The potato and cauliflower fields we remember from our youth on the North Fork are, for the most part, long gone, and while you may be forgiven after taking a quick drive down the main thoroughfares on the fork for thinking these farms have all been replaced by vineyards, there is much more afoot here than wine.
Pictured Above: Mattituck Mushrooms’ yellow oyster mushrooms are among the crops changing the face of farming on the North Fork.
From the wonders of Mattituck Mushrooms to wild pollinator-supporting jam from Blossom Meadow Farm to riots of colorful flowers at the North Fork Flower Farm to the organic beef at McCall Wines, nurseries specializing in native plants, and a growing chorus of young farmers steeped in biodynamic practices learned from the experts at KK’s The Farm, it’s little secret that the North Fork is a paradise for foodies and gardeners.
What may be more of a secret is the philosophy behind the variety of methods practiced by farmers here, and the communities and knowledge networks which, like the threads of fungal mycelium that pervade the soil, provide the crucial communication necessary for a farming community to thrive.
Agriculture of the mid-20th Century is a tale of how the chemical industry managed to overtake generations of farming practice, providing chemical fertilizers and pesticides to deal with problems that come from farming just one crop. These processes were widely adopted across the agriculture industry in the last century.
Farmers worldwide now are on many different paths to heal the soil from this legacy.
On the North Fork, this problem most notably reared its head in the form of Temik, an insecticide used to spray for potato beetles, which was been banned in the United States only as recently as 2018. Remnants of this pesticide can still be found in some private wells here.
Over the past several decades, North Fork farmers have been taking many different paths, but with similar goals — regenerating soil and the plants and animals that call their land home, and in the process, regenerating a community excited about sharing our connection to our food, our economy and our neighbors.
Let’s take a dive first into the world of two farmers who are relatively new to the North Fork but who have made a name for themselves for their commitment to growing mushrooms.
Agathe Snow and Anthony Holbrooke of Mattituck Mushrooms were awarded a Snail of Approval from Slow Food East End for their commitment to good, clean food, on Saturday, Aug. 30.
Mushrooms of Mattituck
Several years ago, artists Agathe Snow and Anthony Holbrooke offered to help Agathe’s sister, Anne Apparu-Hall, who ran a New York City-based mushroom company, store some of her old “blocks” of mushroom spores and growing media at their four-acre property in the woods near Laurel Lake in Mattituck.
It turned out the mushrooms loved the shady location, which had never been farmed.
“I did quickly realize that this place is perfect for it. We have great water and we don’t need tons of acreage and lots of machinery,” said Mr. Holbrooke at a party at the farm celebrating the Snail of Approval Aug. 30. “You can do it with a pretty low-tech investment, which you can basically build yourself, which is what we did. We did it all with upcycled wood and material.”
“But you need to have knowledge and we did have to learn about it,” he said.
The couple were friends with Ira Haspel, a sculptor and architect who runs KK’s The Farm in Southold, a pioneer of biodynamic farming on the North Fork. It was through Mr. Haspel’s network that they found the guidance they needed to grow mushrooms in a way that was sustainable both ecologically and economically.
“The real bonus for us has been being integrated into the community. We’ve gotten to know all the farmers,” said Mr. Holbrooke, adding that Ms. Snow, whose family is very involved in the food industry, has leaned on her network to build connections with restaurants that cook with their mushrooms.
“Every day, we learn so much,” said Ms. Snow. “It reminds me of how I make art — when I forage, materials are always informing my artwork. They keep recycling and they remind me every day that I have to get my work done. I’m definitely part mushroom.”
“The community is amazing,” she said, adding that, by forming networks, people are “basically mimicking mushrooms.”
She pointed out that there’s recently been some controversy in the human networks that discuss mushrooms over whether yellow oyster mushrooms, a staple of mushroom growers’ crops, have become an invasive species up and down the East Coast.
“They’re saying it’s because people were doing all these experiments throwing them in the woods. They’re very good at growing on their own. We learn from them,” she said. “They have the most anti-oxidents of any mushrooms grown in America. I think they’re basically coming to save us. Only porcinis have the same, in the Blue Zones where people live to 100. The yellow oysters have the exact same compounds as porcinis.”
