Potato Planting at the Old Town Farm

The Old Town Farm field continues a 200-year legacy of producing food for Vermonters. The field was plowed by Nelson Lamson, a neighbor, and harrowed and tilled by Neil Lamson, the lease holder.

On June 7, 2022, the Lamson/Chamberlin family planted 250 pounds of potatoes in the Old Town Farm field. Alice Lamson, co-leasee, dropped the potatoes by hand and Neil scattered fertilizer between the drops. The potatoes were covered with a “horse hoe” pulled by oxen. The oxen, Luke and Remi, are milking devons owned and driven by Terri Chamberlin, Alice and Neil’s daughter. Terri’s husband, Steve, guided the horse hoe. This is most likely the exact way in which potatoes were planted on this very field throughout the 1800’s and early 1900’s. The horse hoe was the same one that Neil’s father used when he planted potatoes in this field in 1956. It is the perfect implement for the job when it is pulled by well-trained oxen, as was most certainly the case this year.

In keeping with the family tradition, the workers enjoyed lunch in the potato field: sandwiches and mince pie. The oxen were rewarded with an hour of free grazing in a section of the field not planted to potatoes.

In about a month the oxen will return to hill up the potatoes with the horse hoe. The potatoes will be used by the Lamson/Chamberlin family or sold at Mt. Tom Farmers Market in South Pomfret.