The Chewonki Farm

The Chewonki Farm, on Chewonki’s Wiscasset property, is a small and diversified saltmarsh farm; its primary goal is to educate program participants while producing food, firewood, and fiber for our campus community. There are approximately 26 acres of open land; one acre is cultivated for vegetable gardens, and 25 acres are pasture and hay fields. The managed woodlot is approximately 150 acres.

We raise livestock for meat, eggs, and fiber. The farm keeps a small herd of beef cows and a flock breeding ewes that produces lambs for meat each spring. We raise around 200 laying hens, free-ranging most of the year. Up to three hundred broilers and 15 turkeys are pasture-pen raised in the late summer/fall. Two batches of two to eight pigs are raised annually for meat.

Two draft horses provide much of the power for the farm operation including plowing and garden cultivation; hay cutting, tedding, and raking; winter logging and wood hauling; and a wide variety of other tasks. We are always looking for ways to expand our knowledge and to effectively and safely utilize draft horsepower. Whenever possible, horsepower is emphasized as a sustainable and rewarding method of accomplishing valuable labor. We also have a tractor that we use primarily for moving material, turning compost, cutting hay, and clipping pasture.

As mentioned above, we use two horses to log in the winter months. With the help of a professional forester and the Chewonki community, the farm is responsible for managing 150 acres of woodlot. We harvest about 20 to 30 cords of firewood annually. The majority of the work is timber stand improvement and firewood production, and may include maintaining and improving woodlot roads, tree pruning, felling, limbing, slash management, and limited production of sawlogs and pulpwood.

We cut three to five acres of our own hay with a sickle bar mower and bring it in loose. We buy in the remainder of our hay in bales from a local farmer.

The farm crew, in cooperation with the Facilities staff, maintains the majority of the farm buildings, grounds, and machinery.

Education is central to Chewonki’s mission statement and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statement: any individual that works on the farm must consider themselves a teacher as well as a farmer. Because our working farm is the context for our education rather than a traditional classroom setting, the farm crew needs to be comfortable and adept with teaching as they work alongside students and program staff. Education about farm and food systems happens both formally and informally at Chewonki and may be grounded in a work experience, a classroom experience, and/or a food preparation and dining experience.

Our primary approach to education on the farm is to integrate young people into meaningful production systems. Additionally, we articulate the “why” behind our systems and build context for how our approach to work and land management fits into the broader scope of farm and food systems nationally and globally. Because the farm acts as a support department to all Chewonki programs, farmers work with young people ages 7 to 18, creating developmentally appropriate and program-specific farm intersections that complement and further a participant’s broader Chewonki experience.

Farm Activities and Responsibilities throughout the annual cycle:

Farmers are expected to be present for morning chores beginning around 6:00 am (season dependent) through afternoon chores beginning at approximately 4:00 pm. Chores to care for livestock are done at the beginning and end of every day throughout the year. Generally, our workday is between nine to ten hours daily, five days a week, and can be more during certain seasons. Chore weekend responsibilities alternate with “off” weekends.

There is a seasonal flow to work on the Chewonki farm, though there is less of an “off” season than on some market farms. An overview of the whole year is given below.

February – March: Maine Coast Semester, and Waypoint in session, work program, focus on firewood and woodlot work, early hoop house growing, seed starting

April – May: Maine Coast Semester, Waypoint, and Outdoor Classroom in session, work program, seed starting, garden plowing/cultivating/planting, pasture rotation, mowing, fence maintenance, lambing

June-August: Camp Chewonki in session, Camp Farm Activity support, intensive garden and pasture work, haying, harvesting for kitchen and Packout

September –December: Maine Coast Semester, Waypoint, and Outdoor Classroom in session, work program, harvesting and storing crops, cover cropping, manure spreading, machinery repair and winterizing, livestock to slaughter, begin wood season preparations, infrastructure management

Late December – January: Maine Coast Semester and Outdoor Classroom on break, farm crew takes approximately three weeks of downtime doing only chores and necessary tasks. Starting in late January, the farm crew prepares for the Semester and actively manages the woodlot for firewood production.