Mushrooms, Veggies, Meat and More! From Farmers Market to on Farm Cider House at 1000 Stone Farm: EP33 | Show Notes
Kyle Doda (00:00:09):
My name is Kyle Doda.
Betsy Simpson (00:00:11):
I am Betsy Simpson.
Kyle Doda (00:00:13):
And we own 1000 Stone Farm here in Brookfield, Vermont. We are a diversified vegetable farm that also includes mushroom cultivation and eggs, as well as protein on farm. We also have orchards and small fruit production as well.
(00:00:33):
And then we’ve also included an on-farm restaurant and cidery into our business structure. We run a year-round CSA, as well as go to the Burlington Farmer’s Market, and work with about 20 different wholesale accounts throughout the state of Vermont.
Andy Chamberlain (00:00:54):
I’m your host, Andy Chamberlain, and I take you behind the scenes to learn how farmers are building their business in sustainable agriculture. These farmer-to-farmer interviews cover a wide range of topics from cropping systems, marketing channels, lifestyle decisions, and lessons learned along the way.
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One ask I have for you is if you can leave a comment or write a review. There’s a feature enabled right now called Fan Mail, so you can send a message via text to the podcast right from the link in the description.
(00:01:22):
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(00:01:33):
Today’s episode comes to you from Brookfield, Vermont, where we visit with Kyle Doda and Betsy Simpson of 1000 Stone Farm. They’ve got many balls in the air, with a wide range of crops from veggies to perennial fruit, eggs and meat, hard cider, and even an on-farm restaurant.
(00:01:49):
They sell retail out of the farm store, wholesale, CSA, and go to the Burlington Farmer’s Market. This seems like a lot to me for a couple growing on about five acres, so I joined them in a conversation to figure out what motivates them and how they manage such a diverse business.
(00:02:05):
This conversation was recorded in the end of July and starts with the icebreaker, so how has your season been going?
Kyle Doda (00:02:19):
Yeah, no, I feel like it’s been reasonable. It was definitely a wet cold spring. Pollination sucked.
Andy Chamberlain (00:02:26):
Yeah.
Kyle Doda (00:02:27):
I think most people feel that way.
Betsy Simpson (00:02:29):
Fruit’s terrible.
Andy Chamberlain (00:02:30):
Oh, really?
Kyle Doda (00:02:31):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (00:02:32):
Well, but it’s mostly stone fruit trees and the apple trees.
Kyle Doda (00:02:36):
Apples are definitely low.
Andy Chamberlain (00:02:37):
Stuff that needed that early May pollination?
Kyle Doda (00:02:39):
Yeah, and I feel like the bees were like, “Yeah, I’m good. This weather sucks.”
Betsy Simpson (00:02:43):
Well, it’s like we got full blooms on all the plums and peaches and stuff, and then it was just like 40 and raining.
Kyle Doda (00:02:51):
Pretty much no peaches this year. We definitely have currants, which is cool. That’s been fun to play with so far. And then blueberries, but there’s just-
Betsy Simpson (00:03:02):
Yeah, the plums and peaches and cherries were like nothing.
Kyle Doda (00:03:06):
Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (00:03:06):
Bummer.
Kyle Doda (00:03:08):
Yeah, they were pretty cool. We had 50, not 50, maybe 35 average pounds of peaches last year for 15 trees. It was great. Fresh peaches. They were delicious.
Betsy Simpson (00:03:22):
Yeah, the first five trees were like 200 plus pounds, and then it was [inaudible 00:03:28] rest of it.
Kyle Doda (00:03:27):
A little less, but cool.
Betsy Simpson (00:03:31):
It was exciting to have peaches last year.
Andy Chamberlain (00:03:32):
Yeah.
Kyle Doda (00:03:33):
1000 Stone Farm has been in business for 10 years. This will be the 11th year, technically it’s been in business. I think the 10th growing season though. And Betsy and I have been working together now since 2017. We are cultivating five acres of vegetables, maybe plus a little bit with asparagus. We have about 300 apple trees in the ground of all different ages.
(00:04:05):
We have 40 some odd plums, different ages, peaches, pears, cherries, currants, elderberries, figs, blueberries, and strawberries at all different ranges in quantity. And then we’re cultivating about three-quarters of an acre in high tunnel space, maybe a little less with propagation area, and that’s year-round with greens and whatnot, overwintering onions, et cetera, herbs. The figs are in a greenhouse too as a perennial crop or experiment. They’re still alive. It’s been a couple of years, so we get some figs.
Betsy Simpson (00:04:49):
There’s some figs. I eat most of them.
Kyle Doda (00:04:50):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (00:04:51):
We sold a few last year.
Kyle Doda (00:04:53):
We’re currently in the restaurant in Cider House tasting room, and we started this construction, poured the slab in July of 2023, we poured this slab that we’re standing on. And we’ve finished most of the construction by November of last year, in ’24. We opened the restaurant in November 15th, 2024, Fridays and Saturdays only 1:00 to 8:00. And we ran that through the new year, and then we took the month of January off and took a little vacation, and then we came back and ran it for February, March, and then we closed again for April May to get the farm up and running in some of June.
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And then we reopened this last June a couple month or so ago, same deal, Fridays and Saturdays 1:00 to 8:00, and we’ll be running that all the way through till Christmas again, new year, maybe with a two-week break after market ends, just to kind of have a moment. But it’s been really great. It’s been a lot of fun to be able to feed people in the community in a different way than we normally have, to introduce them to new food and how we like to cook, and just new cider and all sorts of things. So the conversations, the people, all of it’s been really, really great.
(00:06:21):
I handle the bartending and the cider making, and Betsy handles the kitchen and the recipes. And also, she runs dinner service and helps out with our two other employees that are in the kitchen as well. One of them is running the pizza oven while the other one is running kind of a appetizer salad prep station. And then we also have another farmer helping us on Fridays at times, bartend as well, so that I can do market prep and bounce around and float a little bit. And then we also have another friend, longtime friend, whose husband actually used to work for us here on the farm when we first started. And she is helping us do dish and run food. And so it definitely-
Betsy Simpson (00:07:10):
And both the people in the kitchen are also farmers.
Kyle Doda (00:07:12):
Yeah, which is pretty great. That’s the general gist, I think at this point. Obviously, we also are cultivating mushrooms as well, and our other employee is working with us full time doing that year round. He’s been doing it for four years with us now. We’ve been cultivating mushrooms for eight, maybe even nine-
Betsy Simpson (00:07:37):
Nine years we’ve-
Andy Chamberlain (00:07:37):
That’s kind of what started you. Right?
Kyle Doda (00:07:38):
No.
Andy Chamberlain (00:07:39):
Oh.
Kyle Doda (00:07:40):
Not really, actually.
Betsy Simpson (00:07:41):
That’s what everyone thinks.
Kyle Doda (00:07:43):
Garlic and cucumbers is what we started with. And I had my first winter CSA, fall, winter CSA in ’24, or no, sorry, 2014 or 2015. One of those years. I don’t really know, honestly. And then my dear friend, Beck, whose wife is working with us now in the restaurant, he started working here with me in the greenhouse and whatever.
(00:08:09):
And then we had been talking about it and he was interested in cultivating mushrooms, and I was thinking about it too, so we started that together here. He eventually went off and did his own mushroom thing and now he is into another career, but it’s all good. One of our dear friends, so it’s great.
Betsy Simpson (00:08:25):
We also have-
Kyle Doda (00:08:30):
Animals.
Betsy Simpson (00:08:31):
… a bunch of animals.
Kyle Doda (00:08:33):
So now we’re raising-
Betsy Simpson (00:08:33):
We’re laying hens.
Kyle Doda (00:08:35):
We’ve been doing laying hens for a while. We’re probably 500 laying hens.
Andy Chamberlain (00:08:37):
Whoa.
Kyle Doda (00:08:37):
Six?
Betsy Simpson (00:08:38):
5 to 600 laying hens.
Kyle Doda (00:08:43):
Give or take. I’m not sure who’s doing roll call, but-
Andy Chamberlain (00:08:44):
5 to 600.
Betsy Simpson (00:08:44):
It’s around.
Kyle Doda (00:08:54):
We don’t call out a bunch of our hens, so we just add in, and so over the years… Anyways, they’re chickens. That’s how it goes. And then we started doing pork and chicken for meat production on the farm last year. Betsy has been raising beef, lamb, and goat at her parents, but we had to move those animals, and so we ended up slaughtering all of our beef in the fall and the goats.
(00:09:24):
And we’ve been using that now through the season, but the lambs we actually brought over in February, and now we’re having them out on pasture. Actually, I’m going to be building more fencing this week and next week to get them to a new paddock. But Betsy’s parents have been super helpful at trying to move that forward with us, and that’s great. It’s great. It’s a pain to get it going, but it’s great.
Andy Chamberlain (00:09:50):
It’s a pain to get animals going or just infrastructure?
Betsy Simpson (00:09:52):
Just perimeter fencing. Because we don’t have fencing here for all of it yet, so it’s just investing into good fencing for them.
Kyle Doda (00:10:02):
Infrastructure for any project on a farm is annoying and expensive, and it’s just part of the deal, and you just suck it up and figure it out, and that’s how it goes.
Andy Chamberlain (00:10:10):
So no beef and no goats at the moment?
Kyle Doda (00:10:12):
Not at the moment.
Betsy Simpson (00:10:12):
Not at the moment.
Andy Chamberlain (00:10:13):
But you want to get back into that?
Betsy Simpson (00:10:15):
Mm-hmm.
Kyle Doda (00:10:16):
We probably will get a couple goats.
Betsy Simpson (00:10:18):
Yeah, we’ll probably throw in a couple of goats pretty soon.
Kyle Doda (00:10:20):
In the spring, maybe, depending.
Andy Chamberlain (00:10:20):
Pretty soon.
Betsy Simpson (00:10:23):
Pretty soon.
Kyle Doda (00:10:25):
We’ll see. I mean, four to six, we’re not going anywhere-
Betsy Simpson (00:10:30):
We’re not going crazy.
Kyle Doda (00:10:30):
Yeah, just a couple, even if it’s just for us and maybe a couple specials or whatever. I don’t know.
Andy Chamberlain (00:10:35):
So a year ago, how many sheep, goats and cows did you have?
Kyle Doda (00:10:38):
Oh, a lot. Like 50 of each.
Betsy Simpson (00:10:42):
There was a 30 plus head of beef animals. I had-
Kyle Doda (00:10:44):
Yeah, something like that.
Betsy Simpson (00:10:47):
I have been dwindling down on the goats because I was trying to transition because I knew we were going to have to move them, but there was upwards of 50 and we were down to 15 to 20, and then I just butchered everyone.
(00:11:08):
But with the sheep, we still have almost 50 of them here. I just butchered, well last week, I just butchered eight of them, so I have new lamb waiting in the butcher for me to pick it up.
Kyle Doda (00:11:21):
Yeah, it’s been good. The sheep are awesome, I really enjoy them as a species. I feel like they have a lot of character, but they also do a really good job, better job than I thought they would. They’re deleafing lot of shrubs that I didn’t think they would. So hopefully-
Andy Chamberlain (00:11:38):
From a land management perspective?
Kyle Doda (00:11:40):
Yeah, and they’re easy, relatively speaking. Sure they get in trouble probably here and there, but for the most part, as someone that definitely didn’t grow up raising animals like Betsy did, I find much easier to manage. You can handle them physically, and also they’re not that big. They’re not huge. You could probably get a ram that was a little feisty, but for the most part-
Betsy Simpson (00:12:09):
Most of them are really friendly, so.
Kyle Doda (00:12:18):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (00:12:18):
We also have 400 meat birds that we’re doing, I don’t know if we actually said that, but.
Kyle Doda (00:12:19):
Yeah. So we’re doing two batches of 225, but with meat birds you have loss, as with any chicken species.
Andy Chamberlain (00:12:24):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (00:12:26):
Yeah, so we’re towards the end of one round of 200, and then we have the next chicks that we just got last week.
