Current Initiatives

Heartland is a treasure chest of permaculture education, community engagement, and intimate dining where the farm plays equal parts home, restaurant, and that “third place”.

Organic Farming

From production to consumption

Heartfield Kitchen hinges upon organic ways of living at its core. This materializes in different ways like using and protecting sustainable resources, eliminating waste, emphasizing diversity, replacing what is used, energy efficient thinking, but also caring for everyone involved, knowing when to laugh and maintaining harmony.

By making sustainable relations with the earth the focus of my attention, I have experienced many of my other life goals being nurtured as well. For example, avoiding pesticides that pollute us and the land or to capitalize on compost as a means to reduce waste and revitalize the earth is to create that healthy lifestyle we so often seek independently anyways. Thus, making organic farming the center of Heartfield Kitchen is naturally the most effective way to conjure a way of life that excels at no expense of another.

  • My experience with organic production began with a battle in the supermarket. Up until my mid 20s, I aimed toward purchasing groceries that were cheap. At one point, I had lived in a seven-person household which meant I witnessed my mom cutting coupons and spending most of her time in the aisles that sold shelf-stable products. I don’t even have the memory of organic foods existing. It wasn’t until I finally had a job where I didn’t live paycheck to paycheck that I would even let my eyes wander to foods that were more expensive. In other words, it was financial liberty, however small, that even allowed me to consider my own health. This was my first experience that illuminated the intersectionality of class, environmentalism, and health.

  • Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) started to define my journey toward ecological farming practices. During 2024, I have connected with hosts from Italy, Albania, Croatia, and Bosnia and seen how people across cultures are living in harmony with nature. Through work with collectives of similarly-minded people, yet vastly different farmers, I hone my homesteading and self-sufficiency skills. Some of these include poultry, goat, and cattle farming, vermicompost, human composting, vegetable and fruit conservation, vegetable farming, and wild foraging.

  • From organic farming I came to discover permaculture, a revolutionary farming technique that aims to build systems that support themselves. To participate in permaculture is to implement symbiotic systems that take care of your needs and the needs of your ecosystem. Such processes naturally value diversity and relationship and require active response to optimize energy, minimize waste, and maximize yield. Effects of working with nature instead of against it, combat the degradation that cumulates on many fronts as a result of non-regenerative processes.

    I am currently practicing on other farms while taking permaculture design courses and plan to become a hub for all things permaculture in the future. For this reason, I’ve linked resources from companies and individuals that have years beyond my expertise to illuminate the facets of permaculture.

    Who invented permaculture?

    Rachel Carson

    Bill Mollison’s Principles

  • Pruning lettuce

  • Before the graze

  • Figs on a string

  • Midday on a farm

  • Corn and beans

  • First romanesco

  • Unused view

  • Baby goat

  • Greenhouse oranges

  • Nepenthes x ventrata

Culture and Cuisine

Health made by the hands of history

There are the stories behind the cheese, the hog smoker, the piecrust recipe, that all account for the most joyous part of cuisine. As a hub for permaculture education and farm-to-table dining, the stories I absorb weave themselves into the making of Heartfield. As a part of the vision, I plan to host individuals or teams with diversified culinary backgrounds to showcase themselves. It becomes a challenge to to use what is produced, and a reward for all to see what someone with a new set of skills can achieve.

  • I’ve been in the kitchen since 12, particularly taking interest when my step-mother — whom has eastern European roots — showed me a family recipe for pirogies. When writing about cuisine I also recall a conversation I had with my brother; it seems every culture has a version of stuffing something in a little, edible pocket. Or why is it that corn and cucumber, although shaped similarly, are eaten wildly different? Why is it that someone might take a bite out the side of an apple but when done to a tomato, some might consider it odd?

    Tracing the answers is to track the many ways we have dared to alchemize our own food, and then joining others to say, “I like what you’re doing here.” Learning, witnessing, and experimenting in this way is to practice the environmental ethic to preserve and learn from nature. I believe when we respond to nature and are caught in a moment made spontaneous by it, we get to experience the side of our will that is at first yielding and at last creative.

  • From farm to table, people have inserted their creativity by means of culture and ingenuity from the beginning of time. Traveling has allowed me to note the many ways to work with the harvest, entertain the meaningful differences in table setting, consider when to let vegetables speak for themselves in a dish and on and on. This list continues to grow every time I watch another take on sustainable living.

  • Coconut chopping and drinking

  • Sweets from Sicily

  • Vegetarian Ravioli

  • A friend's baguette

  • Garlic mushrooms and zucchini with whipped goat cheese varietals

  • Readying spices

  • A little from the farm, a little from the market

  • Ethically hunted deer meatballs

  • An Italian snack in Parma

  • Mexican in Sweden