Kate Spring

Waylon (age 2) and Katie harvesting calendula flowers This summer our son will turn 3, and over the past three years we’ve found many ways to engage him here at Good Heart Farmstead through our daily farm tasks. By doing so, we spend quality time with our son, avoid the expense of child care, and give him the opportunity...

Katie Spring and Edge Fuentes with their son Waylon, at Good Heart Farmstead I love kale. I love it for its ability to thrive in many zones (including our Zone 4 location), and for the way it keeps on giving all season long. At Good Heart Farmstead, we grow kale from May through December, and I’m a firm believer that...

Katie Spring & Edge Fuentes hoeing at Good Heart Farmstead When the main Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) season comes to an end in October, we don’t close up the farm for the season here at Good Heart Farmstead. Instead, we keep on going all the way through December with an early Winter CSA. With the season-extending powers of hoop houses...

Katie Spring and her son Waylon For beginning farmers, finding the support to start your own farm or to improve your existing farm can seem like a challenge. This challenge doesn’t necessarily let up for the first few years—for perspective, a beginning farmer is defined as someone who has farmed for 10 years or less on their current operation. In...

Twenty-five years ago, the land that would become Sandiwood Farm in Wolcott, VT wasn’t much more than a barren field. But that didn’t stop Sara and Bob Schlosser from putting down roots and starting a life there. The two married in that field, and in the years that followed, they built a house, a family, and a farm, all the...

Katie Spring owns and operates Good Heart Farmstead with her husband Edge Fuentes in Worcester, VT. Prime agricultural soils are often found in flood-plain, where the land is nutrient-rich and fertile. Hillsides, in contrast, can bring a range of challenges for the farmer: nutrient-poor soil, erosion, and nutrient run-off to name a few. But as we experience more extreme weather...

“All knowledge is rooted in wonder, and what better place to cultivate wonder than in our own gardens?” ~Sharon Lovejoy I gave birth at the end of July, bringing our baby boy into the world the same summer that we started the farm.  Some folks thought it bad timing—a baby in the middle of our first season—but we knew otherwise and...

When my husband Edge and I started our farm, a friend remarked, “now all you need is a tractor and you’ll be real farmers.”  What he didn’t realize is that we’ve never planned on buying a tractor to grow vegetables. We’ve always been more comfortable on the human-power scale, and though we did add a two wheel walk-behind tractor to...

Late winter brings farmers out of the seed catalogs and into seed houses.  As greenhouses are heated, potting soil spread into trays, and seeds placed in each cell, excitement mounts for the coming season and all its possibilities.  For many farmers, especially new farmers, this is also a time of year when budgeting is crucial—money is going out, but not...

Organic farmers know that healthy soil means healthy plants. At Good Heart Farmstead, everything we do is based in the soil. We even named our farm in honor of it—when soil is “in good heart”, it is alive and healthy. But organic farmers will also know that the name itself doesn’t transform depleted, acidic soil into living, healthy soil overnight...