Blooms and Community are Budding at Foxtrot Farm & Flowers

Inside a greenhouse in Stanfordville, Kate Farrar walked through rows of budding flowers, with her scruffy dog, Pepper, trailing behind. “The whole tunnel is planted out for what I’m calling spring number one,” Farrar said, pointing to aisles of tiny cosmos, snapdragons, dahlias, boxgloves, snap-peas, chrysanthemums and delfinia. “Spring number two will happen outside of the tunnel, and then we’re into the summer season.”

Foxtrot Farm & Flowers has entered its third growing season. Since 2021, Farrar has transformed the previously vacant five-acre lot at 6862 Route 82 in Stanfordville into a flowery hub of community and floral design.

“The thing you should know about this space is just how dramatically it’s been transformed in just a couple of years,” said Josh Nathanson, who operates a pottery business just up the road from the farm. “Kate has done incredible work and created an entire community.”

Originally from Brooklyn, Farrar earned her bachelor’s degree in English and photography from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA., in 2012. Her photography thesis featured a series of portraits of farmers. “I am visually drawn to agriculture,” Farrar said. “Growing up in an urban setting, it was such a stark difference for me when I moved to central Pennsylvania. Then, I realized that there was this beautiful young farm community happening in the Hudson Valley.”

Farrar relocated to Hudson in 2013, where she began farming throughout the Hudson Valley. She worked at a variety of businesses including Hearty Roots Community Farm, Sparrowbush Farm, Montgomery Place Orchards and Suarez Family Brewery.

Foxtrot Farm and Flowers is not Farrar’s first attempt at running her own flower business. In 2018 she started a similar operation in Red Hook. “Farmland is very inaccessible for most farmers,” she said. Farrar lost her farm when an informal handshake land-use agreement became contentious.

“I wasn’t interested in starting farming again until I had land security,” she said. In 2021 she found that security when her former colleague at Hearty Roots Farm, who had since become a lawyer, was able to purchase the land and offered Farrar a private mortgage.

Farrar continued to work at Suarez Family Brewery while transforming the vacant land into a workable farm. Foxtrot’s first production year was 2022.

Though Farrar primarily operates the farm alone, she offers a CSA (community supported agriculture) workshare program where workshare members exchange two hours of their labor per week for a CSA share.

The CSA at Foxtrot is available May through the end of October. Shares are offered in large or small sizes, and members can choose between a duration of five, 10 or 20 weeks. In addition to on-farm pickup, members can receive their flowers at locations in Stanfordville, Millerton, Rhinebeck, Hudson and Kingston.

Farrar also offers flower arrangement classes, and has begun introducing a series of events at the farm in a recently renovated barn. “This has been my big winter project,” she said. The space fits up to a hundred people and held its first event, a fundraiser for Stanford Pride, two weeks ago. Upcoming events include a concert, dinners by local chefs and a pottery event.

“Kate has really created a community with a wide range of individuals, and it’s amazing. We’ve met a lot of friends through Foxtrot events,” Nathanson said.

“What I do involves a lot of solitude, so it’s very joyful to be able to share what I do with people,” said Farrar. “Farming is interesting but it’s not the only thing I am interested in and I really love being able to offer a space to people who have many diverse talents and getting to partake in their talents, interests and inspirations.”