Introducing the People
who Bring Local Foods
& Products to the Co-op
Stoneset Farm
In Winter the stores of apples, carrots and other crops from local farms have started to dwindle. Can you think of another healthful product that is available in abundance at the Co-op and that kids and grown-ups alike eagerly gobble up? Blueberries!
Clara and Nathan Rutenbeck with their two young daughters, Eleanor and Maggie, manage 30 acres of MOFGA-certified organic blueberries at Stoneset Farm. You can find the fruits of their labors at the Co-op year round either fresh, in season, or frozen while the stores in their freezers last.
Stoneset Farm is located on the River Road in Brooklin and is marked by an impressive stonewall. The farm is owned by Clara’s parents, Kevin and Ginny Poland, who purchased the farm in 1999 from Edmund Williams, an old family friend. Over the past ten years the farm has produced pasture-raised pork, lamb and poultry, seedlings, and plentiful vegetables.
At the moment, Clara and Nathan are taking some time off from growing vegetables and raising animals while Nathan pursues a Master’s Degree and Clara focuses on being a full-time mother. Blueberries remain a steady part of their farming operation, though. As you blend a blueberry smoothie or take some warm blueberry muffins out of the oven, imagine the heat of August that ripened these native berries and think of the summer to come.
