AUBURN — After being closed for two years, the Whiting Farm is reopening this weekend.
At the grand reopening celebration 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, May 9 and 10, there will be two greenhouses with flowers and vegetable seedlings. High school lacrosse players will oversee children’s activities, from face painting to building bird feeders. Local radio station Z105.5 will provide music in a live broadcast.
“We want to show the community that this hasn’t been lost,” Whiting Farm Program Director Kim Finnerty said. The farm is back, “a tradition we want to continue.”
It’ll be a celebration that the Whiting Farm, started in 1937, didn’t go the way of other Auburn farms that were developed into housing lots or big stores.
Future plans call for it to become Lewiston-Auburn’s first community farm, offering classes and gardening access, Finnerty said.
Farmer Elmer Whiting, 77, was by Finnerty’s side as she spoke. She’s quitting her Edward Little High School teaching job to run the agriculture program for the farm’s new owner, John F. Murphy Homes. The farm will keep the Whiting name. Elmer Whiting is now a volunteer.
“I’m helping Kim,” he said. “She’s a fast learner. I’m very excited. It almost didn’t stay a farm. I’m very glad that the Murphy Homes got it. They stepped up at just the right time.”
Because of debts, he was faced with having to sell the farm to buyers who would have developed the land. “They were going to have a high school here,” Whiting said of the Auburn School Department.
Whiting’s parents started the farm.
The new owner is a nonprofit that houses, educates and supports people with physical and intellectual disabilities. Murphy Chief Executive Officer Peter Kowalski said they bought the farm with 128 acres in December for about $600,000.
Whiting said he got enough to pay off his debts.
The sale included Rufus the cat, who lives in Greenhouse No. 4.
Community members are pleased the farm is staying. Kowalski hears it from the man who cuts his hair; Whiting from doctors and shoppers he meets.
“People stop us on the street asking what’s happening,” Kowalski said. “We’ve never had any project that received this kind of buzz. People are delighted. It’s a testament to Elmer and his brother and what they meant to this community.”
Community farm, lots of programs
This year, the farm will be brought back to life in a smaller way than how Elmer and his late brother, Buster, ran it.
For decades, Buster and Elmer raised vegetables and flowers in 13 greenhouses and on 60 acres of land. This year, Finnerty, Whiting, volunteers and students will raise vegetables and flowers in two greenhouses and 10 acres.
“We’re bringing back the tradition you’d expect at Whitings, but less product this year,” Finnerty said. “We’ll have mums in the fall. Poinsettias in the winter.”
In the greenhouses are vegetable seedlings, tomato, basil, mint, cabbage and lettuce. There are hanging flower baskets, tables full of bright red geraniums, marigolds, asters, petunias and pansies. There wasn’t time this year to start perennials.
The farm will provide jobs and developmental programs for Murphy clients, Kowalski said. It will also become a resource for anyone in the community who wants to learn about gardening and agriculture.
Finnerty will continue to teach, but her students will be of all ages and backgrounds. Eventually, “the farm will have a very large educational aspect,” she said.
During the April school vacation, Whiting Farm kicked off its first program with children’s gardening. Students in kindergarten through third grade spent their vacation days learning about soil and seeds. The program will continue through the spring and summer with children and their parents learning about gardening.
In upcoming years, other classes will be developed for all, Finnerty said.
“They’re going to educate a lot of people who know nothing about agriculture,” Whiting said. “People have fallen away from agriculture. They haven’t had to produce any of their food like they used to.”
During the past 25 years, Whiting said, he’s observed how people gave up vegetable gardens for flower gardens. Too many “have the mentality that they don’t need a farm, their food comes from a supermarket.”
‘New lease’
That’s beginning to change. Vegetable gardens are making a comeback as more want to grow their own food. The number of farms in Maine is growing after decades of decline, according to the Maine Department of Agriculture.
Nina Young of Maine Farmland Trust said she’s excited about the new Whiting Farm owners.
“It’s a whole new lease on the life of the farm. It’s always been a big part of Lewiston-Auburn,” she said. The reopened farm stand will be a welcome sight among people in the community, Young said.
Whiting closed the farm in the spring of 2013 with a broken heart, following the death of his partner and brother, and after a fungal infection that gnarled his right hand worsened. No children, nieces or nephews stepped forward to continue the farm.
He still has health issues. “I get tired easy,” Whiting said. But he’s able to do plenty for a 77-year-old, he said. He’s happy to see things growing again.
“I’m here seven days a week, almost. I usually come in to close up so Kim can go home,” he said.
Outside the greenhouses, Rufus the cat walks up to visitors. “He wants you to pet him,” Finnerty said.
Rufus wandered on the farm 12 years ago. The cat with big paws refused to live in Whiting’s home, so the farmer built Rufus a small house in the greenhouse and heated it.
“We inherited Rufus,” Finnerty said. “We wouldn’t want it any other way. He’s our mascot.”
bwashuk@sunjournal.com
What’s happening on the farm
AUBURN — The Whiting Farm opening will be held 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 9 and 10. After that, the farm will be open from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekends.
Hours will be longer in the summer.
This year, the farm will sell flowers and vegetables, seedlings in the spring, and vegetables later this summer at the farm stand.
In the future, Whiting Farm Program Director Kim Finnerty plans a community-supported agriculture program where consumers pay for fresh vegetables grown on the farm.
Other planned programs will allow people to rent land and greenhouse space to raise their own food and take gardening classes.
John F. Murphy Homes bought the farm in December. Chief Executive Officer Peter Kowalski hopes to eventually have a barn with therapy horses and other animals that those with diabilities and the general public can learn about.
The farm could eventually produce its own maple syrup and honey. “The possibilities are endless,” Finnerty said.
Those interested in Whiting Farm programs can contact Finnerty at kim.finnerty@jfmh.org
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