Juniper Hill Farm
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
by Nicole Zappone @TheChronicleCT
Nestled across several acres of family land is Juniper Hill Farm in Chaplin. Owned and operated by a third-generation family, the farm is known for its wagon of flowers in the driveway in one part of the farm. The farm is operated by Lisa Kegler and her niece, Darcy Rose. Kegler’s father, Bill Rose, started Juniper Hill Farm in 1956.
Darcy Rose runs the animal side of the operation, while Kegler takes care of the plants and produce. “I grow mostly the plants here that we grow for all of our vegetables,” Kegler said.
Kegler is the Senior Center director in Chaplin and the plants she grows were sold at a plant sale to raise funds.
“Last year we had a bunch of leftovers, so my husband built us this little wagon,” Kegler said. The wagon is parked at the end of the driveway on her property and sells several kinds of plants and vegetables. “He got the old hay wagon from the farm and fixed it all up,” Kegler said. “It’s all cute.”
Bill Rose moved to Chaplin from Patterson, New Jersey in 1956 after he took a job at UConn.
“He came to Chaplin and started Juniper Hill Farm,” Kegler said. “He raised seven children there and we all worked on the farm.” According to Kegler, none of her siblings wanted to take over the farm, but her niece, Rose, decided to assume ownership of the roughly 250 acres. “She raises lamb and chickens for meat, eggs and she does a lot of vegetables,” Kegler said. “She does all the haying, the wood processing; she’s a hard-working girl.”
It was Bill Rose who came to Connecticut from New Jersey, where he decided to get into farming. “He was a city boy and wanted to be a farmer,” Kegler said. “He gave each one of us seven kids land, hoping that every one of us would build a house and stay in the area. Five of us did, two have moved away.” Each of the siblings built homes on Tower Hill, so they are all close together.
On the farm, Kegler grows everything in her greenhouse from tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squash, pickling cucumbers, a variety of herbs and more. “Darcy has a lot more land over there at the farm, and she grows a ton more vegetables for us on the wagon,” Kegler said.
Planting starts in early March, and the flower sale is usually around early May in time for Mother’s Day weekend. At some point, Kegler said she will have a much bigger greenhouse built across the land. She says that right now everything is a little crowded and wants to spread them out more.
The wood-processing part of the farm is done year-round. “We cut and split firewood,” Rose said. “My boyfriend does the logging, so he provides the wood, so we cut and split it. It’s separate from all the growing operations.”
On the farm, they have sheep, meat chickens in the summertime, egg-laying chickens, a few cows for beef and they also make hay. “I used to run a farmshare program weekly and that was for nine years that I did that,” Rose said. “But now we’re just doing self-serve on the wagon. It’s a really good option for people farming, because you would know how much you would need to grow and pick.” However, it was really demanding for the farm and for the family, Rose said. You grow as much as you can and hope it sells.
“I didn’t know, probably halfway through college,” Rose said about getting into the family business of farming. “It was more my older brother who was interested. By the time I was in college, my older brother was running the farm, and he was getting me more into it. Rose added her grandfather had moved to Florida by then. “My older brother really sparked the interest,” Rose said. “When I was younger, I couldn’t care less. I wanted to play basketball and do kid stuff, not work on the farm. When I got older, it just became more of an interest and passion.”
Rose attended UConn, where she got a degree in natural resource economics. “They (UConn) are very big into agriculture, so I was taking Ag classes and was trying to decide if I wanted to specialize in something or just general agriculture,” Rose said. “I ended up in natural resource economics.”
On the farm, the family processes their own chickens but uses a local Windham butcher, E&J Farms. “My grandfather used him back in the 1970s and 1980s,” Rose said.
The farm is located at 187 Federal Road in Chaplin. For more information, you can email the farm at juniperhillfarmct@gmail.com.
