WELCOME TO OUR FARM
Lewis Farm is a Certified Organic, diversified vegetable farm providing produce to the Wardensville Garden Market, Mack’s Bingo Bakery, Mack’s Bingo Kitchen, and other local outlets. Our farm serves as a living classroom for our Junior Crew (local Appalachian Youth participating in our program), where they’re involved in all aspects of production, from seed to sale, gaining hands-on, real-life experience. They learn organic and sustainable farming techniques as well as how the farm interacts with and is integrated into the larger ecosystem.
Our farm sits on land originally inhabited by the Massawomeck and officially established as the Frye Farm in the early 1800s by one of Wardensville’s founding families. This 100-acre farm site is bordered by the Cacapon River. Much of this acreage is Certified Organic pasture land consisting of rich floodplain soil. We are currently growing over 50 different varieties of vegetable crops on two intensively-managed acres, utilizing multiple-season extension structures.
Shop our Organic Produce at the Wardensville Garden Market!
THE MAKING OF THE LEWIS FARM
THE GENESIS OF FARMS WORK WONDERS
As the name implies, Farms Work Wonders originated with a farm. In 2016, Lewis Farm began with just a single acre planted, a greenhouse, and a desire to provide ten jobs for local Appalachian youth. Our original 11 Junior Crew and a handful of full-time staff worked the fields of the historic Frye property with the Cacapon River running along its edge. Our early crops mainly consisted of potatoes, tomatoes, beets, okra, lettuce, and herbs, which we proudly displayed at our roadside farm stand, the Wardensville Garden Market.
By the end of 2016, we set up our first gothic-style, climate-controlled high tunnel serving as a greenhouse space for starting seeds allowing us to extend our season and expand our vegetable production. We quickly outgrew that space, adding two additional gothic-style high tunnels for indoor garden beds and expanding our production fields by the end of 2018. We also upgraded and grew our cold storage buildings to three different temperature-controlled units with a bigger and better packhouse for selling, washing, and packaging produce. After many months of preparation and hard work, we officially became a USDA Certified Organic vegetable farm certified by OEFFA (Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association) in 2019.
With our new growing acreage and storage, we could ramp up vegetable production a lot, which allowed us to introduce more organic produce to our bakery’s menu items and sell wholesale to local restaurants and cafes. Many favored baked goods from our bakery feature our farm-grown organic produce, like the seasonal galettes, chocolate zucchini bread, and veggie focaccia bread. All these extra veggies also meant we needed more retail space to showcase our bounty, so during our peak season, we proudly sell our produce in the farmhouse market and at our farm stand, returning to our original roots! We love interacting with customers and sharing our passion and knowledge of good food. Nowadays, it’s rare to purchase a product from our kitchen and bakery that doesn’t include at least one ingredient grown right here, and we’re very proud of that.
All enterprises in the Farms Work Wonders family reinvest 100% of their profits back into their youth programming. These include the Wardensville Garden Market, Lewis Farm, Mack’s Bingo Kitchen, Mack’s Bingo Bakery, and Dakota Glass Works.
MEET OUR FARM MANAGER: HANNAH PIKE
Originally from Georgia, Hannah grew up with her hands in the soil, spending her summers working on farms from an early age. At the University of Georgia, she studied Plant Biology and Anthropology, drawn to learning about the systems that connect humans to their environments and food sources.
Hannah came to us in 2022 from a farmer training program in Colorado focusing on regenerative systems for vegetable and livestock production. Hannah has farmed vegetables in Georgia, New Hampshire, and Colorado and worked in winegrowing in Northern California and New Zealand. Her farming style focuses on low-till, human-scale systems, which encourage soil health and resilience. Rather than solely utilizing machinery, farming at a human scale creates space for relationship and community building amidst the workflow.
“I love working with my hands and the physicality of farming, but I mostly grow food to cultivate connections with my community. I believe we have an opportunity to connect intimately with one another in growing and sharing food. The best part about my job is seeing the Junior Crew cultivate those connections themselves when they harvest or taste a new vegetable for the first time and can share that experience with others.”
MEET OUR FARM MANAGER: HANNAH PIKE
Originally from Georgia, Hannah grew up with her hands in the soil, spending her summers working on farms from an early age. At the University of Georgia, she studied Plant Biology and Anthropology, drawn to learning about the systems that connect humans to their environments and food sources.
Hannah came to us in 2022 from a farmer training program in Colorado focusing on regenerative systems for vegetable and livestock production. Hannah has farmed vegetables in Georgia, New Hampshire, and Colorado and worked in winegrowing in Northern California and New Zealand. Her farming style focuses on low-till, human-scale systems, which encourage soil health and resilience. Rather than solely utilizing machinery, farming at a human scale creates space for relationship and community building amidst the workflow.
“I love working with my hands and the physicality of farming, but I mostly grow food to cultivate connections with my community. I believe we have an opportunity to connect intimately with one another in growing and sharing food. The best part about my job is seeing the Junior Crew cultivate those connections themselves when they harvest or taste a new vegetable for the first time and can share that experience with others.”
