At Black Hog Farm in Lewes, farmers Helen Waite and John Feliciani cultivate tender French lettuces, rare English bulbs and down-home hospitality.
Black Hog is part of a growing agritourism movement in Delaware in which farms are tapping their rural charm to attract new business.
“It’s possible for us to make money running a small farm—but we have to be smart about it,” Feliciani says.
Farms are sprouting gift shops, serving field-to-table dinners, opening barns to wedding parties and loading school kids on hay wagons. The extra income ultimately helps preserve open spaces, said Greer Stangl, president of the Delaware Agritourism Association.
“When the land becomes a vehicle for making money, it’s less likely to go out of production or be sold off to developers,” she said. “There is more likely to be a succession plan if young people see a future in farming.”
The agritourism group has been around for 10 years but didn’t gain much traction at first. That changed two years ago, when members started running spring and fall farm trails and farmers’ markets.
“There’s been an explosion of interest in local agriculture because people want to know more about where there food comes from,” Stangl said. “They want to make a connection with their local growers.”
Delaware currently has 2,546 farms on 510,253 acres, according to the Farmland Information Center. The vast majority of land—81 percent—is devoted to raising poultry and other livestock.
Because many Delaware farms are small, they need to generate more dollars per acre than Midwestern states, where there is lots of land. That requires focusing on higher-ticket crops, as well as developing multiple streams of revenue.
Waite, a garden designer, and Feliciani, the recently retired curator of horticulture at Winterthur, offer such niche products as the Franklinia, a flowering tree extinct in the wild. They are looking into producing galanthus, a rare English snowdrop prized by so-called galanthophiles, which can command a price of $50 a bulb.
Agritourism: Excerpts of DFM News interview with Black Hog Farms’ Helen Waite.
Agritourism: Excerpts of DFM News interview with Black Hog Farms’ Helen Waite.
Black Hog’s verdant 4.2 acres also yield heirloom fruits and vegetables that are organically grown using sustainable practices. Among the farm’s unique produce is blue Guatemalan squash that can be sliced like a loaf of bread. The couple recently started raising two varieties of ducks: tall ivory-colored Indian Runners and darting brown Khaki Campbells.
“Nobody was selling duck eggs and there is a big demand for them,” Feliciani said. “Bakers love them because they make such rich, creamy pastries.”
Black Hog has planted the seeds for a bumper crop of guests, offering a bed-and-breakfast suite to boost cash flow. Guests can luxuriate in expansive gardens, rock on the front porch and awake to coffee and quiche made from just-plucked asparagus. (There aren’t any swine; the farm was named for Black Hog Gut, a tiny tributary of Canary Creek.)
Stangl, who is marketing manager at T.S. Smith & Sons in Bridgeville, recently took the organizers of the Millsboro Farmers Market on a literal field trip, inviting them to shuck sweet corn amid waving stalks.
“They had never picked fresh corn in the field and eaten it raw—and now they are all converts,” she says.
T.S. Smith, a family-owned operation that has been tending orchards for 105 years, is one of only two surviving apple producers in the state. In the 1930s, Delaware was home to more than 90 apple farms, Stangl says. Peach farms have withered from more than 100 to three.
Agritourism can help preserve the legacy of farming for future generations.
“Kids don’t know if apples grow on trees or are dug up out of the ground or grow on a vine,” she said. “On the farm, they learn how to choose the best apple—and then pick their own.”
T.S. Smith is a pioneer in agritourism, pushing the boundaries of farming with tours, pick-your-own events and live music. The Food Bank of Delaware will hold its Orchard Dinner, an annual fundraiser, at the farm.
“What we offer is beyond is the purchase,” Stangl said. “We’re selling the experience in addition to the produce.”
The Smiths are still diversifying. This spring, the farm partnered with Great Shoals Winery in nearby Princess Anne, Maryland, to produce Black Twig, a sparkling hard cider made from heirloom apples of the same name.
“Farmers can’t afford to just grow corn and soybeans, even though prices for those crops are good this year,” said Jack Coleman, a second-generation farmer in Middletown. “They need greenhouses. They need to grow shrubs and other crops and find multiple ways that enable them to make more money.”
Coleman runs a Christmas tree farm, which has branched out into a multi-season operation that includes a 30-acre pumpkin patch, a field of Indian corn and a seven-acre pond where visitors can shell corn and feed the ducks.
His father started the business in 1975, selling off a few of the pines he had planted on the property to provide a habitat for wildlife.
“Back then, we would stand at the end of the road and hand people a saw,” Coleman recalled.
By the 1980s, the cut-your-own tree business was bustling. In one especially wet winter, the Colemans hauled customers out to the fields in a wagon.
“The next year, people came back and asked ‘where’s the wagon?’” he said.
Soon, 16 wagons were transporting visitors around the 330-acre property. Coleman built a playground and a 40-table picnic pavilion to accommodate guests year-round.
“When the school kids started coming, we grew quickly,” said his wife Debbie. “Some city kids have never seen a farm and we show them how trees clean the air.”
At Yuletime, Santa flies in via helicopter. Visitors can learn to make their own wreaths. Customers can make a day of it, tailgating in the five-acre parking lot.
“A Christmas tree all by itself is a tough sell,” said Coleman, who reckons tree sales now account for less than 25 percent of the farm’s income. “That’s why we aren’t just selling trees. We’re selling a family adventure.”
Finding new ways to earn money played a role in his decision to accept a state Agricultural Lands Preservation Program offer to conserve the land rather than sell to developers during Middletown’s sizzling housing boom.
“There is a big temptation when people are offering you $40,000 an acre for land,” he said. “But when the farm has income, it is much easier to stay.”
Coleman said he received about one-third that amount to agree to conserve his farm, a move that reflects the wishes of his father. He used the money to buy a second farm in Maryland.
“So it did twice the good, because now there are two farms that are protected,” he said.
