Joanne Ducas, owner of beloved Mountain Heartbeet farm has moved her operation from Effingham this year to Tamworth, working the famous Behr family field right in the heart of Tamworth Village. We caught up with her to learn more about the move, and to squeeze a little info out of her about her future plans in the new field.
This isn’t her first experience working the Behr field, as she grew a crop of winter squash there about eight years ago. Karl Behr knew Joanne well and how she would respect and improve the land. When the lease on her farm in Farm in Effingham ran out, he generously offered her an opportunity to move her farm to Tamworth.
After a quite a lot of effort, Joanne has successfully moved shop and has settled in nicely. She currently has about 1 1/2 acres of the field in production along with a high tunnel filled with tomatoes. One exciting thing about the new location is it offers opportunities for infrastructure not possible in her previous location.
Joanne secured a cool-bot system this year for harvest storage from the Carroll County Conservation District’s climate resiliency grant which is an energy efficient cooling solution powered by a controller running a A/C unit. She’s also putting in a new propagation house where she’ll be able to more efficiently manage plant starts.
There will be new challenges as she gets to know the new field. Most famously, the field is a notorious frost pocket, where it can be much colder than the regular weather report in the area. There’s also the rich populations of wildlife running around Tamworth she’ll have to contend with. She’s growing melons this year, and Karl warned her of the appetite for melons the neighborhood coyotes have.
But these little challenges and the annual food cycle is what drives Joanne. Her and her team get to share the first of each crop as it comes into season, celebrating all our hard work that they’ve put in. This week they shared a lunch of tomato basil salad!
Joanne is offering a 16 week summer CSA with pickups on Tuesday or Friday. In addition to the Tamworth Farmers’ Market, you can often sample her product at the Pub on Page Hill. She also supports the local food pantries in Tamworth, Freedom, and Wolfeboro.
She is active with the Mount Washington Valley Eaters And Growers organization and participates in their Food for All Campaign. Joanne works hard to get healthy food to local families.
