Fairgate Farm: A Small Urban Farm in Stamford with a Big Heart

Since 2011, hidden in plain sight, smack dab in the middle of Stamford’s West Side neighborhood is Fairgate Farm. But there’s a chance that if you’re a local and you have noticed the parcel of land that’s flush with vibrant flowers and rows of veggies, that you have no idea what they do.

Simply put, this nonprofit urban farm’s main mission is to grow food for the community who identify as food insecure.

While visiting the farm, I took a tour with Pete Novajosky, Fairgate’s farm director, who’s doing the bulk of the onsite work along with farm manager, Liz Wimpfheimer, and a slew of volunteers.

Novajosky, who grew up in Bridgeport, now in his 10th season at Fairgate after spending 20 years at Gilbertie’s Organics in Easton, has helped transform the farm tenfold since coming on, adding greenhouses to their one acre of reclaimed urban land, and a small hydroponics lab across the street, all made possible with the help of individual and corporate donations, grants, fundraising events, and an annual operating budget from Stamford’s housing authority, Charter Oak Communities.

Pete Novajosky wasn’t always into farming. He actually majored in classical civilization in college. Farming found him when he started as seasonal help at Gilbertie’s Organics because he “wanted to do something more.”

“Twenty years later and I’m still doing it,” he says. “I connected with someone down here doing greenhouses, hydroponic systems, and living walls at Green Up. Then I met someone else who was one of the first farmers at Fairgate. Bill Callion was the guy who got things really started and he created the position. He was moving and they needed someone, and I just kinda jumped in.”

The farm is reliant on volunteers for the day-to-day and they’ll happily teach anyone some gardening skills like picking, weeding, digging, or planting if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves. Plenty of corporations, small businesses, school groups, and organizations help out regularly, but they’ll gladly accept more volunteers.

“We’re always looking for more volunteers,” Novajosky says. “Volunteering has ebbs and flows. In the summer, in July and August, it’s usually down.”

“Charter Oak started it to get people connecting with food again, and in the past 10 years, it’s changed a lot,” Novajosky explains. “We’re mission oriented. It’s all about food security, growing food, educational and environmental stuff, composting. People have always been able to help out and volunteer, where if you helped grow some of the food, you can go home with some, but we realized people were limited on time and the ability to do that type of thing, so we started the farmstand as a way to make things affordable.”

The farmstand Novajosky speaks of is held twice a week from May through October, just past Fairgate’s front gate, on Thursdays from 3 – 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. It operates on a pay what you can afford model and those stopping by can shop for and bring home produce grown on the farm, honey that’s produced there as well, and tree fruit, apple cider, and more that’s sourced from Connecticut farms like Ambler Farm in Wilton, Sport Hill Farm in Easton, and Blue Hills Orchard in Wallingford. If you go on the first Saturday of every month, that’s the day Fairgate invites other local vendors to participate, plus, live music during operating hours.

They’ve got hop vines, too! Something they’d love to do is collaborate with a CT brewery on a beer.

As far as what they’re growing, it’s mostly anything that can be grown in a garden in this part of the country; tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, herbs, collards, kale, lettuce, onions, garlic, carrots, you get the idea.

“We even have grapevines and figs—some have been in the neighborhood a long time seeing how it’s an old Italian neighborhood—it might not be native, but it’s local West Side produce,” Novajosky says. “Even though we’re not certified organic, everything is grown organically. We grow all the flowers to bring beneficial insects and pollinators to the garden. We started the greenhouses to allow more annual growing, so we start to plan for the winter at the end of summer, so we can grow greens and root vegetables all winter long. We’re small, but growing, and have evolved so much from grants that have allowed us to do more.”

FYI: the farmstand accepts cash or card, and it’s pay at cost or what you can afford.

Some of Fairgate’s growth, aside from the farmstand, is the aforementioned hydroponics lab to help with the year-round growing of lettuces, other greens, and herbs, but there’s more.

One is in the form of a truck so they can make their farmstand mobile to reach more people in the community.

Inside one of the greenhouses that allow for year-round growing.

Quick peek inside lettuces that Fairgate Farm grows in their hydroponics space across the street where they can grow greens 365 days a year in a temperature controlled, soil-free environment.

The second are 24/7 accessible composters, made possible in conjunction with the City of Stamford, so people can bring their food scraps in to be composted, aged, then worked back into the farm to grow more food.

And there’s even a round the clock community fridge, that’s part of the Food Rescue US Fridge the Gap program, that receives weekly donations through Food Rescue US. The fridge is meant for both giving and taking and has a pantry for unopened unexpired food; a refrigerator for fresh produce, prepacked meals, and unopened store-bought goods; a neighborhood bulletin board for West Side events, resources, or business cards; and a mini library with books that appeal to all ages, in different genres, and in all languages.

If there is another part of Fairgate’s mission along with helping to fight food insecurity, it’s education, as they offer workshops and volunteer opportunities where you’ll absolutely learn tangible gardening skills and more.

“We have classes and workshops on gardening, nutrition, health, cooking demos, and youth programs that operate like the farmstand where it’s a sliding scale of pay what you can,” Novajosky says. “If you’re middle school aged and up, it’s fine to come by yourself, but we have younger volunteers who come with their parents and pick cherry tomatoes or something like that. Some people have gardening experience, some want to learn, but if not, we’ll teach you. It’s open to anyone who wants to learn and if you want to connect with nature and see where your food comes from. It’s all about community here.”

Anyone who’s interested in Fairgate Farm’s farmstand, classes, volunteer opportunities, donations, events, and more should visit their website fairgatefarm.com and you can follow along on Facebook and Instagram. Coming up on October 8, is their Rooted event, a farm-to-table tasting event with bites, sips, live music, and more, hosted at the Stamford Museum & Nature Center. For tickets, visit fairgatefarm.com/rooted.