Kyle Doda (00:12:35):
Everything’s looking good. And we get those processed over at Maple Wind so that we can-
Betsy Simpson (00:12:38):
They’re all USA processed so we can sell it, too.
Andy Chamberlain (00:12:41):
Right. Right.
Kyle Doda (00:12:42):
We can use it here, we can sell in the farm shore, we can sell at the farmer’s market. It’s clean. So it’s three of CSA.
Andy Chamberlain (00:12:49):
Crate them up, take them an hour, and bring them back in the freezer?
Kyle Doda (00:12:52):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (00:12:52):
Yep.
Andy Chamberlain (00:12:53):
Yep.
Kyle Doda (00:12:55):
The cost is definitely there, but you do pay for what you get. I think they do a really nice job.
Andy Chamberlain (00:13:01):
And then will you be selling that as value-added stuff here, and retail, and CSA, and farmer’s market? You’re still doing all that?
Kyle Doda (00:13:11):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (00:13:11):
Oh yeah.
Kyle Doda (00:13:13):
But it wouldn’t go wholesale. We wouldn’t be able to make those numbers work.
Andy Chamberlain (00:13:16):
Right. B.
Kyle Doda (00:13:17):
Ut yeah, so chicken wings will be on the menu again, blah, blah.
Betsy Simpson (00:13:25):
‘Cause we did birds last year, so we used most of our chicken that we did last year.
Kyle Doda (00:13:25):
We did 100 last year, or 90 or something.
Betsy Simpson (00:13:26):
Over the winter. Yeah.
Kyle Doda (00:13:28):
We have a little bit of chicken breasts and stuff left, but-
Betsy Simpson (00:13:31):
Ready for new meat.
Kyle Doda (00:13:32):
Yeah. But this will be good because one of the issues that we run into is that Maple Wind, they don’t have enough meat to supply us through the winter, and they need to retail all of it.
(00:13:43):
And at any of their wholesale accounts, I think for the most part, which I get, they’re running a business and that’s how it goes, you need those retail sales. So, we basically didn’t have chicken all winter.
Betsy Simpson (00:13:55):
For the farm store.
Kyle Doda (00:13:57):
Which is not ideal. So now we have ours.
Andy Chamberlain (00:14:01):
So you were selling Maple Wind chicken out of your farm store?
Betsy Simpson (00:14:04):
Mm-hmm. And we still are right now, now that they’re back with summer schedule. But over the winter, we basically didn’t have chicken at all.
Andy Chamberlain (00:14:14):
Yep. How many farm employees do you have?
Kyle Doda (00:14:17):
It’s the same. So it’s me, Betsy, Howard, and Bayden and Stefan. And then we have Mark who does deliveries and some pruning with me.
Betsy Simpson (00:14:26):
It’s five and a half.
Kyle Doda (00:14:29):
Yeah, five and a half.
Andy Chamberlain (00:14:29):
Full-time?
Kyle Doda (00:14:31):
Four of us are full-time, then Stefan is 32, but he basically just does mushrooms and packs stuff for market for us on Thursday.
Betsy Simpson (00:14:42):
And Howard and Bayden are seasonal.
Kyle Doda (00:14:45):
Yeah, seasonal, full-time.
Betsy Simpson (00:14:46):
So they’re not here year-round.
Kyle Doda (00:14:47):
Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (00:14:48):
That just seems like a lot of stuff to do with the really… That seems like a lean crew for-
Kyle Doda (00:14:53):
We hear that. I mean, but obliviously-
Betsy Simpson (00:14:53):
I don’t know how people make numbers work though.
Kyle Doda (00:14:57):
Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (00:14:57):
Fair enough.
Kyle Doda (00:14:58):
Honestly, I don’t know how we would pay ourselves and come up with another 25k to hire… I would like to figure something out ’cause I think it would ease up on-
Betsy Simpson (00:15:11):
All the little annoying things.
Kyle Doda (00:15:12):
It’s two days a week.
Betsy Simpson (00:15:12):
Cucumbers.
Kyle Doda (00:15:15):
It’s Mondays and Thursdays. That’s what we do. And we do that most of the summer, give or take. But then you get these hot days, and it’s rough. I get it. It’s a long day, but-
Andy Chamberlain (00:15:29):
So how big is your CSA?
Betsy Simpson (00:15:31):
Right now, I’m just under 001 for summer CSA.
Andy Chamberlain (00:15:35):
And you do summer and winter or year-round?
Betsy Simpson (00:15:37):
We’re year-round.
Kyle Doda (00:15:38):
42 weeks.
Betsy Simpson (00:15:41):
Winter’s every other week. And then we try to have a week off between spring and summer and summer and fall, depending how good we are at scheduling.
Andy Chamberlain (00:15:52):
So you keep close to 100 year-round then?
Kyle Doda (00:15:55):
It’d be nice to.
Andy Chamberlain (00:15:56):
Yeah.
Kyle Doda (00:15:57):
I think that’s how we would probably like to be able to do it, is if we could, we increase CSA. Increasing wholesale could be fine, but we’re not big enough to make enough revenue that would have enough profit margin to make it work.
(00:16:19):
And we don’t have the landmass, nor do we want to grow more. I actually would like to grow less, better, more cover cropping, more management in better ways that’s les-s
Andy Chamberlain (00:16:34):
Less in acreage or less in range of crops?
Kyle Doda (00:16:39):
No, we’ve been reducing the range.
Andy Chamberlain (00:16:41):
It seems like you like your variety?
Kyle Doda (00:16:42):
Yeah, we like to eat it.
Betsy Simpson (00:16:43):
We do, and it’s nice to have a wide range for CSA too, and for the restaurant and the store.
Kyle Doda (00:16:50):
Yeah. That part doesn’t bother me, honestly. Yeah, we get rid of some of the silly stuff that we try every once in a while, and we add in some silly stuff here and there, like half a bed or bed or something like that. But I would say a good example would be that I’m pretty sure that I want to reduce… We’ve been wholesaling shallots on and off for years, or not on and off, but we have been wholesaling shallots for years to co-ops.
(00:17:19):
And I feel like yeah, we’ve had some okay years. I wouldn’t say we’ve ever had a great year. Maybe one I can remember where they were pretty doing awesome. I think we need a better spray program for fungal diseases and bacterial issues. And that’s obviously possible. It’s so much field space, it’s like winter squash, it basically just rots. But at least now we have pigs. But it’s not a high-value crop, and shallots are technically. We get $5 a pound.
Andy Chamberlain (00:18:03):
But compared to some of your other things, it’s-
Kyle Doda (00:18:05):
Yeah, but when you look at the bed feet and then you also look at how much we should make in sales and what we actually make, it’s like $15,000 short or more. And you’re like, “Okay, well that was silly. We should plant something else.” Not that I don’t want to grow shallots, but I could grow two beds or three beds.
Andy Chamberlain (00:18:29):
Because your quality isn’t good or because of-
Kyle Doda (00:18:31):
Rot.
Andy Chamberlain (00:18:32):
Okay. Yeah. So yeah.
Betsy Simpson (00:18:33):
There’s definitely rot problems.
Kyle Doda (00:18:34):
Yeah. Long-term storage is our issue, which I’m not saying we can’t solve. Obviously, that’s something, but I’m also just the revenue that we could be generating off that square footage or acreage doesn’t need to come in the middle of the winter. It could come whatever as long as I just keep the money until the winter, which we’ve gotten better at saving money because we know right now you feel like you’re in peak season, you should have good cash flow coming in. We’ll keep that, because in the spring when you have a huge payroll and you have no money coming in, or even at the end of season-
Betsy Simpson (00:19:11):
Or after farmer’s market.
Kyle Doda (00:19:11):
When farmer’s market ends and your sales drops, but you still have-
Betsy Simpson (00:19:15):
But you still have people working full-time.
Kyle Doda (00:19:18):
You could go through your savings in one pay period.
Andy Chamberlain (00:19:21):
It’s real easy to blow money?
Kyle Doda (00:19:23):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (00:19:25):
Mm-hmm.
Kyle Doda (00:19:25):
Yeah. So, I think that it’s just kind of thinking about the business in that way of, “How do I make hay when the sun shines?” Basically concept. Like, “Let’s make this work. And also, just Vermonters in general, restaurants in general, our restaurant even, our CSA members, our farmer’s market customers, they want corn, they want greens, they want tomatoes, they want peppers, they want eggplant. They want summer while they have it. And so, I think that kind of focusing on that is kind of where I’m leaning towards. Not that we’re not, but we could strategize-
Betsy Simpson (00:20:04):
We could extend the summer a little bit more.
Kyle Doda (00:20:07):
We could extend the summer a little bit and also maybe extend the amount of, let’s say, eggplant is a good example. We’ve gotten better at growing eggplant over the years, which we’ve been enjoying. But we could definitely grow more, and that could bleed into being able to give some of the restaurants we sell to some eggplant so they could do some fun dishes too, or having more at market or more for CSA. So, there’s just some conversations like that that think in efficiencies that are going on. We don’t use enough here in the restaurant of really anything to make a huge dent of decision-making. But there is some choices. We do use a lot of mushrooms in here, but it doesn’t make a huge thing ’cause we grow a lot of mushrooms, so it kind of works out. But we end up selling a lot ’cause people think that, they’re like, “Oh, you’re a mushroom farm.” You’re like, “Okay, yeah, we grow mushrooms.”
Betsy Simpson (00:21:06):
We also grow [inaudible 00:21:07].
Andy Chamberlain (00:21:07):
Yeah. They grow a lot.
Kyle Doda (00:21:08):
So no, it’s been good. Everything basically on the menu, besides the flour and the cheese and the miscellaneous, all well and stuff like that, is from us. And so, a lot of people come in here and they don’t necessarily realize that sometimes, which is fine-
Betsy Simpson (00:21:22):
But all the cheeses are from Vermont, besides the parm.
Kyle Doda (00:21:24):
All the flour’s from Vermont.
Betsy Simpson (00:21:26):
Yeah, flour’s all from Vermont.
Kyle Doda (00:21:29):
Well, we just started using a double zero organic flour out of Quebec across the border ’cause nobody seems to have organic double zero, so.
Andy Chamberlain (00:21:36):
Double zero size?
Kyle Doda (00:21:39):
Well, yeah. So double zero is the fineness. So it has a higher gluten content. Yeah. Do you want to walk?
Andy Chamberlain (00:21:45):
Sure.
Kyle Doda (00:21:46):
So we can just take a look.
Andy Chamberlain (00:21:47):
Yep. Yep.
Kyle Doda (00:21:47):
Yeah. So bar and kitchen, pizza oven.
Andy Chamberlain (00:21:52):
You pleased with how this building came out?
Kyle Doda (00:21:56):
Yes and no. In the sense of yes, it looks nice. Yeah, a couple 0% interest credit cards and Webstaurant. I rolled the pizza oven into the loan.
Andy Chamberlain (00:22:07):
Webstaurant got everything you need.
Kyle Doda (00:22:10):
Pretty much. But yeah, we rolled the oven into the loan for the building, ’cause I was like, “I don’t want to deal with that short term,” which was a good idea. This was a kit, actually. It worked out pretty well. It was the cheapest, decent kit I could find. It was still $ 14,000.
Andy Chamberlain (00:22:31):
Okay. Yeah, I had no idea.
Kyle Doda (00:22:32):
Oh, they’re stupid expensive.
Andy Chamberlain (00:22:33):
Yeah, that’s a lot.
Kyle Doda (00:22:36):
It’s a lot. They go up, I don’t even know, 100 grand, 50 grand easily.
Betsy Simpson (00:22:44):
Yeah, you can spend as much money as you want on a pizza oven. That is not that expensive.
Kyle Doda (00:22:47):
This is a 48-foot interior. It’s concrete cast blocks. You can still feel how hot this is even just from Saturday, it’s cranking. We run it at 800 degrees.
Andy Chamberlain (00:22:56):
From Saturday?
Kyle Doda (00:22:56):
Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (00:22:57):
And it’s still hot and it’s Monday?
Kyle Doda (00:23:00):
Put your hand there.
