Introducing the People
who Bring Local Foods
& Products
to the Co-op
Lazy C Farm
Chris Hurley and Nancy Veilleux have come a long way from growing garlic in their back yard in Brooklin, Maine to where they are now running an eight-acre market vegetable farm. They first started with their crop of garlic, Nancy told me, to help pay their property taxes. After finding that they had an affinity for growing things, they began to look for land on the Blue Hill Peninsula. They eventually found a parcel on the Penobscot/Orland line with very productive soil. It was owned by a local man, Lorenzo Mitchell, who allowed them to lease the land and start a farm there.
Chris and Nancy have been nurturing these eight acres for sixteen years now. They were helped along in their learning process by veteran farmer Dennis King, and their operation grew into producing an abundant variety of vegetables. Each growing season they plant vegetables on two acres and let the other six be cover cropped to rejuvenate the soil. This year they are have planted lettuce and mixed greens, beets and beet greens, chard, broccoli, zucchini, cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, cauliflower, basil and other culinary herbs, beans, peas, winter squash and pumpkins. Many of these products can be found in the Co-op’s produce department this summer.
This year the couple is helped by their daughter, Isabelle, who is five years old, and three summer apprentices. In addition to supplying the Blue Hill Co-op with their gorgeous produce, the Lazy C Farm also delivers to Haystack School of Crafts on Deer Isle and sells at the Stonington Farmers’ Market on Friday mornings. We wish Nancy & Chris continued success with the Lazy C!
Allison Watters
