Dream Land Acquisition Means Expansion For Shortt’s Farm And Garden Center

By Nancy K. Crevier

Customers of Shortt’s Farm and Garden Center, 52 Riverside Road, appreciate having a local source of organic produce and eggs, and a selection of nursery stock, annuals, and herbs that are hardly touched by fertilizers, fungicides, or pesticides. What began as a feed and grain store that sold a few homegrown vegetables, started by owner Jim Shortt and his mother, Laura, in 1994, turned into a produce venture in 1995 when Mr Shortt purchased an adjacent piece of land that allowed one-and-a-half of the four acres to be farmed. “We cleaned up that new piece of land from all the brush and weeds and that’s when we really started gardening here,” said Mr Shortt.

In 2000 Mr Shortt’s wife, Sue, joined in the business.

“Every year, we did a little bit more. I was never into using chemicals, and in 1995 we were certified as an organic farm by NOFA, the Northeast Organic Farmers Association,” said Mr Shortt.

“Jim was a little bit ahead of the organics movement. People were more into ‘natural’ food then. But around 2002, we really saw the interest in organics start kicking off,” said Ms Shortt.

Each summer the garden is a colorful mosaic of greens, cabbages, tomatoes, summer and winter squashes, eggplant, peppers, and herbs. Customers enjoy browsing the greenhouse and wandering to the edge of the sprawling garden to admire the crops, as free-range hens peck at the ground, the cackling a chorus to the anthem sung by birds in the treetops. Occasionally, a rabbit hops past. Inside the retail store, small antique kitchenware, baskets, and locally produced jams and relishes are available for purchase. “For a small piece of property, we have a lot. It’s high-density farming. But you can only grow so much, no matter how fertile the soil,” Mr Shortt said.

Room For Expansion

The public’s desire for organic and locally grown foods has been a mixed blessing, Ms Shortt said. “Right now, we’re stretched to the max. We’re out of produce in the high season by the end of the week,” she said.

But the couple hopes that the recent addition of six acres of workable farmland on Cherry Street, less than half a mile from the Riverside farm, will change that.

The Shortts had always admired the 9½-acre Rafferty farm on Cherry Street, owned by Mr Shortt’s former school teacher, and had hoped that it would one day come up for sale. While most of the open land is planted in hay right now, it is fertile soil that can easily be transformed into crop fields. “We had considered other properties for expansion, but nothing was quite right. They were too brushy, or too far from this property,” said Ms Shortt. Two years ago, their dream came true.

“We heard the Cherry Street farmhouse and property was for sale and we put in an offer the first day. We weren’t the only ones, but we got lucky and the offer was accepted,” she said. But before they could return to their roots, both having been raised in Sandy Hook, the couple had to sell their newly built home in Southbury, not such an easy thing to do in a suddenly unfriendly selling climate.

“Two weeks after we bought the Cherry Street farm, the banks collapsed. We never would have gotten that mortgage if the sale had happened later,” said Ms Shortt. It is still nerve-wracking, in this economy, to be expanding a business and taking on a bigger mortgage, she said, but they feel certain that the move will pay off. Food is something people are always going to need, pointed out Ms Shortt, “and this is what we love to do.”

The purchase of the Cherry Street land means that they will be able to quadruple the size of the vegetable garden, as all vegetables will be grown there on four of the acres as of next summer. Right now, only a portion of the land has been plowed and they expect late season, transitional crops to be planted there for harvesting this fall. Next spring, the entire produce crop will be planted on the Cherry Street farm. “As of 2011, it will be certified land to grow certified organic produce,” Mr Shortt said.

One acre on Cherry Street will be devoted to a fruit orchard, and another acre may become pastureland for a couple of Dexter cows, a breed of miniature cattle that originated in Ireland, said Mr Shortt.

Garden Center Remains

Shortt’s Farm and Garden Center on Riverside Road will continue to serve as the retail outlet for the crops, said the couple. And the land there will not lay fallow.

Where fields of leafy greens and towering tomato plants once reigned, rows of blueberry bushes and strawberry plants will take over. “In time, we hope this will be a nice destination for picking berries,” said Mr Shortt. Already, three-year-old blueberry bushes dot the landscape, beginning just this year to bear fruit. Each year, the Shortts will put in more blueberry bushes. The first pickable crop will come next year, and be sold through the retail storefront. “It will still be a couple more years after that before we can open up to the public for pick-your-own, but I think it will be a good addition to the area when we get going,” Mr Shortt said.

They believe that area consumers will support the expansion of the farm and access to more Connecticut grown fruits and vegetables. “Isn’t that what small town communities do?” asked Mr Shortt. “They support each other, and I think people realize the importance of supporting local agriculture.”

“Things are going well now,” said Ms Shortt. “We sold our house in Southbury, spent last winter remodeling the house on Cherry Street, and moved in this past April,” she said. It is good, they agree, to be back living in the town in which they both grew up and where their business is located.

Looking out over the Cherry Street pastures on a hot afternoon, Jim Shortt seemed certain of his vision. “Things come around,” he said, “and it just feels right.”