Betsy Simpson (00:23:00):
Oh yeah.
Kyle Doda (00:23:00):
Oh, it’ll be hot until till Thursday.
Betsy Simpson (00:23:00):
It’ll be hot until we started again.
Andy Chamberlain (00:23:03):
Guess it’s well insulated.
Kyle Doda (00:23:04):
Oh, yeah. Wrapped in a ton of Fiberfrax.
Andy Chamberlain (00:23:07):
Jesus.
Kyle Doda (00:23:07):
She comes as a kit, so there’s like five key pieces of concrete, and then you set them together in this metal tray with more installation underneath that, and then the deck comes in. And it still comes with, I think it’s a five-year warranty, even though you put it together.
Andy Chamberlain (00:23:23):
Wow.
Kyle Doda (00:23:23):
Yeah, it’s pretty wicked.
Andy Chamberlain (00:23:25):
They trust their solid concrete.
Kyle Doda (00:23:27):
The other problem is it would’ve cost 10 grand more to have it built and then delivered.
Andy Chamberlain (00:23:34):
Wow.
Betsy Simpson (00:23:36):
For the same oven.
Kyle Doda (00:23:37):
For the same oven.
Andy Chamberlain (00:23:39):
10 grand for them to build it?
Betsy Simpson (00:23:40):
And ship it.
Kyle Doda (00:23:42):
And ship it. Whole.
Andy Chamberlain (00:23:43):
Whole.
Betsy Simpson (00:23:43):
And then we would’ve had to figure out even more how to get it off the truck.
Kyle Doda (00:23:47):
Because it’s-
Betsy Simpson (00:23:47):
Really heavy.
Andy Chamberlain (00:23:47):
Yeah, you would’ve needed another garage door.
Kyle Doda (00:23:47):
It’s too heavy. It fits through there, technically.
Betsy Simpson (00:23:47):
Does technically fit through where we came.
Kyle Doda (00:23:47):
Not with the bar anymore though, but that’s okay.
Andy Chamberlain (00:23:56):
So it’s built to stay?
Kyle Doda (00:23:58):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (00:23:58):
Yep.
Andy Chamberlain (00:24:01):
You probably pass a lot of pizza through there then?
Kyle Doda (00:24:03):
Yeah, I mean…
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:24:04]
Andy Chamberlain (00:24:03):
You can probably pass a lot of pizza through there then.
Kyle Doda (00:24:03):
Yeah. I mean, that’s the concept, right? You can move a lot of pizzas. This is Dish and whatnot.
Andy Chamberlain (00:24:10):
This is awesome. I’ve never seen a farm restaurant like this. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a farm restaurant.
Kyle Doda (00:24:18):
I think it’s pretty unique, yeah. I think that might be the case.
Betsy Simpson (00:24:20):
It’s all part of our barn.
Kyle Doda (00:24:20):
You should come eat sometime.
Betsy Simpson (00:24:29):
This is supposed to be the new wash pack.
Andy Chamberlain (00:24:31):
Yeah, well, it’s a lot different than when I was here last.
Betsy Simpson (00:24:35):
It is not a wash pack yet.
Kyle Doda (00:24:36):
I know, buddy. It’s not a wash pack.
Betsy Simpson (00:24:38):
It’s packed though.
Kyle Doda (00:24:41):
It’s packed, but not washed We got some work to do.
Andy Chamberlain (00:24:42):
Wow.
Kyle Doda (00:24:42):
I got to finish drywall and all sorts of stuff, and yeah. You think a big space like this… I mean, it’s not being efficiently used at all. I admit that wholeheartedly. The problem is that you just end up… the season starts and next thing you know, it’s like you don’t have a minute to catch up on the thing that you didn’t finish, and so on.
Betsy Simpson (00:25:01):
I have CSA coolers that just take up this whole space, but it’s like they leave during the week and then they come back at the end of the week.
Kyle Doda (00:25:08):
We’re going to get some more racks and shelving and stuff and get things, whatever. And then this is my play area. So yeah, we are fermenting cider through the fall and winter. And we run about a 24 to 30 barrel aging program. I’ve just been racking and transferring today, which I’ll finish a little bit of after we wrap up. Everything ages for anywhere between eight months to two years, I would say, give or take. Not necessarily all in oak, but in stainless. Some in oak some stainless. Yeah, it just depends. So we do all the pressing in here too as well.
Andy Chamberlain (00:26:02):
Yeah, this is your main processing room.
Kyle Doda (00:26:04):
It just kind of fills up and then empties out and then fills back up again. And then over here is another walk-in.
Andy Chamberlain (00:26:15):
Oh yeah. Nice.
Kyle Doda (00:26:18):
Mixed use for cider storage and kegging as well as for the restaurant.
Andy Chamberlain (00:26:25):
It’s big.
Kyle Doda (00:26:26):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (00:26:26):
Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (00:26:27):
Things have changed.
Kyle Doda (00:26:28):
It’s great. Can’t have a big enough one.
Andy Chamberlain (00:26:31):
Exactly. You’re right.
Kyle Doda (00:26:33):
I mean, you could. This is fine.
Betsy Simpson (00:26:34):
It gets completely full of apples, so in the Fall it’s just packed.
Kyle Doda (00:26:39):
Yeah, as we’re bringing stuff in and pressing. Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (00:26:42):
Yeah. So primarily kegging?
Kyle Doda (00:26:46):
Yeah, no bottling too. Just don’t have labels yet.
Andy Chamberlain (00:26:49):
Okay.
Kyle Doda (00:26:50):
So I have bottles, just no labels. And so I can’t legally sell any.
Andy Chamberlain (00:26:54):
Okay.
Kyle Doda (00:26:55):
That’s the catch.
Betsy Simpson (00:26:56):
But soon there will be labels. So we can actually sell the bottles.
Kyle Doda (00:26:58):
There will be labels soon. I really need to, yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (00:27:00):
So is it all kegs right out of your restaurant or are you selling-
Kyle Doda (00:27:05):
We are wholesaling to a handful of other restaurants that we already sell to.
Andy Chamberlain (00:27:09):
Sweet.
Kyle Doda (00:27:10):
Yeah, so like Three Penny or Pearl Street Pizza, Mable Soul Hotel, Vermont, Juniper Bar,
Betsy Simpson (00:27:16):
Black Bag,
Kyle Doda (00:27:18):
Black Back Pub, and Waterberry. Oh, Ben Hill Brewery up in Braintree. We just got more bottles in some for our red wine that we made last year. We took over a vineyard in Northfield. This woman that we met through a friend had a small vineyard about the size of ours. I don’t know if I said that earlier, but we have a vineyard with 360 vines.
Betsy Simpson (00:27:37):
We’re also making this wine with our grapes.
Kyle Doda (00:27:44):
And so we need to bottle the red and just let it age in bottle now. We did about 280 gallons of wine, 70 white and 180, 200 red. So yeah, we’re going to be leasing the vineyard from her for the next 10 years, ideally.
Andy Chamberlain (00:28:02):
Nice.
Kyle Doda (00:28:04):
It’s been a little bit of a challenge to stay on spray program over there and also have time to get over there. And then my sprayer is over there, which is kind of tricky.
Andy Chamberlain (00:28:14):
How far away was that?
Kyle Doda (00:28:15):
It’s like 15 minutes in Northfield. It’s not far. But it just adds up to your day and your week.
Andy Chamberlain (00:28:19):
Yeah. 15 minutes. Tractor drive?
Kyle Doda (00:28:21):
No, I have a small tractor that I leave over there.
Andy Chamberlain (00:28:24):
Okay.
Kyle Doda (00:28:24):
Anywho. It’s fine. It does add up and I find myself not always there doing the next thing. But so far they look great. I knew I have to go over there and leaf thin a lot at some point this week ideally.
Andy Chamberlain (00:28:41):
Leaf thin?
Kyle Doda (00:28:41):
Yeah, basically just taking leaves off.
Andy Chamberlain (00:28:44):
Yeah. Trimming, stripping, whatever. So how involved was the licensing and all of that to get this building up and running?
Kyle Doda (00:28:57):
It was like a thing. It’s definitely a lot or enough I would say. I mean, it’s relative though. I feel like once you’ve jumped through enough hoops, you kind get used to jumping through hoops.
Andy Chamberlain (00:29:14):
Fair enough. You’ve already been through hoops with building projects.
Kyle Doda (00:29:18):
Yeah, and the USDA loans and just like… I don’t know, it seems.
Andy Chamberlain (00:29:22):
Just a few more forms.
Kyle Doda (00:29:23):
Yeah, it seems intense, but then you just ask the questions, talk to my people, don’t ask too many questions and move on.
Andy Chamberlain (00:29:34):
Fair enough.
Kyle Doda (00:29:34):
Yeah, I just feel like it sounds simple, but I don’t know what else to say.
Andy Chamberlain (00:29:38):
Don’t worry about it.
Kyle Doda (00:29:40):
Try not to.
Andy Chamberlain (00:29:40):
Just ask who you think you need to ask.
Kyle Doda (00:29:42):
Yeah, I mean honestly, all the people that we worked with are super helpful. I don’t really feel like anybody from the state was really… Yeah, I felt like it was all pretty straightforward. I mean, there were definitely some hurdles with the fire marshal and things of that nature, but they were realistic and it was reasonable enough, I suppose.
Betsy Simpson (00:30:06):
I don’t know if you want to add this or not, but we are exempt from Act 250, because over 50% of the product is all ours. So we’re still just a farm.
Kyle Doda (00:30:15):
So Act 250’s ruling says by weight or volume, you are exempt from Act 250. So in 2022, before we even started construction, I got an exemption for here.
Andy Chamberlain (00:30:33):
So is this restaurant cidery all under the farm business or separate business?
Kyle Doda (00:30:39):
It’s all the same.
Betsy Simpson (00:30:39):
It’s all the farm.
Andy Chamberlain (00:30:39):
Awesome.
Kyle Doda (00:30:40):
For that reason and for the alcohol reason. It would’ve been kind of cool to have it separate honestly, because I would’ve been then buying stuff from myself and reselling to myself. But technically I don’t think I’m allowed to do that with without alcohol. And that’s where we kind of ran into some hurdles.
Andy Chamberlain (00:30:57):
Interesting.
Kyle Doda (00:31:00):
It’s just weird because I’m the sole owner of everything, so it’s fine. It just means all the liability is on me in a technical sense. But also there could have been some-
Andy Chamberlain (00:31:15):
But in a way it simplifies a lot of things.
Kyle Doda (00:31:18):
It does, totally. The books are easy.
Andy Chamberlain (00:31:22):
It’s one thing to worry about.
Kyle Doda (00:31:22):
Yeah. I mean, it is fine. We’re small. We’re not big at all. So I think that… Yeah, definitely hurdles. I mean, the alcohol side is actually really easy, I felt like. They come out, they talk to you, “What do you want to do? What do you think you want to do? Don’t do that. Do this. You should look at this bar and see how they do that.” Just helpful.
Betsy Simpson (00:31:49):
Make sure you know how to serve people. Have your little test.
Kyle Doda (00:31:54):
Don’t do stupid stuff.
Betsy Simpson (00:31:56):
Yeah, don’t be dumb about it.
Kyle Doda (00:31:57):
Don’t be dumb about it.
Andy Chamberlain (00:31:58):
Common sense goes a long ways.
Kyle Doda (00:32:03):
And so I think that’s a big one. Otherwise, yeah. I mean, we’re running… We have six different ciders on tap. We have our white wine on tap and then we run one beer from our friends at Ben Hill.
Andy Chamberlain (00:32:14):
Nice.
Betsy Simpson (00:32:16):
We also just started doing special cocktails that also include our things.
