Selling what they grow

St. Helier Farm on Bethlehem Road in Preston is easily recognized by the bright white farm stand sitting just back from the edge of the road next to a large wooden cross, surrounded by a flower bed.

Sixty acres in total, Vista Cheesman works the front five acres, and she rents the rest to a local farmer who uses her acreage to supplement his own operation. Three acres of pasture feeds Vista’s horses, an acre and a half make up a massive garden filled with several varieties of vegetables and flowers grown for the farm stand, while the greenhouses take up another quarter acre. There is a stocked pond on the property as well, which is there for her family’s enjoyment.

Vista and her parents and siblings came to the farm in 1969, and in 2001 she took over running it after her mother’s passing. Her passion is watching things grow, and it shows as she speaks about the farm and the garden. Her approach is nearly fully organic, including refusing to spray to control weeds and grasses.

The greenhouse is a delightful jungle of plants lovingly tended by Vista. Flowers in pots are intermingled on the tables with every kind of herb you can imagine and with the overstock of tomato plants that didn’t make it out to the garden. The way Vista describes it, she just attends to the plants as they do what God designed for them to do.

The vegetable plants grow right alongside the weeds in the tidy rows. Pests are dealt with similarly, by growing what Vista called “trap” crops. Eggplants attract the Colorado beetle that would otherwise attack the ninety or so tomato plants that are just across from them. Milkweed is grown in a chaotic patch next to the greenhouses to provide for the monarch butterflies and keep them away from the vegetable plants. The insecticides Vista uses are made from soap that can easily be washed off the produce.

This summer, swing down to 5640 Bethlehem Road in Preston and check out Vista’s vegetable stand at St. Helier Farm, complete with potted and cut flowers. It’s a self-serve and honor payment system most of the time. Just look for the large wooden cross on the side of the road next to the enormous garden.

What you will find will be whatever was ready to be harvested that morning. You’ll know it’s good because the person who grew it loved it every step of the way.