spring Ledge Farm 



Plain Work Colors the Picture 



The farm is on the divide between the 

 Merrimack and Connecticut water- 

 sheds. The streams to the east of this 

 ridge of hills flow into the Merrimack 

 River, those on the west, into the 

 Connecticut. 



"My great-grandfather bought this 

 land after the Civil War," John Clough 

 said. "He and my grandfather and my 

 father lived in the house across the 

 street We still have 43 of the original 

 75 acres. And I've bought 20, so we 

 have a little over 60 now." 



After earning a degree in Econom- 

 ics at Middlebury, John coached 

 skiing for three years at Dartmouth, 

 then taught English at Kimball Union 

 in Meriden. But after five years of this, 

 with the land in New London available, 

 "a native son — ^with a wife and four 

 daughters — returned home.' 'The 

 local papers made a big thing of it." 



"When Sue and I first moved back, 

 we lived on the other side of town and 

 ran a farm stand down the road from 

 here. We also had a maple sugar 

 operation on some land we own on the 

 Wilmot/New London line. We no 

 longer do this, but the spring in the 

 ledge is there and that's where the 

 farm gets its name. 



"We started cautiously — not many 

 people were doing this sort of thing 

 then" — ^but it worked out— today 

 Spring Ledge Farm's well-stocked 

 stand is a New London landmark from 

 Palm Sunday until Christmas. John's 

 in charge of field crops and green- 

 house vegetable production; Sue runs 

 the other greenhouses and the stand. 

 Emily, their youngest daughter, 

 oversees the field crew. And for a 

 couple months in mid-spring, between 

 ski instruction and teaching at 

 Outward Bound, Rebecca, their eldest. 



comes home to work in the green- 

 houses. The other daughters help out 

 too. 



Zoning — ^they're Residential — keeps 

 them from selling anything but plants 

 and plant products, but John thinks 

 this may be good: it makes growing 

 quality produce the main focus. 



Greenhouses. 



Right after their home was finished 

 and the stand (about one-third its 

 present size) operating in its present 

 location, John built two 16x50 quonset- 

 style houses. 'The maple sugar bush 

 was no longer in operation and I took 

 the piping used to carry the sap from 

 the trees to collection points and used 

 it for the frames." 



These houses, used to grow 

 transplants for the vegetable gardens 

 and bedding plants for the stand, were 

 heated with wood. (Much of the 

 Cloughs' land was wooded and they 

 were in the process of clearing it for 

 crop production.) Each house had two 

 stoves — box or barrel. Barrel stoves — 

 two barrels on top of each other, wood 

 in the lower, heated air in the upper 

 throwing out additional warmth — 

 worked best, but "it was insane: you 

 were either feeding the stoves or 

 wondering how much smoke damage 

 you'd find the next time you went out" 



Over the next few years, they 

 doubled the size of the houses and 

 converted to oil heat 



Vegetables. 



Today there are seven poly quonsets — 

 15,000 square feet of growing space. 

 Four are used for flower and bedding 

 plant production; three — (16x96, 

 27x145, and 25x149)— are used for 

 vegetables, primarily tomatoes. The 

 April & May 1993 



largest is the newest — its first crop will 

 be this year. 



The topsoil inside two of the houses 

 was removed and a foot of sand spread 

 on the ground. The soil was then 

 brought back and manure, compost, 

 and a commercial compost mix from 

 Mass Natural rototilled into it 



The tomatoes are planted in this 

 mix in slightly raised ground beds. An 

 underground hot water system (100 F 

 water circulating through a loop of 

 plastic hose) keeps roots warm. Drip 

 tube watering is used. 



There's no sterilization, but the 

 sand seems to help keep the soil 

 disease-free. The one house without 

 sand "has problems," so this year, it 

 will be used to grow zucchini and 

 cucumbers. 



John's planting 'Buffalo,' a tomato 

 he sees as "consistent" — with steady 

 flowering and good-sized fruit The 

 first seeds are sown in early February 

 and grow under lights in the Cloughs' 

 cellar. After two weeks, they're 

 transplanted into five-inch pots and put 

 into a small greenhouse until late 

 March, when one tomato house is 

 planted. A second house is planted in 

 early April. All the houses have roll-up 

 sides and on warm days, the plants are 

 open to the air and sun. The first 

 picking is June first 



Bedding Plants. 



The benches are wire on wood frames 

 (in one house, discarded rolling bench 

 tops) set on cement blocks. ("A bench 

 doesn't have to be elaborate to hold 

 plants.") 



Metrombc 360 and four-pacs are 

 used for all bedding plants. Three or 

 four people work potting 30 hours a 

 week at a "mobile potting area" — 



