Katama Farm Partnership
In winter of 2021, two farmers and two educational non profits came together to create a partnership to farm at Katama Farm.
Located just across the airfield from Slough Farm, this 168 acre farm is owned by the town of Edgartown and has been continuously farmed for decades. In summer of 2020, it became known that the property would be looking for a new tenant to carry out its educational and farming operations. For the next 10 months a committee of farmers, neighbors and conservation commission members met to discuss the best future for the farm. Everyone shared the same feelings that such a vast spread of flat, fertile pastures deserved to be farmed and farmed well. The agricultural education that has taken place at Katama farm is an important asset to both our year round islanders and seasonal visitors.
Morning Glory Farm, The Grey Barn, The Trustees of Reservation (TTOR) and Slough Farm realized that while managing a 168 acre farm and running diverse, year round, educational programs was a daunting task, If we all worked together, we could accomplish the goal together.
The Edgartown Conservation Committee agreed that everyone is stronger together and leased the farm operation to Morning Glory Farm with part subleased by The Grey Barn, and the Educational lease to the Trustees of Reservation with part subleased to us at Slough Farm.
We are successfully a few years into this partnership and it has been such an amazing outcome. All four parties work together to achieve the same goal of growing food and providing hands-on experiences for those interested in learning about it.
The educational lease includes 30 acres of pasture, a classroom with a teaching kitchen, an educational garden, a large barn and two greenhouses. TTOR manages all year round educational programming including a large farm summer camp. They grow an acre of pumpkins and sunflowers in partnership with the help of Morning Glory Farm, and manage a community garden.
Slough Farm manages 25 acres of pasture and the educational garden lovingly referred to as “the Friendship Garden”. We bring our livestock over to Katama Farm for the grazing season, allowing the program participants and summer camp kids access to hands-on farm animal experiences and of course- good old farm work. Our “flerd”, flock/ herd of sheep, cows and goats rotate through the 25 acres grazing the grassland and leaving their nutritious droppings as they move on to the next paddock. Campers help setting up and moving fence, watering and monitoring general animal health each day.
We raise our pigs at Katama farm as well, allowing them to root around in fields and areas that need “rototilling” with their powerful snouts. All summer the pigs get the food scraps from the cooking classes happening on site and in the fall head to the sunflower and pumpkin patch to clean up whats left and get the areas ready for winter cover cropping.
The friendship garden is a special place. We are honored to work its soil and create an educational space that also feeds our island. The friendship garden is always open to the public to wander through and explore. School groups, summer campers and visitors get their hands dirty and support the work of growing food. Bed prep, planting, watering, weeding, harvesting are all part of the curriculum. Students that help in the spring with school groups often return in the fall to harvest and bring produce back to the school cafeteria.
From pork to potatoes, all food grown and raised at Katama farm by Slough Farm and TTOR is either used on site for educational offerings or donated to those in need through the food equity network and our partners at Island grown Initiative.
While Slough Farm is not currently open to the public, we encourage you to visit Katama Farm to see what we have all built together. Open year round for drop in guests, visit the TTOR Farm Institute website for information about programs and offering.