Kyle Doda (00:32:22):
I’m making our own house vermouth with our white wine, which has been awesome. So I’m aging it and infusing it. I don’t know if you’re familiar with vermouth, but so vermouth is… A lot of countries make vermouth predominantly Italy, France, and Spain. Vermouth is basically a white wine–could be a red wine, but typically it’s a white wine that is fortified with a spirit. Typically brandy or something of that nature. However, with that, it’s usually infused then with a ton of botanicals and bitters. And over there they’re using a lot of molasses for the sweetener. Here we’re using a local honey. We’re buying in some of the bitter orange, because I can’t grow that here. But then everything else is from our friends at Hillside Botanicals over in Brookfield. So they’re an herb farm that’s over there, also those plant starts and a couple other things.
Andy Chamberlain (00:33:23):
So what made you decide to do a restaurant and cidery on top of a farm?
Betsy Simpson (00:33:31):
I think part of it was getting more people to come to us, rather us bringing the farm elsewhere. It’s part of it. We still want to go to farmer’s market and everything, but it’s like we can bring people here and feed them good food and share good food with our community. There’s also nothing in Brookfield.
Andy Chamberlain (00:33:52):
Nope.
Betsy Simpson (00:33:54):
And everywhere you go to eat, you’re mostly just getting fried food. And I absolutely refuse to have a fryer in our kitchen.
Kyle Doda (00:34:07):
That might not be exactly the paragraph that I would use this. Let’s try that again.
Betsy Simpson (00:34:10):
That’s not why we did it.
Kyle Doda (00:34:11):
Okay. What was the question?
Betsy Simpson (00:34:16):
But it’s part of feeding the community good food and keeping everyone around us healthy.
Andy Chamberlain (00:34:20):
Ooh, there’s the good line.
Kyle Doda (00:34:24):
Don’t use that other answer. Jesus Christ. Yeah. I mean, I think that we were saying earlier, it’s been a real joy to bring people together. I mean, it’s awesome to be in here when it’s busy and kind of bustling and everyone is chatting and there’s neighbors seeing each other they haven’t seen in a while or saw each other yesterday. It doesn’t matter. And they’re kind of mixing around tables and it’s just great. And so to be able to do that is really fun and really enjoyable. And people that have our CSA are then coming here and being like, “Oh, I had this salad. This is interesting.” These kind of things. Or even farmer’s market customers are coming down from Burlington and eating here, which has been a lot of fun. So yeah, it’s been really great.
Andy Chamberlain (00:35:04):
So it’s been busy.
Kyle Doda (00:35:05):
Yeah, busy enough. We’re happy with where we’re at.
Andy Chamberlain (00:35:09):
That’s awesome.
Kyle Doda (00:35:09):
I wouldn’t want it too much busier.
Andy Chamberlain (00:35:12):
Right.
Kyle Doda (00:35:13):
It’s a nice place to be.
Andy Chamberlain (00:35:15):
I guess that’s one question, but I think I got the feeling of it when we were talking about the business as a farm, you don’t have a desire, per se to get into cider big or a restaurant big.
Kyle Doda (00:35:30):
No, not at all. This is really nice.
Andy Chamberlain (00:35:32):
You like this. This is where you want to be.
Kyle Doda (00:35:34):
I don’t think we would actually ever be open more than two days a week.
Betsy Simpson (00:35:38):
Friday, Saturday works really well.
Kyle Doda (00:35:39):
It’s really nice.
Andy Chamberlain (00:35:41):
I think that’ll probably help cause demand.
Kyle Doda (00:35:46):
Yeah, definitely.
Andy Chamberlain (00:35:46):
Like, “Oh, this little hole in the wall place down the dirt road. They’re only open two days.” I think that adds a draw.
Betsy Simpson (00:35:54):
During the winter, we had more entrees on the menu while I was in the kitchen and more braised meat had awesome buko and different things and goat shanks. But during the summer I’m doing more fresh and snacks and shareables and a little more options for pizzas and the sandwiches we do. But we’ll probably get more into the comfy food and slightly higher-end dishes during the winter again.
(00:36:26):
As, because right now I am basically harvesting all day Thursday, Friday. And then Friday evenings I come in here and help with service. And then I go to Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning. So I’m up at 04:45, pack for Farmer’s market, go to market all day, and then I come back and then help them with dinner service again. And then we’re really bad about going to bed early on Saturdays. The wind down takes a while, but ideally we have Sundays to do emails and stuff, but have a day to relax a little bit and possibly get off the farm if we can for a least a little bit.
Andy Chamberlain (00:37:12):
For an hour or two.
Betsy Simpson (00:37:13):
Between animal chores and opening closing greenhouses.
Andy Chamberlain (00:37:18):
You guys are into biking and skiing and stuff too. You’ve been doing that much, or not so much?
Kyle Doda (00:37:25):
Not so much.
Betsy Simpson (00:37:26):
Not as much as we’d like to.
Kyle Doda (00:37:27):
No.
Andy Chamberlain (00:37:28):
Now that this building is built and the infrastructure’s a little more here, do you think you will soon or not?
Kyle Doda (00:37:34):
I mean, we’d like to try to. We definitely are having the conversations of… You can’t work this hard and not go enjoy your life as well, even though we enjoy this part of our life. But there’s obviously other parts. So yeah, that’s a concern I think for both of us that we’ve been trying to figure out. We’ll get there. I mean, I think it takes time. Some years are better than others in the sense of doing that sort of thing.
Andy Chamberlain (00:38:06):
Well, some years are really big building years and it comes and goes.
Kyle Doda (00:38:10):
Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (00:38:11):
Although it seems like you’ve been building for 10 years.
Betsy Simpson (00:38:14):
I feel like there’s always a reconstruction project going on constantly.
Kyle Doda (00:38:20):
We’re getting close.
Andy Chamberlain (00:38:21):
Building greenhouses, building restaurants, building fences.
Kyle Doda (00:38:25):
No more greenhouses.
Betsy Simpson (00:38:27):
I don’t think we need any more greenhouses right now.
Andy Chamberlain (00:38:30):
So out of all your enterprises, Betsy, what’s your favorite?
Betsy Simpson (00:38:34):
There’s different aspects of all of it. I mean, I really like our CSA, but I also really like Farmer’s Market, but we also have the restaurant. So I went to the Culinary Institute of America and it’s what I went to school for. So actually having our own restaurants pretty cool. And just making really good food, so I have a lot of fun with it. But I also like having the interactions with our other customers. At Farmer’s Market, I check out a lot of people there. But I see the same people every single week and can have ongoing conversations with them and just what people are making at home and just catching up with everyone. And even with CSA members, it’s like there’s a lot of them, but I have correspondence with them all the time. And meeting different ones. They’ll come to the restaurant or I’ll see them at Farmer’s Market and they’re like, “Oh, I get your CSA.” And I’m like, “I’ve only ever emailed you.” I also really like the farm store. I see a lot of customers there too.
Kyle Doda (00:39:44):
Yeah, it’s fun. I mean, I think it goes back to just increasing community connections around food, which is what we… That’s some of my favorite… I was just saying this last night, we were hanging out with friends around the dinner table having a glass of wine and eating good food. It’s like, that’s kind of all I want. It’s just bringing people together. Whether they’re with us or not is kind of irrelevant, but them bringing their family together around food and caring about food I think is extremely healthy and important in so many ways. And so I think doing that in this setting also then makes people think maybe a little bit more about how they’re eating and what they’re eating and purposefully choosing to take time to feed themselves, which I think is really overlooked in America at this point in time. I think it’s really important.
Andy Chamberlain (00:40:50):
Yeah, it is. Has that always been your mission?
Kyle Doda (00:40:56):
Not that it’s always been our mission, but I would say, yeah. I mean, yeah sure. It’s been a belief, I would say. Yeah, it could be our mission. Sure.
Andy Chamberlain (00:41:07):
I should go back and listen to our episode a few years ago and listen. I don’t really remember what we talked about so much.
Kyle Doda (00:41:17):
That’s fair.
Betsy Simpson (00:41:20):
We did a lot of the farm store conversation.
Andy Chamberlain (00:41:21):
The farm store conversation and chickens in the cat tunnel.
Kyle Doda (00:41:25):
I just had a really good friend that was like, I just listened to your podcast with Andy from 2019.
Betsy Simpson (00:41:30):
People bring it up all the time. Different people are like, “Oh, I like listen to it.”
Andy Chamberlain (00:41:35):
They Google you and it pops up?
Betsy Simpson (00:41:36):
Or they’re looking for farm store information.
(00:41:39):
Granted, the other aspect I really like is actually having the animals here. Especially having the lambs and the pigs. We just got our next round of piglets a couple weeks ago, so we have Henry and Walter and Petunia and Daisy. But I make them really friendly. We had the Flintstones over the winter.
Kyle Doda (00:42:05):
We did, yeah.
Betsy Simpson (00:42:05):
Pebbles. Pebbles loved her belly rubs.
Andy Chamberlain (00:42:11):
So how do you make a pig friendly? Just interaction?
Betsy Simpson (00:42:15):
Hanging out with them.
Kyle Doda (00:42:17):
Just let them get used to you petting them.
Betsy Simpson (00:42:20):
I touch them constantly just to make sure that they’re used to me. And so you can go in their pen and they’re really happy to see you.
Andy Chamberlain (00:42:26):
So about five minutes morning at night, you’re just real friendly.
Betsy Simpson (00:42:28):
Yeah.
Kyle Doda (00:42:29):
Maybe more than five minutes for her, but. I’m like, “Where is my wife? Oh, right, she’s hanging out with the pigs.”
Andy Chamberlain (00:42:36):
She’s in the barn.
Betsy Simpson (00:42:37):
Well, it’s like we had 200 pound pigs. And they all just want belly rubs when you’re down there and it takes a minute to give all of them belly rubs.
Andy Chamberlain (00:42:45):
Can’t leave somebody out.
Betsy Simpson (00:42:47):
And they fight over who’s getting belly rubs first. But I mean now we have pork belly on the menu. And I’m like, yeah, I spent the winter massaging that with all the belly rubs.
Kyle Doda (00:43:03):
Yeah, right now on the menu… I didn’t even look at the menu yet, but there’s-
Betsy Simpson (00:43:07):
There’s a PBLT. It’s a pork belly, lettuce, tomato.
Kyle Doda (00:43:11):
BLT?
Andy Chamberlain (00:43:14):
Pork belly is getting close to that fried food category though.
Betsy Simpson (00:43:18):
Yeah, but it’s not actually fried in a fryer.
Andy Chamberlain (00:43:23):
Thinking back when you landed on this property starting up the farm, did you have this where you’re at now as a vision? Did you want to do this? Or are you just, you think something’s fun and then you jump in that direction?
Kyle Doda (00:43:42):
Let me sit down for this one.
Betsy Simpson (00:43:43):
You’re going to sit down.
Kyle Doda (00:43:50):
So I guess yes and no. And why I say that is that when we got the property, there was already a well here where the barn is where we are now. And the foundation for this building was here as well. And so technically speaking, I knew that that could be or probably would be an option at some point, building the barn out. We originally built the side that-
Betsy Simpson (00:44:16):
The old side.
Kyle Doda (00:44:20):
The old side. So yeah, I mean I guess I thought maybe eventually we would do something with it. Did I think we would do this? No, but I also didn’t know that I was going to meet Betsy either. And so in hindsight, I would’ve planted all these fruit trees first and probably gotten sheep and been a beekeeper and a shepherd and not done anything else besides this. And then that would’ve been it. It might not have been as much debt that I’m in now.
Betsy Simpson (00:44:49):
But here we are.
Andy Chamberlain (00:44:51):
But here then you met Betsy and took on a bunch of debt.
Betsy Simpson (00:44:54):
Yeah.
Kyle Doda (00:44:57):
I think I was more on the take out the debt side than Betsy. But I mean, there’s many ways to go about running a small business or a small farm. But having capital to move things forward at the pace in which you want or maybe you don’t want, but fast enough to where you can get to that ideally sustainable cash flow and revenue flow level to be able to make it work ideally is something that is important to have that capital to do that. So either you don’t quit your day job, get real creative and scrape by, or you take out loans, or you just have money. There’s only so many options there.
Andy Chamberlain (00:45:47):
Some are easier to do than others.
Kyle Doda (00:45:49):
Others. And so a little scraping and loans.
