Brown worked at Mink in the late 90's. He is a Umass graduate and is from CT where his family were in the oyster business for a couple of generations, if memory serves me. He has worked for a couple of different excavating companies on the island since working here.

Matt Brown raising rainbow trout

Vertical gardening

Praying Mantis hatched from eggs

Matt's handiwork constructing the a-frames

Getting hungry yet? Lots of greens

The one on the left has a birth defect that causes the tuft of feathers on his head. He was named years ago:TRUMP

Matt's position at the farm is Construction and Maintenance Supervisor. There is a brief mention of the trout raising HERE The main website for this venture is http://www.islandgrown.org/ Check it out there are a lot of interesting things going on.