Couple establishes new farm in Hollis
By Mya Blanchard
mblanchard@hippopress.com
Life has been busy for Jack and Audrey Hertenstein Perez. They moved from Chicago to New Hampshire about a year ago, have a new 2-month-old baby and opened Singing Pond Farm, in Hollis, in January. They are attending both the Nashua and Derry farmers markets this season, where they sell their farm’s produce, such as romaine lettuce, kohlrabi, beets and radishes, as well as cut flowers and handmade pottery.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Jack Hertenstein Perez grew up around dairy farms and was influenced by his mother, who was an avid gardener.
“Growing up as a child, I loved gardening with my mom and felt how special it was having fresh, local food,” he said. “As I got older, I saw how valuable that was.”
Audrey had a similar upbringing, on a farm in central Illinois. The two met in Boston while in college, both pursuing degrees in health-related fields, Jack earning a master’s degree in public health; Audrey went on to become a family medicine doctor.
“[I] saw the connection between how important food is to your health [and] food access, and having access to nutritious food is kind of the baseline for your well-being,” Jack said. “That was also a connection [to] seeing food and food production as a way to promote the health of our communities.”
As a doctor, this was something Audrey saw firsthand.
“A lot of illnesses just come back to having access to healthy, fresh food, which was hard to come by for the population I was working with,” she said.
The two wanted to start something of their own somewhere out of the Midwest. They bought a house on a field in New Hampshire to put down new roots.
They plowed the land to turn the soil and bury dead grass, and implemented organic practices. According to Jack, this means working with handmade pesticides and fertilizers, like blended seaweed and fish, and covering crops with nets to keep away insects. It was also important to the pair to help those dealing with food insecurity, so they made the decision to donate a portion of each harvest to local organizations addressing this issue.
“Another motivation for moving to this career is the environmental impact,” Audrey said. “Especially having kids we’ve become more concerned about that … [having] a new life who’s going to be living through the more severe changes of climate change really motivated us to want to be part of the solution.”
She added that the fuel emission needed to transport food is one of the biggest contributors to the issue. Getting your food from local sources is a great way to help cut back on emissions while also supporting local farmers.
“Coming out to farmers markets is a great way. There’s a lot of local farmers you can connect with there,” Audrey said. “We live in a great area here in New Hampshire. I know there are a lot of bigger farm stands and local grocery stores that will actually source produce from local farmers … so we live in a really supportive area, which is something that hopefully the rest of the country can model from.”
Singing Pond Farm
Find them: singingpondfarm.com and at the Nashua Farmers Market (Nashua Public Library parking lot, 2 Court St. in Nashua, Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and Derry Homegrown Farmers and Artisan Market (1 West Broadway in Derry, Wednesdays from 3 to 7 p.m.).
Featured photo: Photos courtesy of Singing Pond Farm.
