Gill Farms
By Susan Krawitz, photos by Fabia Wargin
Originally published for the Bluestone Press
Roasted Sweet Corn, a Pumpkin Cannon and Twenty Kinds of Eggplant—Gill Farms
Gill’s Farm Market in the town of Hurley is just one of the five family-run farm stands strung along Ulster County’s Route 209 “food corridor.” Gill’s Farm has been planting vegetables on the rich bottomland this region is known for since the 1930s, and at over 1,500 cultivated acres, are currently the largest grower in this area. They specialize in sweet corn that’s sold throughout the US and even to Europe, but every year set aside some acreage to grow a large variety of vegetables for restaurants, wholesale customers, and the farm stand.
Loretta Gill, wife of farm manager John Gill, manages the stand along with John’s sister Cindy Lapp, and the business reflects their warm personalities. A folksy mural created by Cindy livens up the walls, and vegetables of every shape and size are heaped in inviting arrays throughout the store. There’s also jams and jellies, cut flowers and flowering plants, and a selection of baked goods which include some created by John and Loretta’s daughter Danielle, who also bakes for Gigi’s in Rhinebeck.
But it’s the incredible bounty of extremely unique vegetables that this stand is primarily known for. Like orange and purple cauliflower, and twenty varieties each of peppers and eggplant, including Kermit eggplant (as cute as it sounds) and Fairytale, which is so tiny, it could be eaten by elves.
“John goes through the seed catalogues like a kid at Christmas,” says Loretta.
A month-long fall festival held every October is the stand’s other main claim to fame. A corn maze, pumpkin picking, hayrides, roasted sweet corn and homemade corn chowder bring the crowds, and for years, so did a free concert by singer Levon Helm, who befriended the Gill family and filmed several music videos on their land. Helm passed away in 2012, but his daughter Amy Helm plans to play at the stand with Levon’s band this fall.
Though in most ways Gill’s is a very traditional stand, this farm and its farmer are among the region’s most progressive. John Gill was the first to locally implement a fuel and soil conserving planting method called zone tilling, a solar array graces the stand’s roof, and when not in his office, John can often be found in his fields surrounded by culinary students learning about growing food. But tradition still rules—the same workers come back each spring to plow and plant and a small core group of people have helped run the stand for years. And when fall festival time rolls around, John will be firing up the enormous pumpkin cannon parked next to the stand. A discovery Channel TV crew once put a camera in a pumpkin and recorded the shooting (“It was swoosh, bam!” says Loretta), but pumpkins aren’t the only things that get shot from it.
Loretta says “It’s just boys getting together and having fun. Sometimes, it’s whatever will fit in the barrel. A friend once brought over an out-of-date turkey; there were legs, wings, other parts all over the place.”