Whitney's Garden Center Has Grown Over Three Decades
The farm market offers fresh produce along with bakery, deli and packaged foods. It also accepts SNAP.
The garden center's vegetable starts are sold off, but it is filled with landscaping plants and flowers in a multitude of colors, and plenty of gardening tools and supplies, and garden decor. The farm offers design and landscaping services for lawns, gardens, ponds and water features (including koi and pond goldfish), and stone driveways. It also sells mulches, sod, firewood and stove pellets.
When you walk inside the market, you notice a wide range of goods to choose from like the fresh-baked pies and breads, cold cuts and sandwiches, packaged and prepared foods, and fresh ingredients. The farm takes online orders as well.
Charles Whitney established the dairy farm on Ingalls Road in 1940; the operation was maintained by his son and daughter-in-law, Peter and Eileen Whitney, until it pivoted to a market and garden center in the 1990s by their son Eric and his wife, Michelle. Eric said he wasn't too fond of working a dairy, and the farm came to reflect that.
"Somewhere around 1992 we kind of took over. We were a dairy farm. Originally, my wife and I got out of Stockbridge School of Agriculture, we started to transform it into a market and garden center, and kind of grew little by little from there," Eric Whitney said.
"In my later years in high school, I started kind of expanding our small roadside corn stand ... And I guess basically I just enjoyed creating displays and marketing. And then after getting out of Stockbridge, I visited other other farm markets and garden centers across the state, and saw the possibilities and it just kind of grew from there.
"Yes, there was no in the beginning, no real plan that this is what it's going to be, this is what we're going to do. It just kind of grew it little by little."
The farm grows most of its plants and Whitney said some of their most popular items are the large hanging baskets overflowing with blooms.
"We grow most of our annual plants and hanging baskets for Mother's Day. I guess all of those products that we grow, hanging baskets for Mother's Day especially, are very popular," he said. "We do grow about an acre of greenhouses, so we have a pretty large selection of annuals that we grow, and we also grow perennials outdoors."
The market also has a wide range of fresh produce grown on the farm and the deli offers salads, soups and sandwiches to-go along with single slices of pies and desserts. Whitney said they bake their own bread and smoke their meats as well.
One popular sandwich is the "Pickler," which uses a large pickle as the bun. Whitney said the "Fiery Farmer" (blackened turkey and chipotle sauce) and "Route 8 Roadkill" (turkey, roast beef and ham with cheese) are two other favorites people enjoy.
The transformation hasn't been without its challenges; Whitney noted the difficulties surviving the economic collapse of 2008 and the more recent pandemic. Like many businesses in the area, he's also struggled to find and retain employees.
Through it all, Whitney's has been famed as one of the largest retail farm and garden centers in the county and a seasonal destination spot. In the fall, it's packed with families picking out pumpkins and sipping cider; in the spring, garden enthusiasts are piling flowers and vegetable plants onto carts. The market's merchandise shifts with the seasons and it closes for a few months in the winter.
Whitney said he wants to the farm to be a place where people can have fun.
"Just to be a place where people enjoy to visit," he said.
Whitney's Farm and Market is located at 1775 State Road (Route 8). It is open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Tags: farmers market, home & garden,
