SACO, Maine — They look like farmers — sweaty, bearded, in boots and jeans. But at 11 a.m. on a recent Monday when cold cans of ale were cracked, followed by a series of belches, it was clear these were no MOFGA apprentices.
Brewers, tasting room managers and the sales staff at Biddeford’s Banded Horn Brewing Co. had gathered to plant 30 spruce trees on a farm in Saco.
And this was just for starters.
“We’ll come back and plant 100 later in the fall, maybe even as many as 300,” Banded Horn’s owner Ian McConnell said. Searching for land to plant spruces, the tips of which the brewer will harvest to make his wildly popular Greenwarden ale, he was about to rent land near a ballfield, when a better offer came in. And here’s where the story gets interesting.
Doug Sanford, the owner of the Pepperell Mill Campus, acres of former factories repurposed for commercial and residential use, had just purchased a 62-acre farm in Saco.
Preserving a farm for agriculture, and saving it from the developer’s clutch, is no slight undertaking. Doug and his wife, Lauren Cullity-Sanford, who lived on a farm in Shapleigh for 30 years, felt access to fresh food was crucial to healthy urban living. They seized the opportunity to create a rural food pipeline for their tenants.
This new concept, called The Farm at McKenney Road, is a fresh take on community-supported agriculture.
Beyond the Banded Horn spruces, organic produce like arugula, cucumbers and spinach will be grown for artists and professionals who live and work in the renovated mills. Farm shares will be exclusively for tenants at first, and the farm will offer partnerships to mill businesses like Banded Horn. Starting in June there will be a small farmer’s market in the mill each Thursday.
Instead of farm to table, this is more acres to apartments, rows to residents.
“We are gearing it towards the mill tenants,” said Sanford’s wife and business partner, Cullity-Sanford, who lives in the mill and has planted a rooftop garden with 12 raised beds. Instead of limiting themselves solely to rooftops, they purchased the historic Saco farm eight miles away. It had great soil and a farmhouse that was falling apart. Both have been renewed and revitalized. To keep everything humming they tapped a young, energetic farming couple to manage it.
“I want the people in the mill to think it’s their farm,” said Michael Whitmore, the Biddeford native and farmer now in charge.
Whitmore was homesteading off the grid with his girlfriend in Winthrop, when he had an epiphany. “Downtowns have the potential to be green,” he said.
“I moved to central Maine searching for the farming lifestyle. It wasn’t to get food to downtown. But the concept of serving people in the mill is a more sustainable model,” said the farmer, who was driving 20 miles to get to a store. “I feel like in the mills, the missing link is the food. Eventually, we want to sell fresh produce there daily.”
The organic farm he oversees is starting small. “It’s like a garden on steroids,” said Whitmore, who is planting a bounty on a one-acre plot. “We are using livestock, pigs, chickens to get a healthy ecosystem that plays into the next phase.”
The next phase includes partnering with chefs such as Thomas Malz of Custom Deluxe on Main Street. The comfort kitchen is already garnishing pasta dishes with fresh pea tendrils from The Farm. In June, farm dinners in the field will showcase the bounty in a more casual setting than Flanagan’s Table in neighboring Buxton.
“He [Malz] is really excited about the opportunity to cook outside on an open flame. It will be a cool backcountry environment,” Whitmore said. The featured beer? You guessed it: Greenwarden, which will be released just in time.
A year-round market, featuring greens from The Farm’s hoop house and greenhouse, is the long-term goal.
“It’s something that needs to be done more often. By establishing a partnership with a farm, you can do things you can’t do in the city,” Cullity-Sanford said. “It’s another benefit for residents.”
As consumers grow more savvy about local products and ingredients, more beer farmers may sprout. But McConnell doubts many will go this far.
“Most seasonal beers are planned, sold and promoted months in advance, but Greenwarden, like the weather, plans itself. All we can do is try to make sure we have tips to harvest,” the Etna native said.
Living and working closer to the source helps for quality control. McConnell can stop by The Farm to prune tips as a batch of ale works in the fermentor. Farming your own ingredients is new for brewers, but if this works out, he may plant hops and botanicals.
“We’re taking the tack of treating it like a Christmas tree farm. Spacing trees so they get full sun, pruning them to develop more tips and strong roots. I’ve done a lot of research and spoken to a few experts in trees and farming. I can only hope we’re on the right track and learn as we go,” McConnell said.
As the seeds for The Farm germanate, this concept will continue to flourish.
“I love fresh food,” Cullity-Sanford said. “I’d rather get my greens from Saco than California.”
