Greenport native Lily Doughherty-Johnson has returned to her roots on the North Fork.
Following jobs at libraries and farming apprenticeships in Massachusetts and the Hudson Valley, the 35-year-old has landed at the Peconic Land Trust farm on Horton’s Lane in Southold.
She leases a one-acre parcel raising heritage breed chickens such as Delaware, Buff Orpington, Plymouth Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red and Araucana.
Her flock is around 37, and she was getting about two dozen eggs a day, but lately she is allowing some hens to sit on the eggs and hatch some chicks to grow her flock.
I visited Lily’s Farm Thursday and asked her why she wanted to try her hand at farming.
“I think it was growing up here being around it all the time, picking strawberries in the fields,” she said. “As a kid I was working at Latham’s Farmstand in Orient. I liked being outside and talking to people about vegetables and eating them, too.”
Peas, lettuce, orach greens (also know as Mountain spinach), heirloom tomatoes and french fingerling potatoes are among her crops.
She is also teaming up with Farm Beyond farmers Melissa and Ed Henrey on a pop-up farm in the Peconic Land Trust’s Agricultural Center at Charnews Farm on Youngs Avenue in Southold beginning Friday, June 10, from 12:30 to 6:30 p.m.
At first, she will feature her pastured eggs until her other crops come in. Farm Beyond will have certified organic gourmet vegetables, sustainably foraged and farm grown edible “wild” plants, and seasonal floral bouquets.
