An Eye Toward the Future At Level Green Farm-Sissons Produce

The Level Green Farm-Sissons Produce stand has been part of the Kingstowne Farmers Market since the beginning. As the market moved down the parking lot, it moved.

Time moves on, too, which means the final weeks of the farmers market are upon us. This is a good time for Carolyn Sisson, who owns the farm with her husband of 29 years, Gary, to consider the future of the Century Farm (a farm owned and operated by the same family for more than 100 years) based in Montross, Virginia.

“I don’t think any of them will work on the farm. I really don’t,” Sisson said about the couple’s three children. They all worked the farm growing up, but the Sissons wanted them to go to college and make their own choices.

“It’s so much work, and it’s so unpredictable,” Sisson said of farming, in a voice that’s a sweet mixture of her mother’s native North Carolina and Montross where she and Gary grew up. “The weather’s been so unpredictable the last few years that we really pushed them to get their college degrees and have a job. That’s what we wanted them to do. I guess if they had really, really had an interest in wanting to [farm]” they would have had parental support.

“No matter how good you do, sometimes the weather can just wipe you out,” Sisson said of farming. “It’s kind of frustrating sometimes, but we’ve made a good living doing this. But you have to work seven days a week. You have to work your holidays.”

But things eventually slow down. “My favorite time of the year is fall, because we’ve been through the whole summer and it’s so much with all the vegetables we grow,” Sisson said.

“Then kids go back to school. It’s cooler. We start in with the fun stuff. The pumpkins, the gourds … the colors are pretty. It’s just something’ different. When September rolls around you’re ready for something different. That’s my favorite time of year. I know my vacation time is comin’, and I can rest a little bit. The winter’s comin’,” she said with her lovely laugh.

Through December they do wreaths, other products, and take orders. January and most of February she can rest, and hopes to be able to slow down a little when the two of their children who are still in college are done. In the meantime, Sisson enjoys the farmers markets.

“It’s been a very good market from the very first market we ever did,” she said of the Kingstowne Farmers Market. “You’re all the time, because of location, picking up new people.”

Sisson also said, “They just do a really good job at that market because they have the right amount of vendors so that everybody can make money there, but it’s a good variety for the customers that come in there and shop … It’s really a good market, a busy market.”

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Level Green Farm-Sissons Produce, Route 3, Montross, VA 22520, 804-450-1101, 

Kingstowne Farmers Market Hours: Fridays, 4:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.