Adamah Farm
- Guests at Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center get to eat our fresh produce, tour the fields, and meet the animals
- Fellows in the Adamah Farm Fellowship build community among the seedlings, fruit trees, chicken flock, and even the weeds.
- Members of the Farm CSA in Northwest Connecticut enjoy a fresh share of the harvest from June through November
- The Food Access Fund allows us to grow fresh produce for those experiencing food insecurity.
Farming Practices
The abundance and health of our harvests are interdependent with the abundance and health of the many diverse species on Beebe Hill; from the billions of microbes in the soil to the red-tailed hawks overhead.
We farm for soil health, carbon storage in the ground, beneficial insects, and nutrient density. We farm with reverence for the wisdom of our Jewish ancestors, the Mahican people on whose unceded land we farm, and all the brilliant contemporary farmers in our region and beyond who have developed nonexploitive methods of feeding our communities.
Indicators of a healthy ecosystem have increased steadily over time including wildlife diversity, soil organic matter, and the vibrance of our Adamah community on the land.
- We are enrolled in the USDA’s Conservation Stewardship Program
- We have completed multiple conservation projects with the National Resource Conservation Service
- We have an active project under the USDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program
Learn More about Adamah’s Growing Practices.
Homemade Compost
We compost over 100 lbs of food scraps daily from the retreat center dining hall. Our compost pile feeds our flock of 50 laying hens and nourishes the soil on our vegetable farm. Learn more here!
Educational Dairy
Our dairy goats helps us teach cheesemaking and feed the Isabella Freedman community. We do educational kosher slaughter (shechitah) and make parchment (klaf) from goat skins.
Value Added Products
We use the ancient art of lacto fermentation-a pickling method that simply uses salt-to preserve our harvest. Our sauerkraut is certified organic and we make syrup from our own maple trees.
Vegetable Farm
We go beyond the requirements of organic certification with practices that include low-till and no-till bed prep, crop rotation, cover cropping, on-farm composting, drip irrigation, maintaining habitat for pollinators, rotational grazing, and growing a diverse mix of perennials and annuals.
Produce from our three-acre vegetable farm feeds our local community Isabella Freedman Retreat Center, Falls Village CSA members, local food pantries, and other emergency food distribution programs, as well as through value added product sales.
Perennial Plantings
We maintain a diverse landscape of plants that reach deep into the soil and hold it in place each year. We grow blueberries, currants, and raspberries for making into jam and smaller plantings (just for educational purposes and ecosystem services) of strawberries, hazelnuts, hardy kiwi, grapes, echinacea, yarrow, gooseberries, fruit trees, elderberry, aronia berry, sugar maples, and more.
Chestnut Agroforestry and Silvopasture
In 2021 we planted more than 200 chestnut trees in order to grow roots, diversity and food for the long-term future. Goddess willing these trees will start to bear chestnuts in 2025 or so. We use our boy goats and sheep to fertilize the trees, reduce competition from other plants for the chestnuts, and make meat and parchment from their skins. Learn more about our agroforestry project here.
Bedding Plants
Our seedlings are certified organic and the highest quality imaginable. We take preorders of $200 or more. Contact janna.siller@adamah.org to learn more.
Food Access Fund
Access to fresh, healthy, local produce can be a challenge for those with lower financial capacity. The Adamah Food Access Fund helps bridge the need gap for families in our community who use food pantries and other food security services.
With the generous support of individuals and foundations including Tricorner FEED, the Jewish Federation of Western Connecticut, the Falls Village Community Development Corporation, and Berkshire Taconic, we are able to grow fresh produce for those experiencing food and nutrition insecurity.
In 2024 we delivered over $16,000 worth of freshly harvested organic produce to hunger relief organizations that otherwise would not have been able to offer fresh food including the Corner Food Pantry in Lakeville, the Falls Village Senior Center, Friendly Hands Food Pantry in Torrington, and Tuscan Brotherhood Homes in Hartford.
We see the Food Access Fund as a critical part of building a more resilient regional food economy. Our approach to growing food is regenerative, community-based, accountable for the health of our soil and ecosystem, and nutrient-dense. Until food system reforms including policies and consumer choice make regenerative farming more economically viable, our farming techniques simply yield higher-priced food than that harvested on farms who are not paying for externalities like polluted rivers and wells, worker exposure to toxins, and soil erosion. Creative solutions like Adamah’s Food Access Fund make the harvests from regenerative, community-based, ecologically-friendly farms accessible to everyone while maintaining farm economic viability.
Adamah Farm Staff
Janna Siller
Farm Director and Advocacy Coordinator
Isabella Freedman
News & Highlights
Land Acknowledgement
As we gather in community, we acknowledge that the Adamah Farm is on unceded Mohican land.
The systems of oppression that annihilated and displaced Indigenous Peoples ring familiar to us as Jews in diaspora, as does the modern Indigenous movement to maintain cultural and spiritual practices.
Essential questions about what it means to be Jewish farmers on stolen land abound and we invite each of you to join us in engaging the difficult questions.
As a step toward decolonization and reconciliation, we honor the Indigenous People who have been on this land for thousands of years. We also redistribute a portion of our funds to the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust.
Donate to the Adamah Farm!
Adamah Farm Fellowship is a program of Adamah for college and post-college age people. An intentional Jewish community based at Isabella Freedman, Adamah Farm Fellowship cultivates the soil and the soul. Our farmers learn sustainable farming, while strengthening identity and changing the world. Thank you for your gift!