Harnessing Customers to Bring in the Harvest

Shelton, Connecticut

Hailed as one of the outstanding reasons to visit New England by Yankee Magazine, you don’t need to be a farmer to appreciate what the Jones Family Farms — owned by Terry and Jean Jones along with their son, Jamie and his wife Christiana — has accomplished through the past six generations of good farming practices and diversification. That said, visitors to the 400 acre farm will — at least for the day — harvest their own crop, be it luscious strawberries or blueberries, pumpkins of all shapes and sizes, or just the right Christmas tree to fit in their front room.

Located in the rolling hills outside Shelton, Connecticut, just eighty miles from New York City’s Times Square and with 1 million people within a twenty-mile radius, Jones Family Farms is a multifaceted operation with marketing and sales efforts that change with the seasons. All efforts, however, are geared toward attracting families and all products are marketed directly to their customers who arrive to their farm in droves. In a good year, over 30,000 different families might visit the farm, with many thousand making more than one journey.

Besides the quality products visitors get to harvest in the fields, Jones Family Farms offers other experiences that could only happen on a farm, like corn mazes, hayrides and, during the holidays, visiting their historic barnyard and Holiday Gatherings farmcraft and gift shop for wreaths, garland and other crafts after cutting down their Christmas tree.

“The big word for us is hospitality,” shares Terry. “We consider ourselves a hospitality farm where visitors harvest their own crops, learn about our farming operations and actually become a part of the farm experience.” After arriving to the farm, summer visitors park their cars in a lot and from then on, they’re shuttled through the farm to where they need to go aboard the Very Merry Berry Ferry. Three different locations known as the Christmas Tree Farm, Strawberry Valley and Pumpkinseed Hill make up the 200 acres of Christmas trees, 15 acres of strawberries, 25 acres of pumpkins, gourds and squash, and 15 acres of blueberries — including a high bush varietal located in a peat bog. As if the beautiful choice of Christmas trees — Colorado Blue Spruce, Fraser Fir, Balsam Fir, Angel White Pine, Douglas Fir and White Fir — wasn’t enough, Jones Family Farms includes a specially-designed and dated pewter ornament to decorate each family’s harvest-your-own tree.

Since spring of 2004, two acres are now devoted to grapes for producing their own vintages of fruit wines under the Jones Winery label. “We also use our strawberries, blueberries and raspberries along with Connecticut-grown apples, pears and black currants,” adds winemaker Jamie Jones. The farm also manages 50 acres each in hay and as woodlots.

The scope of their land holdings offers the ability to steward the land for long-term, sustained use. “We rotate our crops, planting soil-enhancing red clovers and winter cover crops like winter rye, and use various other Integrated Pest Management strategies,” explains Terry. “In terms of our crop diversity, we grow six to ten varieties of strawberries and fifty cultivars of winter squash, pumpkins and gourds. Our winter rye harvest of straw provides about sixty tons of mulch for our strawberries.” Jones Family Farms also relies on scientists at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station who help devise methods to monitor the size of insect pest populations or disease infections before deciding the most efficient treatments.

Adds Terry, “Education is an important part of our operations. As visitors are riding out to the growing fields, they’re given an overview of what it takes to be farmers. When passing our Christmas tree seedbeds and nursery, we explain that the trees won’t be ready for fifteen years. It sets people aback that we’re planning fifteen years ahead. It’s a very real experience for them, and we never lack for a teaching moment on the farm.”

Since first welcoming guests to the farm to cut their own Christmas trees in 1947 — then owned by Terry’s parents — the farm has kept diversifying and expanding its operations, striving to enhance the health of the land while yielding abundant, high-quality crops. Today, the operations garner about 50 percent of their sales from Christmas trees, 25 percent from strawberries and blueberries, and 25 percent from fall vegetables including pumpkins, squash and gourds. Additionally, Terry’s 87-year-old father still operates a sawmill for custom wood needs and Jamie manages their new winery operation.

To cover all the chores and manage the crowds during the nearly year-round season, Jones Family Farms hires an equally-diverse crew: high school-age youth who help with the horticultural needs; college-age adults who accept internship positions on the farm; college graduates from around the world who work on the farm as part of the “Communicating for Agriculture” program that fosters greater global understanding and awareness; and finally, local retirees who help at the retail counters. This full-time staff of five employees and seasonal, part-time staff of twenty employees are in addition to three active generations of Jones families working the farm. “We’re very vertical and integrated,” admits Terry.

“Our local government in Shelton has been very supportive of what we’re doing, bending over backwards to support family farming,” explains Terry about the support they’ve received from their local government and community, this despite the fact that some of America’s largest corporations’ headquarters are within view of the farm. The City of Shelton population swells from about 38,000 residents at night to 75,000 workers and residents in the daytime during the weekdays. “The city government realizes how family farms add to the rich diversity of the community. They also realize that in these times of failing farms, good marketing is vital for survival and farms often need to be able to sell directly to customers.”

With the seventh generation of Jones family — a two-month-old boy — finally asleep in her arms, Christiana adds, “The town has embraced our farm, but keep in mind that Terry has served for sixteen years on the local conservation commission. It’s important to recognize that farmers have to spend some time being their own advocates and educating others about the issues they face, counteracting some of the forces against the farmer.”

Jones Family Farms’ foray into the wine business has proven both successful and, synergistically, a perfect diversification move, creating value-added wines made from the fruits grown on the farm. Managed by Jamie, a 1998 graduate from Cornell University, five different vintages are produced on site: a red wine made from red grapes, a white wine made from white grapes, an apple-pear wine, a blueberry wine and a raspberry wine.

“We do a wonderful job attracting people to the farm,” admits Jamie. “But these days, people don’t harvest large quantities of blueberries or strawberries to turn into jams or freeze. Many only pick and purchase a few pounds to take home with them. With our value-added wines, now we can offer something more that’s made from the crops we grow on our farm.”

While refurbishing an existing building on the farm for making wine, the wine was bottled at another local vintner. “We’re just getting started,” admits Jamie on the tailwind of success, having sold out of three of the five wines offered in his first year of production. “Expect a one to two-year time horizon to get things up and running and past the legal permits and federal, state and local regulations,” advises Jamie. Cautious himself, he tested the demand for his wines before encumbering his enterprise with the $45,000 to $100,000 bottling machine to bottle them. “We have about a 2,000 gallon capacity, so we’re looking to make about 2,000 gallons next year,” he adds, having already begun his search for a used bottle machine.

Besides the local and regional communities who frequent or are touched by Jones Family Farms’ operations, the farm’s reach extends globally through their annual UNICEF Children’s Festival held each fall. Conceived by Jean and supported by all, the festival attracts thousands of visitors over the last weekend in October and features live music and other family entertainment — in addition to the bountiful fields, ripe for picking. Funds raised through donations and sales of Jones Family Farms’ products are sent to UNICEF, raising a total of some $50,000 over the years.

Like Terry’s great-great-grandfather once said in 1848 — still echoed today throughout Jones Family Farms as a mantra — “Be good to the land and the land will be good to you.” Now serving as the chair for the Working Lands Alliance, a non-profit coalition of 130 groups in Connecticut to encourage sustainability of farming and preservation of farm land, Terry speaks frankly about the importance of farms like his. “What’s become precious are open lands, green spaces and working farms. Direct marketing to customers is the key to survival of our farms and the preservation of our remaining open lands near urban areas.”