Betsy Simpson (00:45:56):
I mean, having good employees too at this point. We went through years that we went through a lot of employees. And now we have a pretty solid crew. And it’s awesome.
Kyle Doda (00:46:08):
And they’re great.
Andy Chamberlain (00:46:11):
And they come back.
Kyle Doda (00:46:12):
Yeah, everybody’s here. Yeah, they stay. And we prioritize that. We prioritize paying them a living wage. We prioritize giving them whatever they need.
Betsy Simpson (00:46:24):
Whatever food and veggies.
Kyle Doda (00:46:29):
Extras, et cetera. Yeah. I mean, another component of this situation that is on a functional level is that this extra revenue has profit to it because it’s value added. Not that farming shouldn’t normally as well. However, that extra profit allows us to pay down our debt faster than our forty-year terms.
Andy Chamberlain (00:47:00):
Right. That’s good.
Kyle Doda (00:47:02):
Yeah. So that is on a functional level–besides all the community-based feelings that we have–that is important to us. I don’t need to be in debt until I’m 80 years old. That is not my goal in life.
Andy Chamberlain (00:47:21):
All the hugs from the neighbors doesn’t always pay the bills,
Kyle Doda (00:47:24):
No, but I think creative avenues like this do allow for that.
Andy Chamberlain (00:47:37):
Yeah. I know it was a couple years ago, you were making tomato sauce or selling tomato sauce. You still do that too?
Kyle Doda (00:47:46):
Yeah, so we still make the tomato sauce. We use 90% of it or whatever here, not 90%, 75%.
Betsy Simpson (00:47:53):
We sell a lot at farmers markets too.
Kyle Doda (00:47:55):
Yeah. So we stopped wholesaling the tomato sauce jars. We had a bad year of San Marzano production, and so we just ended…
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:48:04]
Kyle Doda (00:48:03):
San Marzano in production and so we just ended up not wholesaling that year and then with this we’re just like, “Well, fine.” So we just got all the retail pack done for the tomato sauce to sell at Farmer’s Market and Farm Store, and then we just did one gallon jugs for here. And so that’s worked out great, really well, and we’ll definitely probably need to do more of that as well. Not all the pizzas have red sauce on them, but it’s awesome. I think people don’t even realize that either. They don’t realize that we harvested those tomatoes last year, we froze them, then we processed them all at a commercial co-pack, and then we brought them in here and now we’re cooking with them. We explained that, but they don’t get it.
Andy Chamberlain (00:48:52):
Right.
Kyle Doda (00:48:53):
They get it, but they –
Andy Chamberlain (00:48:54):
Yeah, it sounds nice, but they don’t understand all that went into it and they’re like, “Okay, yeah, it’s complicated to make sauce.” But they don’t realize you were the one to do that. Your own tomatoes, right over there.
Kyle Doda (00:49:05):
Right.
Andy Chamberlain (00:49:07):
Yeah. Or like the dried herbs that are on there. Not that we don’t buy some herbs in that we can’t get for certain dishes, but otherwise, yeah. We’re-
Betsy Simpson (00:49:19):
And like dried peppers, we make our own pepper powders and have fresh red pepper that’s ours from Cayenne’s.
Andy Chamberlain (00:49:27):
Yeah. What strategies are you using to keep the to-do list in order?
Betsy Simpson (00:49:38):
Nothing.
Andy Chamberlain (00:49:39):
There’s no to-do list.
Betsy Simpson (00:49:40):
There’s technically schedules for like on this day.
Andy Chamberlain (00:49:44):
Other-
Betsy Simpson (00:49:44):
The harvesting things or whatever but-
Kyle Doda (00:49:48):
Honestly, we don’t make any lists.
Andy Chamberlain (00:49:50):
But you’re not like, “I got to dry the peppers and then I got to go seed the beets and then I got to…” You know?
Kyle Doda (00:50:00):
No.
Andy Chamberlain (00:50:00):
It just seems like a lot [inaudible 00:50:01].
Kyle Doda (00:50:01):
Or like, “Oh, we should another round of beets.” And then I go seed them, and then we’re like-
Andy Chamberlain (00:50:05):
Yet it all works out.
Kyle Doda (00:50:06):
Yeah. I don’t know.
Betsy Simpson (00:50:06):
For the most part.
Kyle Doda (00:50:06):
Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (00:50:08):
It seems like a most stressful way of doing things, I guess.
Kyle Doda (00:50:11):
I find this to be stressful because then I feel like I’m looking at this thing of all these things I have to do. That’s always been my opinion on this, but I understand that-
Andy Chamberlain (00:50:20):
If it’s a priority, then you’ll go do it.
Kyle Doda (00:50:22):
Exactly.
Andy Chamberlain (00:50:23):
Fair enough.
Kyle Doda (00:50:24):
There are so many balls that we’re juggling that you’re going to drop one. Ideally it’s not a big one, but I don’t know-
Betsy Simpson (00:50:34):
I feel lik it kind of bounces off the ground, it’ll pick back up again.
Kyle Doda (00:50:37):
Yeah, and you keep going.
Betsy Simpson (00:50:40):
Just a little fumble.
Andy Chamberlain (00:50:40):
If you don’t do it today, it’s not that important.
Kyle Doda (00:50:43):
Yeah, it-
Betsy Simpson (00:50:44):
It still gets done.
Kyle Doda (00:50:45):
The things that are important at least, obviously there’s many things that are important, but the things that are important based on the business and farming, they’re like, you submit your payroll on time, you pay your bills on time, a lot of that stuff we do automatically ready-
Andy Chamberlain (00:50:57):
Right.
Kyle Doda (00:50:57):
… which is great and you close the greenhouses, you open the greenhouses, you water stuff-
Betsy Simpson (00:51:07):
Feed all the animals.
Kyle Doda (00:51:07):
You feed the animals. Everybody that works here has specific tasks and jobs that they’re focused on. So it’s not like me and Betsy are doing-
Andy Chamberlain (00:51:17):
You’ve delegated a lot of that.
Kyle Doda (00:51:19):
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And the guy who works with us with mushrooms does a lot of the drying for us, all the basil and herbs, he’ll just load it up the dryer with either mushrooms or herbs or peppers or whatever, be like, “Hey, can you dry this week?” “Cool. Yeah, yeah.”
Betsy Simpson (00:51:35):
Yeah, be like, “What day works best for you? I’m going to bring a bunch of stuff to you.” And just load up the dryer.
Andy Chamberlain (00:51:39):
So is the dryer something you have here?
Kyle Doda (00:51:41):
Yeah, it’s just a smaller commercial dryer.
Betsy Simpson (00:51:42):
Yeah, a smaller one, but we can do a fair amount of it, a couple rounds a week. So you don’t actually need that much dried basil, how many mason jars of dried basil do you need?
Kyle Doda (00:51:55):
Right. It adds up.
Betsy Simpson (00:51:57):
I still have some of last year’s, and we already started drying it this year.
Andy Chamberlain (00:52:02):
I guess maybe that’s what answers my question is that you’ve delegated a lot of the daily work of the repeatable tasks to those employees, and they’re long-term employees-
Kyle Doda (00:52:11):
For sure.
Andy Chamberlain (00:52:12):
… so they will know what needs to be done.
Kyle Doda (00:52:14):
Yeah, totally.
Andy Chamberlain (00:52:15):
So-
Kyle Doda (00:52:16):
Basically, all-
Andy Chamberlain (00:52:16):
… you’re not carrying all that.
Kyle Doda (00:52:18):
… of the harvesting, all the mushroom harvesting that Stefan does and I’ll do some and we’ll all do a little bit-
Betsy Simpson (00:52:23):
That’s in here, but yeah.
Kyle Doda (00:52:24):
… but most of it is done by our employee that does the mushrooms with us and so that’s the main part of that and he packs everything. It goes out for wholesale and CSA, and so then basically Betsy, Howard and Vaiden are on vegetable harvesting. So the three of them tackle vegetable harvesting, but different tasks. So like Howard and Vaiden work together to get through today, which was squash beans, et cetera. But Betsy was doing greens and-
Betsy Simpson (00:52:54):
All the CSA stuff.
Kyle Doda (00:52:55):
All the CSA like stuff like bunched mint.
Betsy Simpson (00:52:57):
Bunched things.
Kyle Doda (00:52:58):
Bunched kale or chard or whatever. The special for last weekend was a slow-cooked brisket with a black currant barbecue sauce and-
Betsy Simpson (00:53:11):
As a sammy.
Kyle Doda (00:53:12):
As a Sammy, and then roasted summer squash and collard greens.
Betsy Simpson (00:53:17):
Yeah, braised collard greens.
Kyle Doda (00:53:19):
I meant to tell you, somebody came up to the counter and they’re like, “I just moved up here from Alabama where I lived for 20 years, and those are the best collard greens I’ve ever had.”
Andy Chamberlain (00:53:29):
Whoa.
Kyle Doda (00:53:30):
And I was like, “All right, I’ll let my wife know.”
Betsy Simpson (00:53:35):
Really?
Kyle Doda (00:53:35):
Yeah. I didn’t even taste them, are they good?
Betsy Simpson (00:53:38):
Astrid made them, but we just talked about it, we were like-
Kyle Doda (00:53:41):
Oh, tell her then.
Betsy Simpson (00:53:42):
… “Let’s just keep them really simple.” It was just with some beef stock, a little salt and pepper and just braised collard greens.
Kyle Doda (00:53:48):
No vinegar?
Betsy Simpson (00:53:50):
No.
Kyle Doda (00:53:50):
It’s a good variety. It’s a-
Betsy Simpson (00:53:51):
Were there flash collards?
Kyle Doda (00:53:52):
Flash collards, it’s a really nice tender variety. They do a really good job.
Betsy Simpson (00:53:55):
So you don’t have to cook them very long. You kind of just sauteed them down with some liquid and they’re really good. You don’t have to cook them for 45 minutes to an hour.
Kyle Doda (00:54:06):
That was another-
Betsy Simpson (00:54:06):
They’re pretty quick.
Kyle Doda (00:54:07):
… really nice compliment we got this weekend was somebody was like, “I really love your food here because it’s simple and well done and the vegetables aren’t overcooked, the meats cooked well. Things are simple and the flavors are there and the quality of the food is good so that it shows.”
Andy Chamberlain (00:54:25):
Right, right.
Kyle Doda (00:54:26):
And I think, yeah, we’ve had a lot of those kind of comments and a lot of the ones that are like, “I don’t feel sick after going out to eat.”
Andy Chamberlain (00:54:35):
Oh, wow.
Kyle Doda (00:54:36):
Which I get it, there’s just a lot of processed oils and stuff that restaurants cook with and other things that are in the food that they’re using that might not be so conducive to-
Betsy Simpson (00:54:47):
A lot of people don’t feel great about going out, yeah.
Kyle Doda (00:54:49):
… GI track. Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (00:54:52):
Yep.
Kyle Doda (00:54:53):
Yeah, I think it’s just people don’t realize how it feels to not feel rough.
Andy Chamberlain (00:54:59):
Right. Who’s been an inspiration, mentor or influence for you?
Kyle Doda (00:55:04):
I can speak for myself, but Betsy inspires me I would say a lot to be more creative, to think about things more. I’m a little more impulsive and she’s a little calmer and yeah, it’s been great and she also works super hard, and that also encourages me to keep going sometimes when I need to, even though I might not want to. I also probably encourage her to stop going and relax and hang out with me and the animals. So maybe I should find somebody that’s inspiring besides you, I suppose, but-
Andy Chamberlain (00:55:46):
The pig.
Kyle Doda (00:55:50):
The pig, Petunia, yeah.
Betsy Simpson (00:55:52):
Yeah.
Kyle Doda (00:55:53):
Though animals are quite inspiring sometimes.
Betsy Simpson (00:55:56):
The animals teach you patience.
Kyle Doda (00:56:00):
Yeah, they do.
Andy Chamberlain (00:56:00):
That they do.
Kyle Doda (00:56:00):
That they do.
Andy Chamberlain (00:56:00):
That they do.
