This summer marked Blackfire Farm owners Doug Higley and Liz White’s debut in the local farm community, and their first harvests from their Hancock location. You may have seen them selling pizzas from a trailer-mounted oven in Keene, or at the Fresh Chicks Market at Monadnock Community Hospital.
Higley and White farm using organic methods and sell diversified fruits and vegetables, as well as pastured sheep, chickens, ducks, and rabbits, all raised on soy-free feeds. Their first season has gone well in spite of pandemic complications and tricky drought conditions, and they credit a major component of their success to support from the local community. A Hancock resident offered them grazing land across town when dry conditions had stymied pasture growth earlier in the summer, White said. They’ll process a batch of chickens on-farm next week – a perk of farming in New Hampshire is that regulations allow it, Higley said, and all their rabbits are slated to be sold to the Waterhouse in Peterborough.
Higley, 31, is a Hancock native and White, 30, is from North Attleborough, Massachusetts. “We met at a farmer’s market,” White said. Prior to this year, they were working on a farm in Massachusetts, where they devised a business plan while living in a tiny house they built themselves. They broke ground last fall at their new home on Depot Road, which now sports a quarter acre garden, hillside pasture, and an enviable view of Crotched Mountain. Components of their tiny house – the loft stairs, the roof, are now reconfigured into livestock sheds and other structures around the farm.
The wood-fired pizza oven was a surprise success after some early-season event cancellations due to COVID-19, Higley said, but the outdoor, boxed, touch-free system has proved to be particularly appealing this year, and they’re now finding themselves turning down events, he said. Higley is a former chef, and loved the pizza oven that a stone mason had constructed on their previous farm. “I traded my car to him for an oven,” he said, and the pair worked together to install one on the back of a trailer. They’re now building a second one. It was important to make the pizzas a true local product, White said. Currently they use dough from Keene’s Bread Shed and supplement their own vegetable toppings with local sausage, White said, but they’re eager to give their own wheat and sausage production a try – among a slew of other future experiments, which include a cluster of fig varietals waiting for a dedicated greenhouse.
They’re also considering changes to their CSA model based on their experience this year, White said, and they’ll start taking subscriptions again in January 2021. Instead of the traditional weekly box of goods, they’re considering a card model, where members can redeem their subscription on any item or any event the farm is selling at, she said.
“One year ago, this was nothing,” White said, gesturing to the garden and pasture. A central goal for the farm is to restore and build the soil on the land, which was cleared from forest 20 years ago and has lain fallow ever since, she said. To this end, the farm is employing intensive pasture rotations that enrich the soil with animal droppings, and even using their livestock to prevent one another’s diseases, like using their ducks to eliminate slugs that could threaten their sheep, she said. They’re managing their gardens biointensively, trading crops three or four times a year in each of the 55 permanent beds in sequences that promote soil health. They’re minimizing tillage on their beds, opting for mulch or living cover to control weeds. Some plants are left to flower in order to attract flowers, and some pest-resistant heirloom varieties of plants are in the mix. One thing is for certain: for as much as Higley and White have received from the land in their first year, they’re ready to put a whole lot more back in.