Terrain V01 - Journal - Page 19
Sterling College | 17
Photo: Class Four
Photo: Drew Vetere
Wendell Berry Farming Program
The Farm Between
“Growing up, I loved Kentucky, but I wanted to get away. I didn’t
consider it a place I could make a life,” she says. “Especially not
farming. We saw our friends farming. We were going to get out,”
said Lizzie Camfield—and then she found the Wendell Berry
Farming Program of Sterling College.
Under the guidance of Dr. Laura Spence, faculty in Ecology and Dean of Academics, students enrolled in Field Ecology utilized the College’s newest instructional site at The Farm
Between in Jeffersonville, Vermont. Here they compared
ground-dwelling invertebrate communities in various habitats on the farm. Students enrolled in Field Ecology investigate
field-based ecological questions. They pose questions about
ecological phenomena, develop hypotheses, design experimental and/or observational studies, collect appropriate data,
and analyze, interpret, and present these data qualitatively
and quantitatively.
Lizzie Camfield ‘21
Lizzie Camfield ‘21 graduated in the program’s first cohort. For
her Senior Year Research Project (SYRP), she developed a business plan for her fermented hot sauce, sold under the Pickle
Creek Pepper Company label.
At Pickle Creek Farm she grows the heirloom peppers organically from seeds ––aji charapita, Brazilian starfish, and Sugar
Rush Peach peppers. She blends them with other vegetables
that she grows, and with spring water and Himalayan sea salt.
“The creek that winds through the back valley of the farm is
deep in the forest canopy. It’s cool in the summer, lush with wild
ramps in the spring, and flanked with wingstem, milkweed, and
ironweed all summer-long. The creek bed is littered with limestone fossils from millions of years ago, embedded with countless crinoids and brachiopods. The pastures are alive with butterflies of all colors, fluttering from bloom to bloom. This place
has our hearts, and every day I am captivated and impassioned
by its beauty.”
Student Clara Miller ‘24 & Dr. Laura Spence
The Farm Between serves as a teaching laboratory for Sterling students interested in perennial systems, agrobiodiversity, beneficial insect habitat, marketing, and value-added food
production. The nursery, wholesale accounts, and value-added
food production are an increasingly integrated part of the curriculum and the Work Program.