Kyle Doda (00:56:01):
And cider, cider teaches you patients. There are cider makers and people in the industry and the food world that we admire and that I’d totally bounce ideas off of for sure.
Betsy Simpson (00:56:15):
I feel like there’s just multiple people that we talk to about ideas or, “What do you think’s up with this?” Or be able to freely talk to about business.
Kyle Doda (00:56:27):
I also would say farming wise, no, and not because there isn’t somebody that would inspire us or has inspired us in the past, just that I don’t even really connect with anybody anymore that… I’m trying to think of somebody that… I have colleagues that I bounce stuff off of all the time as you would like, “Hey, try this, do this, recover that at this time.” Or whatever. It doesn’t matter. Try this trellis technique or regrow these like this or et cetera. But I don’t know if I would call that inspiring, I think that’s just collaboration.
Betsy Simpson (00:57:13):
Is it more of a, we’re all equal on the same level rather than we look-
Kyle Doda (00:57:17):
Yes.
Betsy Simpson (00:57:17):
… up to someone?
Kyle Doda (00:57:19):
I also think sometimes, and this might not sound the way it should, but we’re maybe doing things that a lot of people aren’t doing, and therefore we’re kind of just out in the wilderness on that one a little bit.
Andy Chamberlain (00:57:31):
No, I get what you’re saying by that.
Kyle Doda (00:57:34):
And I think that that’s fine and just, there are a few that I know of farms that are running restaurants on farm with their own produce and what that looks like that are divulging that information or even sharing it because probably so busy like we are that they’re not sharing it.
Andy Chamberlain (00:57:54):
Exactly.
Kyle Doda (00:57:55):
And not for any particular reason other than they’re busy. And so I think there’s some of that going on. Even in cider research, cider’s been being made for forever, and there’s a lot of information out there but sometimes the nitty-gritty stuff doesn’t actually easily fall into your lap or into your-
Betsy Simpson (00:58:20):
Sphere.
Kyle Doda (00:58:21):
… sphere of knowledge, which is why honestly podcasts like this and the cider chat that we were on are super helpful because you can get this stuff.
Andy Chamberlain (00:58:32):
The inside…
Kyle Doda (00:58:36):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean-
Andy Chamberlain (00:58:36):
Right. You compare yourself to another farm or whatever and well, you’re not into wholesale veg, so maybe you compare yourself to CSA Farms, but then you’re just running your own thing and I’m getting that that’s not-
Betsy Simpson (00:58:49):
But other people aren’t doing farmer’s market or they’re not doing this, and this and like-
Andy Chamberlain (00:58:56):
Yeah, exactly and farm is so different like you saying.
Kyle Doda (00:58:56):
A good example is, and we talk about this, colleagues of ours, friends of ours farm, they just do a CSA and I just don’t understand how their numbers work. It makes-
Andy Chamberlain (00:59:10):
Right, and then you talk to a brewer or a cider maker and their challenges are going to be a lot different than your challenges-
Kyle Doda (00:59:15):
Absolutely.
Andy Chamberlain (00:59:16):
… bringing in all your own stuff.
Kyle Doda (00:59:17):
Right, and so I just feel like, yeah, I’m like, “Our numbers work for the most part, depending on the week.” Et cetera. I feel like we’re successful as a business and we’re sustainable-
Andy Chamberlain (00:59:32):
That’s the important part.
Kyle Doda (00:59:33):
… financially and so-
Andy Chamberlain (00:59:35):
Trust your own model.
Kyle Doda (00:59:36):
Right, and our model might be crazy, but it works in the sense is that revenue is coming in all the time and leaving-
Betsy Simpson (00:59:47):
From different avenues.
Kyle Doda (00:59:48):
… but from different avenues and so you have that bad shallow crop that you’re like, “Oh, there was supposed to be an extra 10K, but there’s not. Well, it’s coming in from…” So it’s just, yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (01:00:01):
You’ve got enough diversity.
Kyle Doda (01:00:02):
Yeah, I think that’s really the key and I think that that also builds a customer base and a retail customer base that’s helpful, but it’s also a lot. So I get it, but that’s kind of what we were talking about earlier, and that’s the double-edged sword of like, okay, well if you don’t have a ton of debt, you don’t necessarily need to have that diversity. If you have a lot of debt and you need to make these payments, well, you need the revenue.
Betsy Simpson (01:00:28):
But I still wouldn’t suggest putting all your eggs in the same basket, no matter what you do.
Kyle Doda (01:00:33):
Yeah, totally.
Andy Chamberlain (01:00:33):
Yeah.
Kyle Doda (01:00:33):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (01:00:36):
You could add us to be inspiring to other people. There’s so many smaller farmers that are backing out. Even in the Burlington farmers’ markets it’s like there’s less and less farms now. Especially veg.
Kyle Doda (01:00:51):
Especially veg.
Betsy Simpson (01:00:52):
There’s actually a fair amount of meat vendors now and people doing different things, but there’s-
Andy Chamberlain (01:00:57):
Well, you’re like a president of that market, right?
Kyle Doda (01:00:59):
I’m the treasurer.
Betsy Simpson (01:01:00):
He’s the treasurer.
Andy Chamberlain (01:01:01):
Treasurer. So my point being, you’ve been there for several years, you know who’s coming and going?
Kyle Doda (01:01:06):
Yeah, we’ve been there for 10 years.
Andy Chamberlain (01:01:07):
Yeah.
Kyle Doda (01:01:09):
Yeah. So, yeah, it’s sad. It’s a bummer. It’s like-
Betsy Simpson (01:01:13):
But we could really use more veg farmers at Farmer’s Market.
Kyle Doda (01:01:16):
Yeah. Yeah. And there’s at least two more vegetable farmers that are prominent there that are probably going to age out at some point in the near future, give or take.
Betsy Simpson (01:01:28):
Well, I think one of them will probably be done next year.
Kyle Doda (01:01:33):
And then the other one might actually have somebody take over but they’re still working on that, I think. But, it’s like, that’s a bummer.
Andy Chamberlain (01:01:42):
Yeah. Well, I think there’s people that want to do this sort of thing too, like have an on-farm bakery or a restaurant or a kitchen or their own-
Kyle Doda (01:01:51):
Yeah. There is a lot of hurdles if you can’t and costs, unfortunately, some of the regulations to the state with small business stuff like that in a rural setting, which is ironic because most of Vermont is fricking rural. So it’s like, do you really want businesses to succeed that are smaller? I don’t know.
Andy Chamberlain (01:02:15):
Yeah. That’s a whole nother conversation.
Kyle Doda (01:02:18):
Yeah. Summer’s tiring either way. I don’t know if I’m any more tired now besides the fact that now I’m 40. You know what I mean? I don’t think I’m any more tired than I was 10 years ago doing this. I feel like-
Andy Chamberlain (01:02:33):
Because eating good food.
Kyle Doda (01:02:34):
Well, no. Yeah, but I think it’s just like when you work outside and you work seasonally, we don’t work this hard in the winter, it’s tiring come July and August, we’ve been doing this for a while, but I feel like I get my second wind mid-August. Once the heat leaves, I get the second wind.
Andy Chamberlain (01:02:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kyle Doda (01:02:57):
You know?
Andy Chamberlain (01:02:58):
You get a taste of the lower humidity.
Kyle Doda (01:02:59):
You’re like, ” Oh, this is great. I can do this now.”
Andy Chamberlain (01:03:02):
You start harvesting stuff that’s gone to weeds and you’re still getting stuff in, so-
Kyle Doda (01:03:06):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (01:03:10):
Last winter was the first winter we didn’t do a winter Farmer’s Market, but we had the restaurant, we had opened the restaurant so it was like, that was kind of nice.
Kyle Doda (01:03:19):
It was very nice.
Betsy Simpson (01:03:20):
Of being like, “We’re not schlepping things on a Saturday to go somewhere else to set up a market.”
Kyle Doda (01:03:28):
Yeah, and we’ve done a lot of different… I don’t know if you remember when we were delivering to people’s homes.
Betsy Simpson (01:03:33):
We were doing home deliveries during COVID-
Kyle Doda (01:03:36):
In Burlington.
Betsy Simpson (01:03:36):
… and then we kind of continued it on for a while.
Andy Chamberlain (01:03:36):
Right.
Kyle Doda (01:03:41):
It was crazy. It wasn’t crazy. It was just ridiculous.
Betsy Simpson (01:03:45):
It was a lot of driving.
Kyle Doda (01:03:48):
It wasn’t bad. We kind of just got in the truck together in the morning and drove to Burlington, did drops every morning.
Andy Chamberlain (01:03:54):
So you did that together?
Kyle Doda (01:03:55):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (01:03:57):
And then sometimes we’d go-
Kyle Doda (01:03:57):
On Sundays.
Betsy Simpson (01:03:58):
Yeah, sometimes we’d go rock climbing afterwards at the metro.
Kyle Doda (01:04:01):
Yeah, yeah.
Betsy Simpson (01:04:03):
Get our farmer workout in in winter.
Andy Chamberlain (01:04:06):
It’s always funny when farmers go to their thing of rest and relaxation is something of exercise. It’s how you know you’re a good athletic farmer.
Kyle Doda (01:04:18):
Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (01:04:19):
Well, it’s like I do the muddy onion bike ride every spring because there it’s the one Saturday that we don’t have Farmer’s Market before it goes. It’s the one thing that I can do and I’m like, “All right, we’re going to go bike 40 miles. Let’s do it.”
Andy Chamberlain (01:04:34):
All right, here’s a couple of good ones. What advice would you give to a beginning farmer? Or what do you wish you had known if you could talk back to yourself 10 years ago?
Kyle Doda (01:04:49):
I would do what I said, which was plant more fruit trees right away. Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (01:04:56):
Prinneals in general.
Kyle Doda (01:04:57):
Prinneals in general and think about the landscape, invest in the fruit to a degree. It’s an easy, relatively easy, I should say, value-added crop if you want it to be. And even if you didn’t actually make a lot of revenue off of it, you have fruit. I just feel like there’s a lot of joy that comes out of that for me. And then I think also there’s definitely small-scale grazing is worth it. I think the multifaceted situation like that is worth it because if you eat meat, you can have meat and if you want to sell it, you can sell it. And those two things alone actually aren’t that expensive to get started.
(01:05:53):
Obviously there’s some infrastructure there for like let’s say you wanted to put in 100 for apple trees, depending on who you bought them from, you might be in there 500 to $1,000. It’s not an absurd amount of money. It’s enough and yeah, it’s a long game, technically. Anyways, I think that would be something that I would encourage people to not quit their day jobs and to work more hours in the beginning. I would encourage them to stray away from operating loans and to try to use money to buy equipment that makes them money because that’s an asset not a lost, it does depreciate, but still-
Betsy Simpson (01:06:48):
Also don’t be scared of loans.
Kyle Doda (01:06:50):
Yeah, take-
Betsy Simpson (01:06:51):
There’s a lot of people-
Kyle Doda (01:06:51):
Be smart about it, but-
Betsy Simpson (01:06:51):
… that are debt averse.
Kyle Doda (01:06:54):
… take out loans that make your life easier, that make the job you’re trying to do more efficient. One of my favorite pieces of equipment that I bought/built was this custom power harrow. So it’s a 36-inch wide power harrow from Ibex, from Tractor Tool Supply or whatever that company is, and it’s just for permanent beds that we have and so it’s a tiller basically, if you’re not familiar with power harrow, it’s vertical tine tillage instead of rotary tillage and then it has a roller on the back, so it makes a really nice seed-bed. But then I took the hopper, the fertilizer hopper that goes on one of the plastic layers and mounted that to a hydraulic pump motor and then hooked it to our rear hydraulics so that as I’m doing bed prep, I’m fertilizing and finishing the bed prep at one pass and that was $5,000. Absolutely worth it. Obviously there was a little bit of innovation there, but it’s a great tool. It’s awesome. You could use a bigger hopper, but besides that, it’s great.
