Our Story

A very happy golden retriever named Abbey is the real boss here at Cheshire Garden - although she'd probably say that we could throw that ball a little bit more and maybe spend a little less time in the professional kitchen (which is off limits to her). She loves the gardens though, and spending time with us there whether we're planting, hoeing, weeding, or picking (often wearing the colors of the fruits we're picking that day as she digs into the shade of the planting).

Ralph is a man of many talents - including builder and creative recycler - and he built everything here including our house, professional kitchen, solar electric system, greenhouse, sheds, and garden support structures. He didn't know what hit him when I joined him in 1986 and began planting.....

He also worked for six years as a cook and chef and is responsible for creating Cheshire Garden's exquisite mustards. He learned about good food from his Italian grandmother, a wonderful cook who knew the importance of good, fresh ingredients, so that even as a young boy, he appreciated the flavor of fresh herbs and garlic. Now, food is his passion - both growing it and cooking it.

I was raised in my mother’s beautiful gardens, and watched her put up fruits and vegetables for winter storage.

I studied lots of botany and plant science in college, including a course on organic gardening in 1974. Fascinated by insect-plant relations, I also spent more than a decade as a researcher in Entomology at the University of Massachusetts studying the behavior of insects in the apple orchard ecosystem. I started my first farm in 1978 in Leyden, Massachusetts, and joined Ralph here in Winchester in 1986.

Together, we farm this hillside and turn our harvest into our very special foods. Ralph carved long beds and filled them with compost to richen the soil. I start the seeds in the greenhouse and plant out the seedlings. Since we grow everything organically, we manage all our plantings very carefully.

We pick every fruit, vegetable, herb and berry at its sun-ripened peak. Since we don't rely on markets for our fruit, they don't need to be shipped and we can wait until they are perfectly ripe and most full of flavor for picking.

We put the same care growing our food as we do in preserving it. We slowly simmer our preserves and sauces in kettles on the stove, in small batches of just a dozen jars or so. Mustards are mixed just eight jars at a time, and we make our vinegars one bottle at a time. All of our ingredients are organic, just like our produce.