I think if farmers could work together more then we would all survive. That’s something that I think is so important: that farmers need to work together, and also we need to share information with each other.  That makes us all stronger.”

Teddy Robbins

Shirley and Teddy Robbins own and operate Paradise Hill Farm, and their daughter Ashley grew up and works on the farm with them. It’s a drizzly autumn day and the farm stand is lined with pumpkins and mums. Inside the stand, The Robbins dig into the 30-year history of their farming operation.

What do you grow/raise?

Teddy: We grow produce including lots of sweet corn, tomatoes, and greens. We grow pretty much everything; and we have the fruit trees-apples and peaches-plus we grow potted herbs for wholesale.

How many acres do you manage?

Teddy: We have about 11 acres on the farm here, and five over at the Boan Farm across the road.  We used to lease 15 over there, but the deer got so bad that I stopped growing so much over there.  One year we lost five acres of squash to the deer.

Where do you market?

Teddy: This year we dropped our last farmers’ market and are only selling produce here in the farm stand. We don’t really do any restaurants anymore, but we wholesale to Lee’s still. And we sell the potted herbs to 12 different wholesale accounts. 

Has your business always been centered around direct retail sales?

Teddy: We used to do a lot of markets, and grow a lot more produce! At one point we had four full time employees and sold at seven farmer’s markets each week. And they were good markets with a lot of vendors. People would patronize every vendor at a market, and we would sell out. We would bring tons of produce — 40 bunches of beets, 30 bunches of fresh onions, and still sell out. 

Ashley: We were at market every day of the week, and some of those markets were crazy.  I remember the lines, checking people out for three hours straight.

Shirley: We were very involved in starting up some of those markets, writing the market rules and getting the market going. We were involved with the Federation of Farmer’s Markets and had leadership roles in the organization.

Where were some of the markets you did?

Teddy: We used to sell at the Westport Farmers Market; Shirley used to manage that one. We did the Sakonnet Growers’ Market, the Aquidneck Growers market in Middletown, and we used to do (the Aquidneck Market) on Wednesdays in Newport. We did markets up in Norwood, Framingham, and Milton, and a bunch closer by. We sold at some of the same farmers’ markets for over 25 years.

Have you seen changes in the way people buy food at farmers’ markets?

Shirley: Yeah, well COVID changed a lot of it to online orders, so that’s changed things. But people used to buy produce that didn’t have to be so perfect looking. Our older customers still do. They don’t care if the corn has a little earworm on it, or if the tomato has a little scuff.

What is your crew size?

Teddy: At this point our crew is much smaller than it used to be. We’re really down to one person helping out in the fields, and we have help in the greenhouses. We’ve learned a lot from our employees. Some of them came from a farming background, and they would tell us about how they grew up farming with oxen up on the mountains.

Ashley: I remember them coming to our birthday parties as kids.

Shirley: Yeah, they used to come eat dinner with us and sometimes one of them would bring a guitar.

Teddy: Now some of their kids are grown and working nearby, like at Sylvan.

Shirley: I had one employee work for me for 22 years. He had grown up doing turnips, and he could just do anything. I would tell him the belt broke on the mower, or I needed someone to do some tractor work, or just general weeding, tying tomatoes, anything.

Shirley: And we also have Caroline, who is going to be hard to replace. She’s graduating college and we are going to miss her! She does all our social media, which is a huge help for the stand.

When did you start the farm?

Shirley: We started the farm here when Ashely was small.

Teddy: I was driving trucks and Shirley was VP of a computer company. When we decided to farm here together, our main priority was to keep Shirley’s parents’ land in the family. It’s still our top priority. This land was always farmed; turnips, squash, corn. We have an old photo of cows being raised here in 1899. The barn is an old post and beam which dates back to about 1850. When we started in 1991, there wasn’t anything else here. I built the greenhouses and the wash station, and bit by bit we put in the infrastructure.

Is that something you learned from your parents, Teddy? Did you grow up farming?

Teddy: My Dad was a mechanic, so I started working on cars at eight or nine years old. But he could build too. He built my Mom a little hair salon at our house — just a small one, with a couple chairs, but she stayed busy in there. My grandparents had a greenhouse business. Back when greenhouse work was a full-time occupation. Big box stores changed that. But they had the old glass greenhouses, boiler lit with the steam pipes running all through them. Back when you made your own soil, and you had to steam it to sterilize your planting medium. They made all their own wooden boxes — that was winter work — and they used clay pots. My grandmother came and helped us pick pumpkins one year, back when we grew pumpkins, and at 90 years old she hauled pumpkins out the field the whole day.

What did they grow in the greenhouses?

Teddy: They did geraniums, it was all geraniums. They closed it before I was a little kid. I grew up playing in the greenhouses, running all through them. So I didn’t grow up within the family business, but I got a job on a farm when I was 13 near where I grew up in Whitman. It was a market farm/ I was paid 35 cents an hour! But I ended up driving trucks before I started farming again as an adult. I drove trucks until 2014, that was my full time work. I would drive in the morning and come back and farm in the afternoon and evening. I drove for different companies, and even for the Coastal Growers Co-op.  I would drive Macombers up to Chelsea Market. They used to call them the “Cape White” turnip.

Are all of your sales made in the stand now?

Teddy: I still deliver to Lee’s, and we deliver all the herbs. But we like selling here on the farm.  Shirley’s done a really nice job with the stand and we grow on a smaller scale now that we are not growing for all those markets.

Tell me about some of the products you have here in the stand.

Shirley: One of the products we have in the store that I’m proud of are the Welsh Mountain canned goods. These come from Lancaster County down in Amish Country in Pennsylvania. Another farmer and I go in on the order together and have it shipped. I think if farmers could work together more then we would all survive. That’s something that I think is so important: that farmers need to work together, and also we need to share information with each other.  That makes us all stronger.

What’s next for Paradise Hill Farm?  Ashley, are you going to take over the business one day?

Ashley: Well, I became a police officer over in Marion because I needed to supplement my income from the farm. Plus finding winter work every year got old. I have done just about every job you can think of in the winter! So the police work keeps me busy for now. I involved with my union. My plan is that once I have some seniority I will create my schedule to make room for farming get back here for the long term. My partner is an equipment guy, so he’s excited for that too. For now I’m working building up my retirement and earning that seniority, for probably 10 years or so.

So when Ashley comes back to take over here, is that when you’ll retire?

Teddy: I’ll be ready before that! I’m almost 70! Plus I have some projects lined up for those retirement days.