Farming was never really front and center in Josh Jennings’ game plan for life. He was a student first and foremost, earning a History degree, then later, a degree in Philosophy. Academia appeared to be the career track as he considered a Ph.D. program; he applied and was accepted, but at the 11th hour hit the brakes. He loved New England and the thoughts of riding the faculty circuit around the country until finding a tenured position left him cold.

After investing over a decade in his scholarly pursuits, Josh was back to square one. Now what? He turned towards volunteerism at New Roots Farm in Newmarket (along with serving coffee to pay the bills). It was a far cry from academia, but his dalliance with hands-in-the-dirt farming activated something.

“I had never thought about being a farmer at any point prior to that volunteer experience,” Josh says. “But I grew up doing hard work and living in the woods. I knew what physical exertion was about. I think it resonated with me, it got under my skin, and I was attracted to the challenge.”

He continues: “You know, you get to that point, you’re like, I don’t know what I want to do with my life.’ I promised myself to choose something, anything, and I’m just going to go for it.”

That something was farming and that decision opened a new path. But it wasn’t going to be an easy path. Not by a long shot.

“It was a tremendous challenge mentally because I knew nothing,” he says. “I didn’t know how to drive a tractor. I didn’t know how to plant a seed. So, I just threw myself 100 percent into it and consumed as much knowledge as I could.”

Josh’s philosophical underpinnings would come in handy as he called back on his analytical skills to unravel the mystery of growing. Seeds, dirt, and sunlight – they were systems and relationships to examine and, eventually, to innovate. But all the know-how in the world is for naught if there isn’t land on which to put it into practice. Prior to finding his way to Brentwood, Josh operated Meadow’s Mirth on leased land.

“It gave me the time to refine my growing experience without the burden of a mortgage,” he says.

However, when the lease ended in 2018, Josh was faced with a predicament: how to carry on the business without a permanent place to stay? He patched together operations on several temporary pieces of land to stay afloat, while searching for a permanent location for the farm.

And then, in 2019, serendipity struck!

THE GAME IS AFOOT

The venue now called Meadow’s Mirth was operated as a farm at the turn of the twentieth century, and for decades was owned by the State of New Hampshire as a “game farm,” where NH Fish and Game raised pheasants for stocking and research purposes. In October 2019, the State made plans to sell the property, so Josh worked with investors to purchase the land as the new home for Meadow’s Mirth.

From the beginning, Josh and his cohort worked with SELT and the Town of Brentwood to place the property into a conservation easement, allowing Josh to eventually assume full ownership of the land once the easement was completed. Brentwood citizens overwhelmingly approved the warrant article at a town meeting, backed by the strong approval of the town’s Conservation Commission. Final funding to support the purchase of the conservation easement was awarded by the United States Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Agricultural Land Easement Program.

"Josh’s path is not unique,” says Jeremy Lougee, Senior Conservation Project Manager and Farmland Coordinator for SELT. “The future of local food in our region depends on our younger cadre of farmers succeeding and sticking with the business of farming, despite the lack of security, low pay, and hard work.”

The farm sits on roughly 35 acres, with more than 10 acres of open cropland, packed with rich Windsor loamy sand (a locally important farmland soil). The flat grade of the land and the tillable soils make Meadow’s Mirth an ideal venue for a diversified vegetable operation, which is Josh’s focus.

“My product is community,” Josh says. “It’s all about the relationship to our food, to the land, and to the history of New Hampshire.”

Josh cultivates a wide variety of vegetables, flowers, and herbs, sold fresh at the Meadow’s Mirth farm store and distributed directly to local restaurants. A core part of Meadow’s Mirth business is the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. A CSA offers shares to community members, who are then able to regularly enjoy the farm’s bounty; think of it as a weekly subscription service for delicious, organic vegetables, staples that have passed the foodie test from the grower himself.

“I don’t know how you can do this job if you don’t like to eat,” Josh says with a laugh. “I like to cook so I just want to eat the freshest food I can. When I first ate the food I grew myself, I thought back to all the systems I learned about, all the challenges, and, of course, all the flavors! It just started to come together.”

THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE

What lies ahead for Josh and Meadow’s Mirth Farm? More innovation, more experimentation, more new avenues to grow the business. Within the local farm community, Josh is well-known and has had his fingerprint on so many initiatives, including local farmers’ markets, food bank support, and Three River Farmers Alliance, a farmer-owned food hub in the Greater Seacoast region that coordinates the delivery of locally sourced food to homes, restaurants, and organizations.

This year, Josh launched his Veggie Box venture, a twist on the CSA “subscription” approach, where customers pick up boxes of fresh vegetables each week at a variety of locations, including the Brentwood farm store.

“My product is community,” Josh says. “It’s all about the relationship to our food, to the land, and to the history of New Hampshire.”

Learn more about Meadow's Mirth Farm here.