DEERFIELD — The Bars Farm and farm stand, a community fixture known for its tomatoes, hot peppers and corn, is closing.
Owner Dean Landale said he made the difficult decision to close the farm and the farm stand because he doesn’t own the land the farm is on, meaning he is unable to secure grants to help fund the operation. The land was owned by his wife, Allison Landale, who died in 2017. After her death, the land was transferred to members of her family.
“I tried getting grants and I was not the landowner. I used to be able to do it before, when Allison was alive,” Landale said. “It’s kind of sad, but life goes on and I had to make a decision.”
Landale said the extreme workload of operating both the Mill Village Road farm and the farm stand — which his wife usually ran — over the past five years has taken a toll on him. After talking to his brother and a longtime friend, Landale made the decision to close the farm in January.
“I talked with my brother and a close friend … and they said, ‘Are you doing it to just keep Allison’s memory alive?’” Landale said. “If I left, they think Allison would understand. It would have been nice to keep it going in her memory, but it wasn’t worth killing myself over.”
The farm had been in Allison Landale’s family for more than a century, according to The Bars Farm website. Dean Landale said his wife’s parents started the farm stand in the 1980s, and he continued to expand the farm’s operations when he left his job in 2007 to work on the farm full-time.
“I was working full time and after a couple years, she convinced me to join her full time,” Landale said. “It kind of sucks because we had spent so much time and effort and we had awesome customers.”
Although the farm and farm stand are closing, Landale said he has enough peppers stored to keep supplying local stores with hot sauce.
“That was something Allison and I came up with and that was a big hit,” Landale said of their extensive hot sauce collection. “I have enough peppers stockpiled … and I plan on keeping the hot sauce going.”
Landale said the Melnik family at neighboring Bar-Way Farm offered some land for him to use, but he has found a job at Nourse Farms in Whately.
“They’re super people, they offered me a good job,” Landale said of the team at Nourse Farms. “It’s a transition.”
Reflecting on his time working on the farm and at the farm stand, Landale said he loved being a “part of the community” by donating to the senior center and school sports teams.
“It was a good living,” he said. “The customers and people made it worthwhile for what you didn’t have for money.”