(01:08:15):
And there are many other tools that are all in that category, and some of them are more expensive. We bought… when I say we, the loans bought, but a row mulcher that carries seven yards worth of material. So we can not only spread compost in the fields instead of using our old standard manure spreader, I can side shoot it so I can really decide how much I want it to go, et cetera. But then also mulching. So I can mulch wood chips down the wheel track, I can mulch in the understory of fruit trees, et cetera. And so certain purchases can do certain things. Those were later on purchases I would say, first we bought a bigger tractor and then we-
Betsy Simpson (01:09:08):
I feel like you have to put your wheelbarrow time in first.
Kyle Doda (01:09:10):
Yeah. Totally. But yeah, I just think investing in equipment that makes you more money or generates revenue easier is smart. Investing in buying money, like using a loan to buy seed or fertilizer, go get a 0% interest credit card. I hate to be like that, but that’s what we did a lot of because you get 12 months, it’s 0%, do that.
Andy Chamberlain (01:09:43):
Easy application.
Kyle Doda (01:09:45):
Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (01:09:45):
Yeah.
Kyle Doda (01:09:47):
You might not get as much as you need the first round or whatever, and it’s probably not going to be great for your credit for a couple whatever, but I don’t know. I think there’s some creative ways to, but I think that’s what you kind of have to do as a small scale business owner. You have to be creative, you have to be innovative, and you have to be willing to get after it because nobody else is going to do it for you.
(01:10:11):
I think it’s the hard truth of it that people struggle with the reality that this is really not easy. You got to want it and I think that’s kind of one of the issues that people think they do or they-
Betsy Simpson (01:10:25):
Romanticize it.
Kyle Doda (01:10:26):
Yeah. Or they want it for a couple of years but sticking it out is the long time. But that’s also where doing different stuff makes it fun.
Andy Chamberlain (01:10:32):
Right. Right.
Kyle Doda (01:10:33):
Right? So if you’re into growing stuff or being innovative or doing different things, then yeah, it’s great. You can just go hog wild and do whatever you want. Just try not to make too many bad decisions. Yeah.
Betsy Simpson (01:10:46):
And figure out what works for you.
Kyle Doda (01:10:47):
Right, yeah.
Betsy Simpson (01:10:49):
Just because something works for someone else, it doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you and that’s okay.
Kyle Doda (01:10:53):
Right.
Andy Chamberlain (01:10:53):
Right.
Betsy Simpson (01:10:55):
Like-
Kyle Doda (01:10:55):
Your example was a good example., right? We know that greens can sell and make money per bed square foot, right?
Andy Chamberlain (01:11:01):
Right. And world for you.
Kyle Doda (01:11:03):
That’s the technical truth but generally speaking on a lot of farms that are small scale-
Andy Chamberlain (01:11:07):
Absolutely.
Kyle Doda (01:11:07):
… they do that, you don’t want to do that, there’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t do it then. Life is short. Grow the stuff you like, get the smiles out of what you enjoy. You know?
Andy Chamberlain (01:11:17):
Yeah.
Kyle Doda (01:11:18):
It’s like, there’s no reason to. And then I think some of the stuff that also is true, and this is good advice as well, is the stuff that you or I might like doing might lead you to a creative, innovative thing that your customers might also really enjoy as well that they didn’t even know they might. Or a market that was untapped that you didn’t realize was there, whether like corn maize or whatever.
Andy Chamberlain (01:11:46):
Right. Yeah.
Kyle Doda (01:11:47):
Who knows? So I think there’s stuff like that that’s along those lines, that definitely is important.
Andy Chamberlain (01:11:58):
What does sustainable farming mean to you, and what are you doing to achieve it?
Kyle Doda (01:12:02):
That’s a good one. I-
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:12:04]
Andy Chamberlain (01:12:02):
What are you doing to achieve it?
Kyle Doda (01:12:02):
That’s a good one. I think that the first step in sustainable farming is making a profit. I think that if you do not make a profit, whatever your ethical, moral, idealistic goals of sustainability on an environmental level are, it’s totally irrelevant because you’ll never be able to afford to do it. And you’ll bust, and that’ll be the end of it. And then you’ve changed nothing. And I think that’s one of those things that people forget that they need to make money, they need to be able to put money away, ideally at some point for retirement or things of that nature. They need to be able to pay themselves something. And it’s a job. At least have all your expenses paid and don’t buy any food. But yeah, you have to make a profit. It can’t just be a break-even. Obviously, every farm has years of break-even or loss, or many of them. But somewhere along the lines there has to be a profit. That profit could be spent paying down debt. That’s fine.
Andy Chamberlain (01:13:15):
Right, right.
Kyle Doda (01:13:16):
Because that’s what profit is. You can’t pay down debt with-
Andy Chamberlain (01:13:20):
With nothing.
Kyle Doda (01:13:20):
With nothing.
Andy Chamberlain (01:13:21):
Right.
Kyle Doda (01:13:22):
So you have to have a profit. But yeah, I think that-
Andy Chamberlain (01:13:25):
Profit can be capital investments.
Kyle Doda (01:13:27):
Exactly.
Andy Chamberlain (01:13:28):
It can be paying down debt.
Kyle Doda (01:13:31):
Yeah, I think a lot of younger people forget the fact that the concept of I’m going to farm sustainably, let’s say an environmental sense or whatever we deem to define that as, is wonderful and great. It has to follow… Those practices that you’re choosing need to work. They can’t just be on a whim. And I think I found a lot with getting into farming, and I am still very idealistic about how I went on farm, and I’m still not there yet. I think that it’s a long journey. And you circle back to these ideas that you had 10 years ago and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, we should do that.” Now I could do that with this piece of equipment that I could afford to get a loan out for, or whatever. Because I didn’t want to use a wheelbarrow anymore, whatever that is. I think those kinds of things are important to remember.
Betsy Simpson (01:14:33):
But the other part of being sustainable is also just, as ourselves we try for our employees for farming, eight to five o’clock. People go home at five. We want you to have a life. Go eat dinner, go chill, rest. Not overworking.
Kyle Doda (01:14:58):
Some people would say that’s still a nine-hour day, technically. But we all-
Betsy Simpson (01:15:00):
They eat lunch in the middle. We take lunch for-
Kyle Doda (01:15:00):
We all take a break. People take breaks for wherever they want, but then we do family lunch here for everybody.
Betsy Simpson (01:15:07):
We always make lunch every day.
Andy Chamberlain (01:15:10):
Nice.
Betsy Simpson (01:15:13):
Granted, we’re not overworked. We’re not at the eight to five.
Kyle Doda (01:15:15):
We’re getting better about it though.
Betsy Simpson (01:15:17):
We try to be good about it.
Kyle Doda (01:15:18):
Over the years we’ve gotten a lot better about it.
Betsy Simpson (01:15:20):
Compared to what we used to. And some of that’s like, yeah, I’m going to spend more time with the animals and give belly rubs and hanging out. And have that time.
Kyle Doda (01:15:32):
And with the restaurant on Thursdays, I’ll be in here rolling silverware, we’ll be making dinner. She might be doing a little bit of prep stuff, or whatever, but it’s pretty… But it’s very casual compared to what it could be. That’s where I’m at. Once you’ve experienced what it’s not. Yeah, I don’t know.
Betsy Simpson (01:15:51):
My Friday, Saturdays are definitely really long days, but we try to have chiller Sundays. So having that day that we’re like, all right, yeah, we do emails and do some invoicing or whatever, but we’re not… It’s supposed to be the relaxing day.
Andy Chamberlain (01:16:09):
Right. Relaxing as a small business owners doing emails and book work.
Betsy Simpson (01:16:16):
Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (01:16:16):
With coffee.
Kyle Doda (01:16:17):
(laughs) Exactly. That’s my Sunday mornings.
Betsy Simpson (01:16:20):
Coffee and leftover carrot cake is where it’s at.
Kyle Doda (01:16:26):
Yeah, but that’s also how it is for any small business owner. That’s not a nuance to farming.
Andy Chamberlain (01:16:32):
No.
Betsy Simpson (01:16:33):
Yeah. But making sure there is some time that you’re not completely… One, you’re not stressed out all the time, but having time to chill and actually enjoy your own farm.
Kyle Doda (01:16:45):
Right. It is also really noticeable when you don’t take a Sunday off.
Andy Chamberlain (01:16:49):
In what sense?
Kyle Doda (01:16:52):
You’re just exhausted.
Betsy Simpson (01:16:52):
If you’re just seven days a week and just go, go, go.
Kyle Doda (01:16:55):
If you go for a 14-day stretch, it’s significant.
Andy Chamberlain (01:16:58):
Yeah. Your brain’s tired, your body’s tired. Your attitude’s-
Kyle Doda (01:17:02):
You’re over it. Yeah. Mostly my attitude’s over it. A couple hours-
Betsy Simpson (01:17:08):
Especially if you’re not sleeping enough. It’s the lack of sleep that catches up after a while.
Andy Chamberlain (01:17:14):
We didn’t talk too much about the farm itself, but is there one practice or tool or a crop that you think has been a key driver in your farming success?
Betsy Simpson (01:17:32):
You can always say mushrooms just because that did get us into co-op as a crop.
Kyle Doda (01:17:39):
Yeah. I would say that at the time when we started being able to wholesale vegetables, also being able to wholesale mushrooms allowed us to have an interest, like a perk. That places are like, oh, that’s cool. And we developed that business and that side of it. And now we don’t really take on new accounts, really. We are basically growing what we want to grow for the accounts we have, and we try to do the best we can with that. I think other crops too, being at market though and having a really profound market display.
Betsy Simpson (01:18:23):
And really diverse and having a really good setup.
Kyle Doda (01:18:25):
Definitely-
Betsy Simpson (01:18:26):
And a lot of products.
Kyle Doda (01:18:27):
… has helped. But also increased wholesale. People are like, “Oh, we love your greens, or We love your food. We want to get it at a city market,” or wherever. I think that combination has worked really well. Ironically, choosing to go to the Burlington Farmer’s Market instead of the Montpelier market. When we applied at the time, the Montpelier market wasn’t taking any more vegetable farms, and so we ended up going to Burlington. At that time a couple of the bigger farms like Jericho and a couple others had just left Burnt Rock, Justin. And retired from Farmer’s Market, so there was an opening for a couple of us. Bare Roots also started at that same time. And there was a couple other farms that all started at the same year, and so that decision alone really changed the trajectory of the farm because we had an opportunity and a customer base then that was open to us. You have a ton of people there, it’s a huge population for Vermont.
Betsy Simpson (01:19:29):
It took us a while to build up our customer base in Burlington, but now…
Kyle Doda (01:19:35):
It’s solid. Every single year that we’ve had… We’ve done market for 10 years now. For a long time our revenue, but also our customer base, was growing. I feel like that was probably a huge factor for us for success as a business by far.
Andy Chamberlain (01:19:55):
Yeah, you’re probably right.
Betsy Simpson (01:19:57):
Well, even right now, if you look comparing the two farmer’s market, there’s still a lot of veggie farmers in Montpelier. But there’re a lot of slightly smaller veggie farmers that are all mostly growing the same thing.
Kyle Doda (01:20:11):
Not by much, but they might be two acres, let’s say, or something like that.
Betsy Simpson (01:20:18):
Yeah, some of them are the same size probably too.
Kyle Doda (01:20:19):
For sure.
Betsy Simpson (01:20:19):
But there’s more veggie farmers probably in Montpelier market than there are in Burlington.
Kyle Doda (01:20:23):
There definitely is. There definitely is more in Montpelier than there is in Burlington. Which is crazy-
Betsy Simpson (01:20:28):
Kind of sad.
Kyle Doda (01:20:29):
… because there’s so many more people coming to Burlington. At least twice, if not three times your customer base of just traffic. Foot traffic.
Andy Chamberlain (01:20:39):
Right. You’re right. And that probably is a big driver. Because then you can market your CSA to those Burlington people.
Kyle Doda (01:20:46):
And your wholesale accounts and everything.
Andy Chamberlain (01:20:48):
Yep. Those accounts are up there, and then once you have CSA members and you’ve got, “Hey, we have a retail too.”