Slow Food East End, a chapter formed in 2004 of an international organization that had its roots in a protest of the construction of a McDonalds on the Spanish Steps in Rome, has been on a roll in recent years with its “Snail of Approval” award to local food purveyors, led by board member Ralph Reinertsen of Southold. His wife, Nancy DePas Reinertsen, recommended Mattituck Mushrooms for the award.
“They have a tremendous program here and honestly it’s a testament to how good the mushrooms are. Slow Food likes good food, but it likes clean food and the two of them are impeccable in the way they do things,” said Mr. Reinertsen of Ms. Snow and Mr. Holbrooke. “We have a point system — they got eight out of eight and a unanimous selection. They checked all of the boxes.”
“One of the things you pick up is the pride the person in charge exudes about their business,” he added. “I’ll interview people and they will just talk about the right way to do things — ‘This is how it should be done. This is how we treat our customers and our staff.’ You get the sense that this is a couple who are just extremely proud of what they are giving to the public. Slow Food is thrilled to bring Mattituck Mushrooms into our program — its a tremendous addition.”
Believe in Bees. And Flower Flies. And Jam. And Coffee.
In the old days, you may have had to beg your way onto the bench seat of a potato truck and put in a long day’s labor to hear any kind of advice from farmers here. But this month, you can just go to the coffee shop.
Blossom Meadow Farms owner Laura Klahre, whose berry farm is kept buzzing thanks to her relationship with all sorts of pollinators, has a hefty dose of information on what it means to be a farmer, bee rancher and explorer of other pollinators on the North Fork. You’ll get a chance to meet her if you visit the Panoramica coffee shop on Peconic Lane (adjacent to the post office) today, Sunday, Aug. 31 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on successive Sundays through mid-September. You can also often find her behind the counter at the wine tasting room of Coffee Pot Cellars in Cutchogue.
Ms. Klahre, who says she “often gets lost in thought about pollinators, which seems to make her late everywhere she goes,” will be among the cortados and lattes at Panoramica offering tasting flights of five fascinating jams that combine unique flavors like blueberries, Cara Cara oranges and violets.
Most recently, she’s turned her attention to “flower flies,” which pollinate flowers and look similar to bees, but are actually true flies of 812 distinct species in North America alone.
Her business’s relationship with the coffee shop, like her relationship with her husband’s Coffee Pot Cellars tasting room in Cutchogue, is another example of how this collaborative spirit is boosting homegrown businesses, while also helping agriculture here become more sustainable.
If you want to find out more about how pollinators, soil, plants and humans interact with one another, Ms. Klahre, who has studied such matters for The Nature Conservancy, The Department of the Interior and Southold Town before embarking on her jam adventure, is the go-to person here.
“I view Blossom Meadow Farm as a lab for on-the-ground innovations to increase pollinator populations. Our jams show off their hard work and connects people to why these little creatures matter,” says Ms. Klahre. “Collaboration is key. My farm can thrive and our flower fly research can be supported thanks to the generous terms offered by the winery Coffee Pot Cellars and the coffee shop Panoramica.”
“Lilla Chicco from University of Liverpool will start her research at our farm in 2026, exploring how milkweed plantings can strengthen and sustain local flower fly populations,” she added.
The Pioneers
Three pioneers of modern agriculture on the North Fork shared their views at an Aug. 25 forum organized by the North Fork Environmental Council, “Organic and Beyond — Farming for the Future of the North Fork,” at McCall Vineyard in Cutchogue.
Ira Haspel of KK’s The Farm joined Louisa Hargrave of Hargrave Vineyard and Russ McCall of McCall Wines in a forum highlighting the diversity of farming methods and challenges faced by farmers of different crops.
Pursuing in-depth USDA Organic certification is a great expense and is not always the best option for farmers, many of whom use other methods of certification from groups like the Northeast Organic Farming Association, or, for Long Island wine growers, Long Island Sustainable Wine Growing.
But there are also many other ways of achieving the goals of growing the healthiest, safest and most nutritious food.
