Hard workers develop low-spray destination farm

Emily Meacham and Doug Morin have established a destination farm, the core mission of which is to create a low-spray, U-pick apple orchard along with other agricultural specialty products in Whitefield, NH.

The pair, in their mid-thirties in 2019, bought the property from Tanya and David Tellman who, in turn, had bought it in the early 2000s from a century-long owner: the multi-generational Harris dairy farmers. Many of their descendants continue to live nearby.

The Tellmans placed a conservation easement on the 187 acres of hilly fields and woods in northern New Hampshire, held by the New England Forestry Foundation. Morin and Meacham named their place Tellman Hill Farm in honor of this couple’s regional contributions to conservation as well as their dedication to the land’s stewardship.

“As a small farm, we love that customers can communicate directly with us,” the duo posted on the farm’s webpage. “We are always happy to talk about our products and practices. We make efforts to stay informed of the most current, evidence-based practices to help us make the best decisions for our land, plants and poultry.”

Recently, they won the $7,500 first prize in the inaugural Northern Spark “pitch competition” sponsored by the Coös Economic Development Corporation, according to its Executive Director Wendy Fahlbeck. The couple also won the $1,000 “audience choice” award, allowing them to take home a total of $8,500.

Twenty-eight Coös County competitors, who applied to enter the contest with five-minute slide presentations, were winnowed down to a dozen, able to fit on the Rialto Theatre stage in Lancaster.

“Doug’s presentation was amazing. He was very informative,” Fahlbeck said. “We plan to make this an annual event. A first-time audience of over 130 attendees came, including representatives of both our U.S. Senators.”

Both Morin and Meacham worked for the state of Vermont when they bought their destination farm. Morin spent 15 years working as a wildlife biologist; Meacham started as a botanist and then became a licensed professional forester. Now Morin works full-time on their farm while Meacham continues her work as a forester, maintaining their health insurance and other benefits, plus also farming.

“It takes time to plant and grow an orchard,” Morin explained. “Fortunately, we were able to lease the apple trees of Roger and Lavina Maykut on Bray Hill, who retired here in Whitefield. This provides us with a very good crop to sell. Custom-grafting takes a couple of years, plus planting and pruning. We have 50 varieties of apples, so harvesting can stretch out over the fall.

“We’ve planted 95% of our apple orchards – 1,200 trees – on about 5.5 acres, along with 40 pear trees,” he continued. “We also grow two batches of fresh-processed chickens plus some turkeys, selling out all our available summer poultry slots. We also sell pumpkins, gourds and squashes and the like.”

Growing apples is hard work. Apple trees and their fruit are tasty treats for a wide variety of bacteria, fungi, insects, birds and mammals. Historically, damaging pesticides were among the worst culprits that were applied to these threats.

“Thankfully, management systems have evolved a long way,” the couple explained. “We follow a set of practices known as integrated pest management, where we aim to handle the threats to our apple trees and fruit while maintaining the greatest human, soil, insect, fungi and overall ecosystem health possible.

“As part of these practices we do a lot of work by hand, which takes days and days of effort, instead of employing some chemical treatments.

“We also monitor insects in the orchard and data from our own weather station on our property to inform computer models which predict when specific pests and diseases are at their most threatening.” These are skills that Meacham puts into practice in the woods as a forest health specialist in her job in Vermont, as well as at home in her own orchards and in those they lease.

“We make intentional decisions to allow a level of damage to our fruit, to reduce the amount of spray treatments we use,” the two note on their website. “We’re okay with a few spots on our apples.

“When interventions are necessary, we target them to the exact pest and the exact time required. We don’t spray indiscriminately all season long, and we don’t use products that kill everything they touch. We choose the products we use very carefully, and will, in all cases, choose those that are safer for bees, non-pest insects, other wildlife, our customers and ourselves.”

The Tellman Hill Farm will open a new 1,500-square-foot farm stand (30-by-50 feet) on Labor Day weekend. It will stay open until mid-October.

“A third of the space will be used as retail space and the remainder for cider pressing, cider donuts and cold storage,” Morin said.

They recently planted 450 highbush blueberry bushes. They will not become part of their U-pick crop base, however, until after two or three years of being deliberately stripped of their berries, allowing the bulk of their energy to go into their root systems. Meacham and Morin are leasing out some of their remaining pastures to hay farmers, and in the future, they may decide to raise sheep or other animals on those sites.

by Edith Tucker