Stone Barns Center For Food & Agriculture - Four Season Farm

Four Season Farm

The farm at Stone Barns Center is a four-season operation with approximately 6 acres (24,000 m2) used for vegetable production. It serves as an educational resource by illustrating land use that is environmentally, economically and culturally sustainable. The farmers use an intensively managed six-year rotation schedule in the field and greenhouse beds, preserving the soil and locking in important nutrients.

The farm grows 200 varieties of produce year-round, both in the outdoor fields and gardens and in the 22,000-square-foot (2,000 m2) minimally heated greenhouse that capitalizes on each season’s available sunlight. Among the crops suitable for the local soil and climate are rare varieties such as celtuce, suiho, hakurei turnips, New England Eight-Row Flint seed corn and finale fennel. The highly diversified crops allows farmers to hedge their bets against poor weather.

The farmers use no pesticides, herbicides or chemical additives. The primary amendment to the soil is a highly nutritious compost, often referred to as "black gold," made from leaves, grass clippings, livestock manure and hay, and the restaurant’s kitchen scraps. A six-month composting cycle that uses natural biological heat processes, reduces the weed and pathogen contamination to produce a fertilizer key to the health of the farm.