Linda Hoffman juggles homegrown organic apples in her orchard. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

wind-felled
green apple

leaf-fringed
metal bucket

landscape
untamed

delicious
ripe

This poem was written by Linda Hoffman in 1996, five years before she moved to the 25-acre farm now known as Old Frog Pond Farm on Eldridge Road. The only organic pick-your-own apple orchard in the state, the farm is in the middle of a strong first season and has already seen circus-like weekends of excited apple pickers.

The poem did not come from an apple enthusiast dabbling in poetry. Quite the contrary. Hoffman, a fine artist by profession, wrote this poem as a companion to a sculptural piece in “The Agricultural Tool Series: Language and Landscape.” Like all others in the series, the piece featured an artful combination of old farm tools long before Hoffman was living on a farm and growing organic apples.

Hoffman and her family moved from Groton to Harvard in 2001, won over by the farm’s beautiful landscape and the alluring freestanding barn, which Hoffman immediately identified as a studio. Also on the property was a beautiful old apple orchard. Previously known as A & M Orchards, it hadn’t been operational for several years. Although she had no prior experience working with fruit trees, Hoffman was a lifelong gardener. In addition, she was one of the founders of Groton’s Friends of Trees and chaired the organization for fifteen years, working passionately for forest and farmland protection. She traces her passion and sensitivity for the environment back to the two years she spent in Japan following college. There, she learned not only about traditional arts and poetry, but cultivated a great appreciation and sensitivity to nature and the spiritual and grand natural metaphors that can be as artfully applied in traditional Japanese poetry as in life.

For the first two years in Harvard, the orchard sitting across the street from her house and studio was like “an ache in your body that doesn’t go away,” Hoffman explained. It was a project longing to be taken on, and Hoffman felt this keenly. In 2003, she began to do some Internet research and reached out to Denis Wagner of Still River, former owner of the Nashoba Winery, whom she now calls her apple consultant. Wagner knew about apples, but not the organic process that Hoffman was determined to pursue. Still, she picked Wagner’s brain and used her resources to learn everything she could about apples and organic orchards. Four years later, after much work, learning, worry, and excitement—not to mention all the paperwork necessary to be certified organic—Old Frog Pond Farm is in the midst of its first strong season. It has grown from fewer than 100 trees and only five apple varieties to nearly 300 trees and 18 varieties of fruit tree, including three varieties of pears. The orchard is certified organic and Hoffman has consciously created a sustainable environment.

Old Frog Pond Farm is a “healthy orchard,” Hoffman explained, complete with grass around the trees, wildflowers, and monarch butterflies. A strong and sustainable orchard is one that requires less and less work and does not focus on an apple monoculture but a whole ecosystem, she added. She spoke of the process not in pragmatic terms, but instead as “holistic,” and noted the importance of being “sensitive” and “intuitive:” she is always ready to listen to the orchard and discover and respect its needs.

Hoffman made a conscious decision to keep the farm pick-your-own, she said, and hopes to encourage and present opportunities for people to connect to nature, especially children. She talked about the beauty of being able to walk through an orchard, pick an apple, and eat it without worrying about chemical residue. That connection to nature is valuable to her, she said, and she hopes to share it with as many others as possible.

Old Frog Pond Farm has a bountiful organic raspberry patch for self-picking, as well. In the future, Hoffman hopes to add about four apple varieties a year and might venture into peaches. Scattered throughout the property are original sculptural pieces, greeting pickers as they make their way through the fruit trees.

Adding more art to the farm is a goal, she said, because the combination of art and nature so perfectly represents the combination of her two passions. When asked how she prioritizes and divides her time between two such time- and energy-demanding occupations, she referred to one of the poems she wrote several years ago. It explains that there are no great divisions between her art and her farm from her point of view: neither needs to be prioritized and managed, as they don’t fit into a hierarchical framework. She is an artist dealing in apples, she said, seeing sculpture in old tools and bringing a deep and spiritual artistic lens to the orchard and the growing process. All of her projects inform each other, Hoffman noted, and as they present themselves and unfold, her passion comes from the “poetry of it all”: the art, the land, the apples, and the organic process itself.