About The Bars Farm

The Bars Farm has been in the family since the early 1800s. Allison's parents Mary and Herb Marsh started the farm stand in 1980 with a self-service cart.

Over the next few years, a converted hay wagon served as the stand still operating as self service. In 1994 ,a small building replaced the self service wagon as more display area was needed, 2008 saw an enclosed addition added to our growing stand. In 2010 the front of the old stand was replaced with a more modern and function able and even larger display area, as we expanded our vegetable and flower production. With the new addition to the farm stand completed, we feel this will accommodate the increase in our production along with a steady increase in sales sufficiently along with maintaining the country farm stand appeal.

The farm is now run full time by Allison and Dean Landale, after Allison left her part time job at Millitech Inc. in 2008 as a office manager, and Dean leaving his job as an iron worker in 2007.

Our personnel includes mostly local seasonal employees who attend to the farm stand, field and greenhouse help.

Currently we grow close to 100 different varieties of vegetables, all started from seed, and over 60 different varieties of flowers. The vegetables are sold both wholesale and retail while the flowers are sold mostly retail. We grow the usual common vegetables (corn, cukes, squash tomatoes etc.) along with new and not-so-common types of vegetables (okra, oriental eggplant, unusual squash ect). Our flowers consist of annuals, perennials and fall mums. Vegetable starts are available in the spring as well. Check our section on "what we grow"!

Allison and Dean have now extended the farm from the small cart days, and are now at a comfortable size to provide for the community.

We encourage our customers to try our many different vegetables by providing recipes, cooking instructions and nutritional values. We also provide a scoville heat rating chart for our large selection of hot peppers.

Why is it called The Bars Farm?

As early as 1692, Deerfield’s settlers erected a continuous seven-mile fence to protect crops in the meadows north and south of the town from cattle and other livestock. The north end of the fence began at the mouth of the Pocumtuck River (now called the Deerfield River) east of Cheapside (now part of Greenfield), led south to Wapping (now traversed by Routes 5 & 10) where it turned westerly and returned to the river near Stillwater. During the growing season each landowner had to maintain the section of the common fence that crossed his property. Cattle, horses and hogs were let loose to roam in the hills and woods outside the fence until after the crops had been harvested in the fall. There were five places where one could pass through this fence. Four of them had gates. The fifth, across the Hatfield Road* (now Mill Village Road) which lead south out of town, used a set of bars which had to be let down to pass through and put back up afterward. Hence the neighborhood became known as "The Bars."

*This is the road used by settlers coming to the rescue from Hatfield, Northampton and other towns to the south when they saw the glow in the sky from the French and Indian attack on Deerfield on February 29, 1704.