The forum was moderated by NFEC President Mark Haubner, a Climate Local Now columnist for The Beacon and a proponent of viewing the East End as the “Peconic Bioregion,” an area within which he believes we have the capacity to produce all of our own food. He’s a big proponent of beginning every grocery run at your local farm stand, not at the supermarket.
Healing the Body & The Soil
NFEC panelist Ira Haspel has been overseeing KK’s The Farm since the death of his wife, KK, a builder who set out on a mission to grow the most healthy food possible for their grandchildren. In the process, they’ve grown a community of people committed to the interconnectedness of soil and human health. KK’s is also a recipient of Slow Food’s Snail of Approval.
While Mr. Haspel was initially skeptical of biodynamic farming, which involves timing the planting of certain crops in tune with cosmic and natural cycles, along with elaborate preparations of compost teas to restore soil health, when he tasted the vegetables KK grew, he was hooked.
Biodynamic farming’s founder, Rudolf Steiner, developed the system in the 1920s in response to concerns farmers in Europe had raised about how chemical fertilizers were stripping their land of its inherent ability to sustain crops.
Biodynamics views a farm as a self-sustaining, living organism, integrating plants, animals, and soil and incorporating spiritual and cosmic principles.
Does it work? His customers, many of whom were in the audience at the NFEC event, swore by the ability of KK’s greens to cure any cold, and many of them visit the farm to celebrate the healing power of dandelions and learn more about biodynamic agriculture at KK’s annual Dandelion Festival each spring.
KK’s famous farmers market, a gathering of well-versed food purveyors from across the East End, will be returning on Saturdays this fall, Sept. 6 through Oct. 11, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The farm is at 59945 Main Road in Southold.
The First Row To Hoe
Louisa Hargrave, who, with her then-husband Alex grew the first wine grapes on the North Fork in 1973 at their eponymous vineyard (now Borghese) in Cutchogue, devoted a great deal of study to the North Fork’s terroir — its soil, topography and climate, along with Cutchogue fruit farmer John Wickham’s experimental plantings of cabernet and pinot grapes — before deciding to take a gamble and start a vineyard here.
“There has to be a farming community that welcomes new farmers,” said Ms. Hargrave, adding that they started their vineyard before New York’s 1976 Farm Winery Act allowed direct sales of wine to consumers at vineyards. “The zeitgeist has to be in favor of farming new crops. At the time, the farming practices we were learning about (in California) favored bulk jug wines and commodity farming.”
She added that she and her husband “hand-hoed I don’t know how many acres” to prevent weeds before implementing no-till farming methods, using cover crops alongside the vines, in the 1990s.
After they sold their vineyard to Marco and Ann Marie Borghese in 1999, Ms. Hargrave put together the first symposium on sustainable farming practices, a precursor to Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing (LISG), a non-profit started by local vineyards in 2012 to certify the use of sustainable farming practices at vineyards here. She was also among the founders of Slow Food East End.
One of the greatest sensitivities of grapes as a crop are their susceptibility to fungal infection. Most vineyards here rely to some degree on the use of copper sulfate to keep fungal infections from spreading in our humid environment, and Ms. Hargrave said that is an issue for vineyards worldwide.
“It’s just not that easy” to farm grapes without fungicides, she said, adding that even Champagne, France has very few certified organic vineyards because of the need to keep the grapes from succumbing to fungus.
“Copper is toxic, and it builds up in the soil,” she said of the commonly used fungicides. Tractors also compact soil, she said, and while in Champagne many farmers use horses instead of tractors, farmers there reminded her that, while you might improve soil health, you also have to think about this method’s impact on the horse.
“There’s more to it than people think,” she said. “Agriculture is tremendously disruptive.”
“We all have to make a living,” she added. “Without you guys buying this stuff, the golden goose is cooked.”
A No-Water Vineyard and Cows that are Never Sick
Russ McCall, of McCall Wines, which produced its first wines in 2007, calls himself a “Johnny-come-lately” to the North Fork vineyard business, though his interest in preserving farmland dated back a decade before that, when he worked with the Peconic Land Trust to preserve what is now his vineyard and cattle farm, along with the adjoining Downs Farm Preserve, the site of the Native American Fort Corchaug.
