Vendor Highlight: Morning Dew Farm

CURATING A FARM

At Morning Dew Farm, food is grown to meet customers’ desires for culinary adventure

Written by Jan Heimlich

Most farmers take a practical, efficient approach to growing food. They decide which crops they’re going to cultivate. Then, when it’s harvest time, they let customers know what’s available. That’s not the case with Morning Dew Farm in Damariscotta. Owners Brendan McQuillen and Brady Hatch take a different approach.

Yes, they do set a growing plan for each season, but they also go about farming based on requests from individual customers, many of whom are chefs and restaurant owners.

Brendan explains that he’s driven by “my own development of my craft. I like a new challenge. The value for me is feeling like I’m part of the creative process.” A few years ago, Brendan worked with a life coach and asked himself what truly was fulfilling about farming. “The need for it to be a creative outlet really resonated with me,” he says.

Before they began farming some twenty years ago, Brendan and his wife Brady worked for many years in the restaurant business, so they understand customers’ desires for the adventurous or a chef’s idea for a new dish, even if it requires something that’s not typically grown in Maine.

So, now on the farm’s ten acres (five of them active) and with the help of nine employees during the busy season, Morning Dew stays attuned to the needs of customers. This approach not only pleases customers but allows Brendan the ability to use farming as a creative expression.

For example, a customer might ask him to grow a certain type of bok choy or an unusual variety of heirloom Italian chicory endive. A restaurant might ask him to plant a special seed. One time, a Thai restaurant asked for a non-traditional curly kale water spinach for a noodle and greens dish. Often, it’s a learning experience for Brendan and Brady when their customers "turn us on to interesting things.”

Of course, this unconventional approach to farming carries risk. “Sometimes, it doesn’t work out and it’s a lesson we learn at the end of the growing cycle,” says Brendan. He sees his work as being very human-centered. “When we’re packing, we talk about our clients not by their company names but by the owners’ first names,” he says.” We’re thinking about the individual.”

All this attention to customers' individual needs benefits those down the food chain. “We’ve always thought if we try something new, interesting, or even trendy at the restaurant level, it would be only a matter of time before we bridge that to a CSA or farmers market display,” says Brendan.

Those outlets include the Damariscotta farmers market, and when that winds down at the end of October, there are the CSA customers Morning Dew services. You can find Morning Dew Farm microgreens at the Good Tern Co-op year round and seedlings there in May and June.

Brendan also tries his hand at developing his own unique products. The most recent one is small-batch paprika made with the dozens of varieties of peppers Morning Dew grows. These are paprikas historically grown in eastern Europe and Spain. Each gives off a freshly ground aroma that are a lot more “alive” than anything you’d find on most grocery store shelves.

To learn more about Morning Dew Farm and their products, visit their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.