Suzanne Kelly, Owner & Grower

I came to farming in 2013, yearning for a deeper connection with the land. I also felt called to apply at least some of the theory I engaged with in the classroom, teaching Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies for over a decade, out in the field. Up until then I’d been a self-taught, backyard vegetable grower without any formal farm training. But I was buoyed by the number of market gardens growing intensively on small parcels, especially in urban areas, and made the leap — practically overnight. For the first few years I grew only garlic. A lot of it. Before long, I branched out into other specialty herbs: turmeric, ginger, and saffron. Later, I developed a line of value added products born from these herbs and fulfilled the long-held wish of establishing a vegetable CSA.

When I'm not farming, you can find me stewarding the Town of Rhinebeck Cemetery where I work as the part-time administrator. After nearly fifteen years of green burial advocacy and collective effort, Rhinebeck’s Natural Burial Ground opened in 2014.