Starry Night Farm

Later in the week, I visit Ibby Archer at Starry Night Farm.  Though most farmers at Stonington's Farmers Market raise their crops using organic methods, Starry Night Farm is the only farm in the group certified as organic by the the United States Department of Agriculture.  The farm has been Certified Organic since 2001.

Ibby hesitates when I ask to visit.  “There’s lots of weeds,” she apologizes.

“Sun and rain equal weeds,” I reply. “Don’t worry, we are both in the same business.”

We sit on her stone patio surrounded by overgrown perennial beds.  Spiky blue echinops tower over the weeds, along with bright yellow blooms of Jerusalem artichoke.  Ibby’s farm operation represents one of the important innovation at Farmers Market, the introduction of value-added products. 

“My speciality is garlic-scape pesto,” she explains.  “Scapes are those curly stalks that grow from the top of hard-neck garlic in early summer.  The bulbs are attempting to create flowers and seeds.  Most farmers grow garlic for its bulb, so the scape is usually discarded.  I harvest scapes from my own land and pick more from other local garlic growers.  In all, I froze almost 100 pounds of scape this year.”

On a weekly basis, Ibby rents a certified kitchen at a local church to process the crop.  After chopping the scapes, she adds oil, nuts and cheese.  Small plastic containers with a Starry Night label hold the pesto.

“I use a church kitchen because my home kitchen is not certified for commercial cooking,” Ibby explains.

In January, 2013, California enacted the Homemade Food Act which amends the state’s Health Code to create a new category of food operation called “Cottage Food Operations.” Thirty other states have similar laws. These regulations allows home preparation of foods available as direct sales to customers or as value-added products sold at Farmers Markets.  Hopefully, similar laws will soon spread to all states.