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By Mary Romaniec
Grafton News Reporter –
Houlden Farm began its 40th growing season with more vegetables to sell.
The owner, Ruth Houlden, explained how the humble beginnings of the local landmark took root when, one summer, her bored children asked if they could set up a vegetable stand in front of the house.
The kids— Debbie, Lisa, Peter and Lori— would gather vegetables from their own garden and sell them from a simple card table at the corner of Wesson and Old Westboro Road. The following year the summertime entrepreneurs repeated it with a few more vegetables and flowers to sell.
“That’s how it all started. . .the kids being bored,” said the 74-year-old Ruth with an element of disbelief of where that boredom would change the trajectory of her life.
What started as a nifty idea turned into a farming lifestyle for the Houlden family as the operation continued to expand to include more acreage, more varieties of vegetables, fruits, flowers and other plants.
He and Ruth’s other grandsons, Tyler and Travis Houlden, have proudly adopted the farm, and the hard-work lifestyle instilled in them from the time they were old enough to dig in the dirt. Ruth considers it her duty to pass along her knowledge about farm operations to the next generation, while still having a hand on the plow—so to speak.
As the farm outgrew the card table, it moved to a small roadside kiosk stacked with homegrown vegetables. When they outgrew that the family’s stone shed was cleared out and they began to sell more vegetables than ever before. “This used to be the original milking house,” said Ruth’s 23-year-old grandson, Trevor Houlden.
During a visit in May the farm revealed a canvas of 49 acres of mostly tilled soil, five greenhouses, a barn full of equipment and a bunch of tomato plants getting ready for the season. “We plant so much because we have gotten so much bigger,” said Houlden. Asked what she believes is the key to the success over the years, she responded, “We leave a good taste in people’s mouth.”
It is that attention to crop quality that has been the expected norm from those who frequent Houlden Farm. Ruth quips how picking corn is an art form of timing and technique to get the sweetest ears to her customers. “We never let anything out of here that isn’t perfect [for the customers],” she said.
It isn’t just vegetables that Houlden Farm is known for. Stop by anytime and you may see Ruth chatting up an inquiring customer about a particular flower. There are also the baked goods and beeswax cream made by her daughter, Lori who still lives on the property. Travis, Trevor and Tyler have added their own touch by milling cord wood on the property for winter deliveries.
As their grandmother, Ruth believes the grandsons work too long and too hard. But that’s not how they see it. “We don’t work too much. We just have big goals,” said Tyler, 25. “When you work a lot, the opportunities are endless.” They both see the land, and the farming lifestyle, as something they were born to do. Tyler purchased the old farmhouse across the street and is now raising his infant daughter to appreciate the land as much as he does. “As soon as she can walk, she’ll be out here,” he said with a laugh. “She’ll be very lucky to grow up around this lifestyle,” said Trevor.
To the Houlden family, dirt is the antidote for everything. It’s the benefit of eating what they grow, making a living off the tilled soil and being outdoors all day, that has created a freedom some might envy.
The list of vegetables grown might rival larger scale farms: carrots, garlic, beets, corn, herbs, green leafy vegetables, squashes, potatoes and more tomato varieties to keep up with the increasing demand.
“There aren’t many farms left,” Ruth said which is why she feels compelled to teach the next generation how to carry on. Her energy and stamina would run circles around those half her age, but even she believes there are limitations. She no longer digs in the dirt and relies on others to do the heavy lifting. Her forte is in knowing what needs to be done and when. That’s the part she is passing down to her grandsons, even if she doesn’t have any plans of retiring, or leaving the farm, any time soon.
“I love it,” she said. Then she scanned the field with the handiwork from the years of building the farm and adds with a laugh, “They’re going to have to carry me outta here kicking and screaming.”
In the meantime, there are seeds to order, crops to plant and water, and customers to talk to.
To learn more about seasonal offerings from Houlden Farm, visit them on Facebook, drop by the farm stand at 139 Old Westboro Road, or at the Grafton Farmer’s Market on Wednesdays beginning June 29, on the Common.
Massachusetts family farms by the numbers
While nationally the U.S. witnessed a decline in agriculture from 2007 to 2012, Massachusetts was one of the few states that experienced a 1 percent growth in both number of farms and acres in farmland in 2012, according to the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. At nearly $48 million, the state ranks 5th in the nation for direct market sales and 3rd for direct market sales per operation. Eighty percent of Massachusetts farms are family owned; 95 percent fit the category of “small farms,” with sales below $250,000, according to the USDA. Number of farms in Worcester County: 1,560, covering 101,808 acres with $57.4 million in sales.
Source: Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, 2012 report.
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