Couple grows a new kind of victory garden
Crownsville family farm serves the community through pandemic
A plucky chorus began from inside the blue henhouse.
“The chicken’s laying an egg right now,” said Bridget Jones. “That noise—”
“It’s just like a cartoon,” Matt Jones finished the sentence.
Soon, sister chickens joined in. Auburn, ochre, black and white speckled feathers fluffed and vermillion combs wobbled as the hens clucked in a collective “egg song.”
Jones’ chickens are her passion, she said,
and so is the farm she and her husband Matt took over in late 2019, just before the pandemic hit. A 80-acre Crownsville farm that’s been in Matt’s family since the 1930s, its changed through the decades, once hosting livestock, then tobacco, then produce, then soy and hay.
The most recent incarnation, Wildberry Farm, is named for the native raspberry bushes that dot the property and Bridget’s maiden name, Berry.
Shortly after the couple took over, the farmer who had been working the fields for the family died. Then, the pandemic hit. Wildberry’s spring vendor market, scheduled to open that spring, pushed to the summer. Friends in the arts and wedding industries lost their main source of income almost overnight, so the Joneses invited them to set up in the farm’s front fields for free.
“We had like, a baker, a drink person, a flower truck. Our friends down the road do honey so they were here. A woodworker. So, it was like a little bit of a mix,” Bridget Jones said. “And then they kept asking me to come back.”
The market grew from eight vendors to 20 to 30. The farm hosted a Christmas market that attracted so many visitors, they scrambled to find parking for all the cars flocking to the property. The monthly markets gained regulars. Their son, who attended school online once the pandemic began, finally met his teachers when they came to the market.
“People were really hungering for, for one getting outside, but also connecting with the community,” Bridget Jones said. “It kind of pushed us. I almost feel like it’s like, you know, how victory gardens were thing back in World War ll?”
Not everything went smoothly right away. Along with the chickens, the Joneses plant various produce and wildflowers. They tried growing a sunflower field that visitors could walk through. In the budding flowers, deer saw a meal.
“This is not an easy lifestyle,” Jones said. “A lot of people in our area have, especially in our metropolitan area, have gone other routes and farms are being sold. Our goal in life is to keep our farm, a farm, whatever that looks like.”
To keep the farm a farm, the Joneses are planting clover and timothy grass to reinvigorate the soil with nitrogen and other nutrients that will help crops thrive without pesticides or unnatural fertilizers. The couple plans to pen chickens into one of the fields so that the natural exterminators can clear insects, till the earth looking for bugs to snack on and fertilize the ground with “black gold.”
Generations of Jones farmers have died from aggressive forms of cancer, mostly brain cancer, Matt said. The family suspects the pesticides. So, he’s dedicated to farming the land with little to no chemicals.
The fields, green and brown for now, will soon be brimming with wildflowers. Matt, who has an art and graphic design background, envisions a clearing in one of the fields for yoga amid the blooms.
All of the farm’s events center the agriculture. Flower picking follows yoga with goats (not from Wildberry, but the Joneses have discussed bringing alpacas into the mix). The market and produce boxes available for order feature fruit and veggies grown in the fields behind the Jones family houses. Photographers use the farm’s natural backdrop to frame family portraits, engagement photos and birth announcements. The rainbow eggs that populate the farm Instagram – creamy shells of deep brown, olive, blue and white – come from the chickens Bridget buys specifically for the varied hues they lay.
Back at the coop, Bridget reaches inside to find two gray-blue eggs. They’re still warm to the touch. Chickens crowd the farmers, pecking eagerly as Matt scatters an early afternoon snack.
“I don’t know what the next phase of Wildberry will be,” Bridget said, “but our plan is for it to be a part of the community for years to come.”