A member of LISG, Mr. McCall, a former wine distributor based in Atlanta, said he had always believed it was common sense to drill seeds down into the soil instead of plowing, and to grind up the shoots when vineyards are pruned, returning them back to the soil, part of the Native ethos of caring for the land around you for seven generations.
Vineyards are a crop that takes easily to no-till farming, said Mr. McCall and Ms. Hargrave — after all, the vines are just planted once, and once the plants are established they require little if any water. Mr. McCall says his vineyard is now completely “dry,” with no irrigation, as the vines’ roots are deep enough to tap into groundwater.
He that, while vineyards are relatively easy to run without irrigation — after all, excessive watering feeds fungus — other crops commonly found on the North Fork, like sod, use tremendous amounts of water.
Mr. McCall is as proud of his herd of Charolais cattle, whose meat is certified organic and grass-fed, as he is of his vines.
U.S.D.A. organic certification is a lengthy process that requires meticulous documentation, particularly for meat, because everything the cows eat or come in contact with on the land must also be organic. Even the fence posts surrounding their pasture have no creosote on their bases to prevent them from rotting, meaning they will need to be replaced as they rot.
But Mr. McCall said the process, which “took three months and a lot of money,” has paid off — his cows have never received hormones or antibiotics, he said, and they’re also “never sick.”
“Come here on burger night, and after you eat it, you wouldn’t eat anything from the grocery store,” he said. “The difference in taste is unbelievable.”
McCall’s hosts Burger Nights on Thursdays and Fridays from 4 to 8 p.m. — registration is required. More details are on their website.
Farming Here Isn’t for Sissies
Farming in a place like Long Island isn’t for the faint of heart. Between the high cost of land and labor and the geography at the end of an island with very few egress points to ship their products, on top of the worries about weather that plague all farmers, choosing this career path is a guarantee of long hours of hard labor.
But for many, it’s a calling. On the North Fork, the Peconic Land Trust’s Charnews Farm on Youngs Avenue in Southold, along with its Farms for the Future initiative, has spurred much of the innovation that can be found here.
Charnew’s Farm will serve as the home base for the 19th Annual North Fork Foodie Tour next Sunday, Sept. 7.
Organized by the North Fork Reform Synagogue, 19 farmers and food producers across the North Fork will open up their operations for tours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. At Charnew’s Farm, speakers throughout the day will discuss encouraging new farmers, how to chose local fish, intensive no-till farming, coffee roasting and beekeeping.
KK’s The Farm is on the tour, as is Mattituck Mushrooms. Slow Food East End, giver of the Snail of Approval, is hosting cooking demonstrations with chef, nutritionist and food writer Gail Watson at Golden Acres Organic farm in Jamesport from 11 a.m. to Noon and 1 to 2 p.m. Tour details and tickets are at northforkfoodietour.com.
Golden Acres, which is USDA Certified Organic, is also the site of one of ReWild Long Island’s community food scrap composting drop-off sites, where you can learn more about how East Enders are closing the loop on food waste.
The Hub is Coming…
Another piece is about to be placed in this puzzle of building a farming ecosystem: East End Food’s long-awaited Food Hub in Riverhead, which recently received a $5 million grant from New York State to provide crucial access to commercial kitchen and packing space for farmers from throughout the East End. Their building, the former Homeside Florist on the southwest corner of Route 105 and Route 25, had been the site of a busy winter farmers market before renovations began last year. That market is expected to eventually return when the renovations are complete.
Many farms had previously partnered with East End Food for the prior decade, processing their products in a rented commercial kitchen at Stony Brook Southampton College. East End Food lost their lease there in 2024, and since then we’ve heard from farmers who are working with pack-out houses as far away as the Hudson Valley because they no longer have access to East End Food’s facilities.
“We’re still very focused on creating healthier and more resilient food systems,” said East End Food Executive Directer Marci Moreau in an interview with The Beacon shortly after the grant announcement in May. “This can be such a monumental, epic center for so many people.”
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