Mary and Bruce Jones
Patridge Farm
North Haverhill, N.H.
“Live free-range or die” — that’s basically the motto of Patridge Farm, an organic farm that raises free-range chicken, ducks, geese, and turkey, in addition to pastured pigs and Icelandic sheep.
Why we chose this farm:
Over the last two years, the Joneses have rotated chickens and sheep around the land to encourage soil health and grass growth, with spectacular results: “We needed land amendments for the land not being fertilized, and it’s [been] really amazing over the last two to three years, from year to year, how much better it gets — it’s just like night and day. The grass is just beautiful.”
The family biz with a twist:
The Joneses’ farm has been in Mary’s family since 1921, when her grandparents founded it as a dairy farm. When she and her husband returned to New Hampshire in 2009, they started up the operation they’re running today. Mary says that there wasn’t really a choice between reopening the farm as conventional vs. organic: “If we were going to farm, we were going to do it organic or not do it at all.”
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