Kyle Doda (01:20:54):
It’s that conversation. It’s that word of mouth. It’s all that steamrolls, or snowballs.
Andy Chamberlain (01:21:00):
Incremental. Year over year, yeah.
Kyle Doda (01:21:02):
Yep.
Betsy Simpson (01:21:04):
But then it’s getting them to come down to the restaurant too, the customers up there.
Kyle Doda (01:21:10):
People are like, “Can I see the menu? Can I check out that, this? When are you open.” They’re talking…
Betsy Simpson (01:21:16):
They write articles in Seven Days about us. They’re like, “Oh, you guys opened a restaurant. I need to come down.” And they do. They do come down. They don’t even talk about it, they actually do it.
Kyle Doda (01:21:29):
And I get it, a lot of farms either are further out, they’re not as close maybe to the highway as us. It’s still a 50-minute drive, but we’re right off the highway, so it makes it convenient in that sense. But you got to argue that it’s worth arguing with oneself about choosing to go to a market. Why go to two and do all that effort when you go to one and make the same amount of money, theoretically? That would be my argument. I know some people do that. We have no way, bandwidth to do two markets.
Betsy Simpson (01:22:02):
Yeah. I give everyone who does multiple markets, I give you so many props. That’s a lot. Even if the midday and the Saturday…
Andy Chamberlain (01:22:09):
Mid-market’s period is a lot.
Kyle Doda (01:22:16):
No, it is. But there’s something really special about doing market. I’m tired of doing it now. I told myself that I would do it personally for 10 years, and then I would like to step back a little bit. Which I have, and that’s worked out. Yeah, it’s a lot, there’s no argument. But I also know that we would not be where we are today without going there, so you got to take your bets.
Andy Chamberlain (01:22:38):
That’s fundamental.
Kyle Doda (01:22:39):
Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (01:22:41):
There’s going to be sucking at some job.
Kyle Doda (01:22:45):
Yeah. It’s going to be bad.
Andy Chamberlain (01:22:46):
Every job has something not fun. Yeah, there’s always some grit somewhere.
Betsy Simpson (01:22:51):
But it also works that I like going to market, so it’s…
Kyle Doda (01:22:54):
Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (01:22:56):
Is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you would like to share?
Betsy Simpson (01:23:03):
Encourage other farmers to go out of the country, and eat other food and see other agriculture.
Andy Chamberlain (01:23:11):
In farmer’s markets.
Betsy Simpson (01:23:12):
In farmer’s markets, for sure.
Andy Chamberlain (01:23:15):
Was there a particular trip that opened your eyes?
Betsy Simpson (01:23:20):
We just went to Spain last year, and just the food and everything there. And just even northern Spain, it’s all these little hilltop farms that just have land that look over the ocean, and there’s just sheep everywhere. And I’m like, yeah, that is the life. And the different ways other countries respect or disrespect farming. There’s definitely a full spectrum, depending where you are. But it is definitely cool to see it, and it’s interesting. And it’s just go get some other perspectives, and eat really good food.
Kyle Doda (01:24:04):
Yeah, getting off farm is important. I feel like some Sundays we’re just like, we need to leave.
Betsy Simpson (01:24:12):
Even if it’s just-
Kyle Doda (01:24:12):
Just go to a friend’s house, whatever, it doesn’t matter.
Betsy Simpson (01:24:17):
Go to a friend’s just for an hour or two and just be like, all right, if we stay here, I’m going to keep working or I’m going to think about the things that I need to be doing right now.
Kyle Doda (01:24:25):
Yeah, exactly. Whatever, go for a walk or a hike, go swim and go-
Betsy Simpson (01:24:32):
Go get a creamee.
Kyle Doda (01:24:32):
There you go.
Andy Chamberlain (01:24:33):
You’ve done a lot in the last 10 years. What do you envision the next 10 years to look like? Any big swings?
Kyle Doda (01:24:41):
More plateauing, I guess where we’re going. And finishing up, finishing up projects, touching up stuff, dialing in more on the farming side. Increasing crop production on the same amount of acreage, that kind of thing. Ideally, doing more of the sustainable practices that we talk about and work on.
Andy Chamberlain (01:25:07):
Are there any farming practices that you’ve done or you are doing that you’re doing because it works, but you really want to get away from it?
Kyle Doda (01:25:21):
Plastic culture.
Andy Chamberlain (01:25:22):
Yeah.
Kyle Doda (01:25:23):
Yeah. I think plastic works, it also sucks.
Betsy Simpson (01:25:30):
It can be really annoying if it’s windy.
Kyle Doda (01:25:32):
Yeah. We’ve gotten better at it over the years. This year I felt pretty good about it. But that’s also where the permanent bed system and the woodchip mulching is an issue for me timewise, but we have all the tools to get it done. And so, when you have a permanent bed and you mulch the wheel tracks with wood chips relatively clean. You have some hand weeding and hoeing and stuff like that, but that’s pretty normal in general anyways. But yeah, we could definitely continue to scale that over time. I think one of the things that we’ve started to do this year that we’ll start to do more of is just with corn, cover cropping ideally between the beds, and then just mowing that or weed backing. For us and our scale, it works. And then also landscaping between peppers and eggplants and stuff like that so that it’s totally blacked out, and just being able to radiate that heat. And then also keep-
Betsy Simpson (01:26:33):
The weed pressure.
Kyle Doda (01:26:34):
… the weed pressure completely way down, especially for fungal diseases and stuff like that. And honestly, I would like to move in that direction, because it is super nice.
Andy Chamberlain (01:26:42):
Which is funny, because that’s more plastic.
Kyle Doda (01:26:44):
I know. It’s a bummer.
Andy Chamberlain (01:26:46):
It’s hard because it works.
Betsy Simpson (01:26:48):
Reusable.
Kyle Doda (01:26:48):
It works really well, and the crop production is really good.
Andy Chamberlain (01:26:52):
Like you said, for specific crops like peppers that love to eat.
Kyle Doda (01:26:57):
Not to whatever. I get it, the plastic sucks. I’m not going to defend it. But, not an argument, but a thing to think about is that small-scale farming done well, producing a large amount of food on a small amount of acreage, taking care of that land, feeding a lot of people well, is better, in my opinion, than 100 acres that’s managed poorly because it can be. I think the inputs are a lot less. It’s not… Yeah, it’s a fair conversation, I suppose, to have. To some degree. Because I don’t know, is the amount of… I’m sure somebody’s looked into this. But if you were to cultivate 100 acres, or whatever, 20 acres, how much petroleum is that versus the amount of petroleum it takes to lay plastic on five or four or three?
Andy Chamberlain (01:27:53):
Right.
Kyle Doda (01:27:55):
I don’t know.
Andy Chamberlain (01:27:56):
Well, and there’s other benefits to the plastic too of-
Kyle Doda (01:27:59):
Water.
Andy Chamberlain (01:28:03):
… moisture retention.
Kyle Doda (01:28:03):
Less irrigation.
Andy Chamberlain (01:28:06):
There’s a lot of benefit. Pros, cons, yeah.
Kyle Doda (01:28:08):
There’s a lot. I think that I don’t know enough about it. The biodegradable plastics could be interesting. At one point we were looking into the paper, the price point was wicked high, so that was tough. I know a lot of farms do enjoy using the biodegradable. Another tool would be a paper pot transplanter to put on the list. We definitely have found that to be super useful, and especially also being able to show our employees how to use it. And they’re like, “This is great.”
Betsy Simpson (01:28:39):
We had a rough relationship with it to start with. It took a couple years for us to be like, all right, now it makes sense.
Kyle Doda (01:28:51):
But I could see that working too, where you were doing dense planted flowers.
Andy Chamberlain (01:28:54):
Yes, it would work for dense stuff.
Kyle Doda (01:28:55):
And zinnias or something where you were just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It’s just a swath of zinnias. And even if you mulch that.
Andy Chamberlain (01:29:04):
Right.
Kyle Doda (01:29:05):
Yeah, that’s another thing too that was a good investment. We switched over, for the most part, to 50 foot wide sheets of row cover, and so [inaudible 01:29:18]… By 200.
Betsy Simpson (01:29:17):
… the beds.
Kyle Doda (01:29:19):
And so you just cover the whole thing, like six beds at a time. Sandbags, whatever. You need people to do it, obviously, but it’s awesome. And things don’t seem to get as hot because there’s a little more air flow underneath. Yeah, I feel like that works pretty well. And also clay wash dips for transmits. I can’t think of the name of it, brand. The kaolin clay.
Andy Chamberlain (01:29:51):
Kaolin, yeah. Surround.
Kyle Doda (01:29:52):
Surround, thank you. Yeah. Works great.
Andy Chamberlain (01:29:55):
For what?
Betsy Simpson (01:29:55):
Squash.
Kyle Doda (01:29:57):
Squash mostly, but brassicas too. I think one of the techniques that another farmer had suggested was you do pre-dip of squash, a little PyGanic and fish or…
Betsy Simpson (01:30:08):
Surround.
Kyle Doda (01:30:08):
And surround, sorry, for squash. And it’s great because that early… Instead of row covering, that early attack from cucumber beetles is knocked back.
Andy Chamberlain (01:30:23):
Oh, instead of row covering.
Kyle Doda (01:30:25):
Yeah.
Andy Chamberlain (01:30:26):
Protect the plant itself. Yeah. I like that.
Kyle Doda (01:30:29):
You just dunk the tray.
Andy Chamberlain (01:30:30):
Yeah.
Kyle Doda (01:30:31):
And then, I don’t spray them at all. I have nothing done. Don’t touch it.
Andy Chamberlain (01:30:34):
Nice.
Kyle Doda (01:30:35):
That’s it. Just plant it and walk away.
Andy Chamberlain (01:30:43):
And that was The Farmer’s Share. I hope you enjoy this episode with Kyle and Betsy of 1000 Stone Farm.
(01:30:53):
The Farmer’s Share is supported by a grant offered by the USDA Specialty Crop Block Program from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets. This funding helps to cover some of my time and travel in order to produce this podcast until March of 2026. The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service supports projects that address the needs of US specialty crop growers, and strengthens local and regional food systems. I have no doubt that this podcast will meet those needs and help educate growers to support the industry.
(01:31:23):
If you enjoy the show and want to help support its programming, you can make a one-time or reoccurring donation on our website by visiting thefarmersshare.com/support. The show is also supported by the Ag Engineering Program of the University of Vermont Extension.
(01:31:38):
We also receive funding from the Vermont Vegetable and Berry Growers Association. The VVBGA is a nonprofit organization funded in 1976 to promote the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of vegetable and berry farming in Vermont. Their membership includes over 400 farms across Vermont and beyond, as well as about 50 businesses and organizations that provide products and services of all types to their members. Benefits to members include access to the VVBGA Listserv to buy, sell plants and equipment, share farming information, and tap the vast experience of our growers. Access the Community Accreditation for Produce Safety, also known as CAPS.
(01:32:22):
This program is designed for growers by growers to help you easily meet market and regulatory food safety expectations. You can access the VVBGA’s Soil Health Platform, where you can organize all the soil tests and create and store your soil amendment plans and records. Access to webinars for growers in the VVBGA annual meeting, an email subscription to the Vermont Vegetable and Berry Newsletter, camaraderie, enhanced communication and fellowship among commercial growers.
(01:32:56):
Memberships are on a per-farm, per-calendar year basis, and annual dues this year are $80. These funds pay for the organization’s operating costs, and support educational programs and research projects. These funds also support projects that address grower needs around ag engineering, high tunnel production, pest management, pollinators, produce safety, and soil health. Become a member today to be a part of and further support the veg and berry industry.
(01:33:26):
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(01:33:54):
Lastly, if you’re enjoying the show, I’d love it if you could write a review. In Apple Podcast, just click on the show, scroll down to the bottom, and there you can leave five stars and a comment to help encourage new listeners to tune in. I’d also encourage you to share this episode with other grower friends or crew who you think would be inspiring for them. Thanks for listening.
PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [01:34:24]