As I drive through the roads of Columbia County, I’m not really sure where I’m going. I have GPS but this is definitely more rural than I’m used to. I see a sign that reads simply, “Berry Farm”, and pull into the gravel parking lot. It’s a small looking store that turns out to be deceptively large. I walk inside and see an old-fashioned looking store filled with berries and all sorts of produce, as well as baked goods. I’m meeting Ally Baker, who is going to give me a tour of the farm.

Ally has worked at the farm for 14 years. She is younger-looking than I would expect after hearing that but she explains that she started working there in high school, when she showed up meekly looking for a job and Joe Gilbert, the owner, put her to work picking berries. She was surprised to find a bunch of her classmates already worked there. After Ally tells me this story, I realize it is demonstrative of the community nature and feel of the Chatham Berry Farm.

We begin the tour in the store, where Ally tells me about the different produce they use, and how they buy local produce from other farms to supplement what they don’t grow themselves to make it convenient for the community to shop locally, a theme that runs throughout the farm, which is very focused on providing for the local community. If a particular type of produce isn’t in season, the Chatham Berry Farm has its community covered. They order it from farms in other parts of New York state, and then out of state, allowing the community to still shop locally, rather than at a big box grocery store.

Looking around the store, I marvel at the amount of produce they have available. I feel like I walked through a door to Narnia, revealing a wonderland of ingredients available without sprays or chemicals. You don’t even have to wash the berries before you eat them because they haven’t been sprayed or polluted with anything during the growing process, as Ally tells me. As someone who is has been known to eat the occasional berry without washing it anyway, this is great news!

We move on to the floral greenhouse, where Ally is working on perennials and annuals, where she talks about Joe, who in addition to owning the farm, is a mentor. “This entire structure is built by Joe,” she says. “It’s really great you have somebody who can do all that. He’s the handyman, he’s the electrician, he’s the plumber, he’s the dad, he’s the business owner, he pays the bills; he does everything. And then he’s out in the fields doing irrigation and running the tractor and putting up a greenhouse. He does everything, which is really cool.” As you can imagine, Joe is really busy.

As Ally talks about their relationships with other local farmers, I can tell it’s a close-knit community, though I feel like it would mean more if I had a greater familiarity with the northern Columbia County area. I only learned the correct pronunciation of Chatham today. (It’s pronounced, “chat-ham”).

The farm started in 1982. Joe Gilbert moved to Columbia County from New Jersey, where he bought a cornfield, which apparently depletes the soil. Ally explains that corn depletes the soil of nutrients as if it’s something everyone knows, and she has such enthusiasm for the farm that even though I didn’t know about the depletion, I feel like I did. To fix it, cover cropping, green manures, rotating crops and on-site composting have since repaired the soil.

Joe would drive his tractor over to Route 203 and sell strawberries under the shade of a tree on the side of the road. That’s when we get to the mythology of Chatham Berry Farm. One year, Joe had arugula, a “foreign green” for the area as Ally jokingly describes it. At that time, the majority of the farmers in the area sent the best produce to New York City. Joe questioned the logic of that, and when a customer drove by and was surprised to find him selling arugula, he started diversifying into greens. “It just blew his mind that somebody was familiar with it and it was sought after,” Ally says. The farm retains the name of the Berry Farm from the early days when he grew blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, and currants.

We leave the greenhouse and go outside to the main part of the farm to continue our tour. There is a main path lined with greenhouses on the right, and a field with another greenhouse on the left. Directly ahead is a berry orchard. As Ally discusses the workers picking berries, I notice a couple of them working in the field as we speak. It’s hot, and I feel like the work must be hard. To emphasize this, my phone, which I’m using to record our conversation, shuts down and says that it’s too hot. It has quit until it gets to a cooler location. Even my phone needs to cool down. I’m also already sweating just walking around, so I empathize.

The work at the farm continues all year. Right now, Ally is working on produce and cut flowers. In the fall there will be gourds, pumpkins, and squash. In November they buy turkeys, and in December they order Christmas trees. It still doesn’t end there, as she’s back in January, propagating new plants in the greenhouse.

Chatham Berry Farm has started a hydroponic greenhouse, which is impressive and looks much more like a science laboratory than the other greenhouses, which look pretty much like greenhouses. Jon Gilbert, the owner’s son, built the hydroponic greenhouse. The plants grow along white gutters with a nutrient rich solution that provides nutrition to the plants. The hydroponic greenhouse has everything you need for a great salad: Swiss chard, dandelion, endive, basil, green kale, Toscana kale, and a few different types of lettuce. “They’re incorporated into our mesclun mix, which is what we’re known for,” Ally says. Their mix is a medley of different greens grown in the greenhouse, which includes bitter greens like dandelion. Ally then provides some information that you will want to keep in mind on your next shopping trip. The bitter greens are rich in antioxidants. When choosing leafy plants, if there is a choice of a red leaf version, choose that for optimum health. It has flavonoids and phytonutrients.

Finally, we arrive at the farm’s namesake, the berry orchards. Currently, Joe does the pruning, though Ally is learning. “Every year the birds get to them before I do,” Ally says. “It’s one of those thing, it happens. It’s nature.” To counter this problem, they plant enough to supplement the birds’ diets while still making a profit for the farm. “It’s so frustrating, but that’s why you do it on a larger scale,” Ally says. “That way, when it happens, it’s not as devastating.”

As we look at the berries, Ally brings out her “inner plant nerd” as she explains that the thorns on the bush are actually called prickles. The reason for this is that the prickle is round. Thorns come out of the underside of the leaf. We laugh at the thought of using this information to sound pretentious at parties.

We end the tour by visiting the microbrewery. Chatham Berry Farm is also expanding into micro brewing, or what Jon, the brewer, calls a “nano-micro brewery” because it is so small in its current iteration. It makes 40 to 80 gallons a week. Jon mentions the nearby Chatham Brewery, which brews 1600 gallons for comparison. Ally then provides me with this fun fact, which Jon later repeats: Sam Adams is actually classified as a microbrewery, something interesting to think about next time you buy beer. Jon explains the brewing process, which involves sugar water, yeast, and hops, or what Ally calls “Chemistry; Chemistry you can drink.”

On the way out I meet Joe, and we return to the legendary roadside fruit stand. He says he wasn’t even the one who grew the much-discussed arugula. His next-door neighbor was going on vacation and picked too much arugula, and asked Joe to try to sell it. He figured he could try but it was unlikely. Only an hour later, a guy came in and was so excited to find arugula that he bought it all. “You gotta listen to what everybody’s saying out there,” Joe says. “Not react on it right away, but let it resonate for a while.” And with that, Joe is back to work.

A little girl shopping with her mother tells Ally they are buying strawberries. “Well, that is the best decision ever!” she replies enthusiastically, before getting right back to business.

Chatham Berry Farm is open every day from 8-6. They have an “unofficial, official slogan”: We’re your everyday farmer’s market. They aren’t kidding. The only day during the year that they close is Christmas. If you want fresh produce, they want you to know that you can come and reliably find fresh produce at their farm everyday.