SPAR Point Farm might be the smallest family farm in the smallest town in the smallest state of the US, but we have big ideas and big hearts. We’re building a farm that works in cooperation with the unique maritime climate of Block Island, using natural methods. If people are what they eat, then we’re BLOCK ISLAND.

We take inspiration from organic, biodynamic, and regenerative practices; and sometimes delve into more esoteric traditions. Our work aims to foster varieties of produce that are biologically adapted to the area and respectful of seasonal cycles. We hope our efforts create a more self-sustaining island by making more local food available with fewer outside inputs. That could mean less transport, fewer destructive practices, and more biodiversity on the island.

OUR farm is a QUEER safe space — the essence of “queer” being reconsideration of (and in some instances challenging) established ideas and norms, relating to the earth and ecosystem of our farm, all of the living entities that depend on that earth, and the larger world around us.

Regarding the earth, our farm is queer because we reconsider, challenge, and in many aspects eschew current conventional agricultural practices involving chemicals and pesticides that ultimately harm our soil. Regarding the living entities that depend on the earth, our farm is queer because we regard every life as precious and work hard to curate an environment that is life-sustaining and affirming, from the smallest microbe to the tallest tree.

Regarding the humans that depend on the earth of our farm, our homestead is made up of chosen family; some of whom identify as LGBTQ+, some of whom identify as straight, and all of whom identify as themselves, whoever they may be from time to time. We come from different places and are of different ages, ethnicities, countries of origin, and life experiences. Our farm works hard to be safe, welcoming and nurturing to all – it is queer because at any given time, anyone associated with the farm may have ideas, feelings, likes, loves, tastes, spirits, desires or goals that reconsider and challenge established ideas and norms. We are queer because our notions about consumerism, food quality, packaging and transportation, environmental consciousness, ecology (waste and environmental consciousness), relationships of all kinds, communication, love, and family itself reconsider and sometimes challenge established ideas and norms.

We all come here because the earth has healed and continues to heal us. We work in conversation with the bees, the land, the trees, the vines, the water… and we listen with our hearts and minds open so that we can live healthier, fuller lives, and bring that to others. Humans need to experience nature, and nature needs us.

WHEN we’re not working, we come together at our humble table at the Gambrel, the main farmhouse. Our communal acts of cooking, drinking wine, eating garden-grown vegetables and locally sourced foods, marveling at the sunsets and stars, and sharing and playing music feel like acts as old as the land itself. Even if the world feels scary in some ways, we can find some peace in communing with nature and each other. It brings out our best ideas — the best of ourselves.

ON these six acres, we have a lot going on. We grow lots of vegetables, herbs, grapes and other fruit; we recycle and collect food scraps and other organic material to make our own compost to feed the soil; we maintain bees and judiciously harvest their honey; make wine, cider, and mead from our grapes, apples and honey; we bake bread, pies, and cakes using native yeasts and honey; we forage for wild medicinals and hunt for sylvan fruit; we play with ideas and explore those into passions.

This has all led to our curation of an experimental vineyard of hybrid and Albariño grape varieties for making wine, several co-existent honey bee hives for pollination and meditation, a worm farm to produce nutrient-rich humus, a clay-built bread oven for baking and communal gatherings, a burgeoning orchard of twenty-three fruit species, and a market garden and greenhouse of well-loved and exploratory varieties of vegetables. We’re also growing into other areas, as we welcome spaces reserved for livestock (chickens and goats).

At Spar Point Farm, ideas become inspiration, inspiration becomes practice, and practice becomes life.