Young Family Farm Combines Modern and Century-old Harvesting Techniques [VIDEO]

Establishing the in Little Compton has taken lots of labor, sweat and passion for Tyler Young, his wife, Karla, and three daughters, since purchasing 180 acres from the Middendorf family in 1997.

"We just love growing stuff,” Karla Young said on one early summer day while tending their popular stand. In the background is a cornucopia of colorful flowers she and her workers have carefully grown, arranged and designed Oriental lillies, begonias, impatiens, sunflowers and more. To the side, tomatoes, onions, lettuce scallions and more vegetables hinted of many more to come throughout summer and fall.

“We built the wholesale part of the business before we started the retail side,” Karla said. “We market bags and bags of potatoes to Rhode Island schools. We also sell lots of potatoes and some produce to some Shaw’s stores.”  

She said when they first bought the property, it was a lot of open space with some potatoes and no orchards. In the past 14 years, the land has been plowed, seeded and cultivated with even more varieties of potatoes along with sweet corn, butternut squash, vegetables, fruits, berries and a variety of annual and perennial plants.

How the retail business began was simple. Karla said when they went to the beach, daughters Emma, Hattie and Sarah would pick some strawberries, pack them in boxes at the stand next to the road and people would just leave the money.

“When we started getting more money than what it took to grow and pick them, then we knew we had something," she noted.

In these sweltering midsummer days, strawberry season has now passed, and raspberries and blueberries are now being picked, packaged and sold. Some potatoes are just being dug up now and sweet corn and peaches are soon to be harvested.

Another popular item in recent years, Carla added, are Portugal ‘hots’, or hot peppers, grown and cultivated on five acres of land, along with red peppers called Cowhorns.

Most people who drive on the crushed white-shell driveway and park at the retail stand might be surprised to see how large an expanse of farm property the Youngs have.

Potatoes dominate much of the landscape as Tyler takes time from his schedule to provide a tour in his truck. His faithful dog, Bella, a weimaraner, with a keen eye and scent for rabbits, accompanies.  

The Youngs lived in Concord, MA, where Tyler was born. He later studied and graduated from the University of Minnesota where he studied agricultural business. That's where he met Karla.

“During high school and college I spent summers working on my grandfather’s farm,” Tyler sayid of the 275-acre in Tiverton and Little Compton, one of the largest farms in Rhode Island, growing over 7,000,000 pounds of potatoes annually. His grandparents were Ferol and Bernard “Bink” Peckham.

And the Peckhams are but a single branch of the Young family who have lived and worked the land in the area since colonial times, and then there the Gavins and other familiar area surnames in their genealogical branches and twigs.

But Tyler has kept abreast of modern knowledge and practices to supplement his formal education to connect closely with his neighbors in Rhode Island and Massachusetts

On the farm, Karla points to stickers on their produce, some identifying their association with the voluntary Rhode Island GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) Grower Certification Program.

“It is not federally mandated, but we chose to do that,” she said of GAP, a food safety program aligned with the the state Department of Environmental Management and the University of Rhode Island Cooperative Extension. “It gives guidelines on how you grow, how you pack, proper temperatures to store produce, how fruits and vegetables are processed and how to handle food safely and avoid diseases.”

Now with six greenhouses and two barns, the Youngs get a faster head start than ever on planting a variety of flowers, along with some cold-tolerant plants and can store more vegetables, too.

There are even some pluots- a fruit that is a hybrid of a plum and apricot- along with Asian pears and other new varieties of plants.

“You can pick your own apples in the fall,” Karla said. “We sell 10 varieties. We have McIntosh, but people like the Macoun New England, Gala, Honeycrisp, a hybrid created at the University of Minnesota, which people really seem to love, and the Mutsu, which can be as large as a grapefruit."

Tyler, as vice president of the Rhode Island Farm Bureau, is an outspoken advocate of good farming practices and stays in touch with the local and regional farming community.

They also contribute to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank and belong to the Rhode Island Fruit Growers Association.

Their connection to the local area even extends to their sale of cheese and yogurt products, including Atwell’s Gold cheese from Narragansett Creamery.

Upcoming events include a Corn Festival this month and an Apple Fest during the Columbus Day weekend. They recently concluded a food-tasting event.

And yes, recipes and ideas for recipes are often exchanged. The Young Family Farm Green Tomato Pepper Relish consists of peppers, onion and tomatoes.

Karla added that in these tough economic times that “people are going back to the basics. More people are buying locally-grown produce and cooking their own meals.”

“A healthy agriculture equals a healthy economy,” Tyler said.

Download the movie