Our Story

The Wyllie Fox Farm story starts when Jamie was just three years old and first experienced the magic of seeds. His father added penny packets—a mix of seeds marketed to children—to his annual seed order. Inside these packets Jamie found seeds of bizarre shapes and wildly different sizes as well as big, colorful beans.

These penny packets were designed to spark interest in children and succeeded in fascinating Jamie. Each day, Jamie and his brother faithfully checked their row of seeds to see what had developed and were thrilled when tiny green shoots appeared. Little did anyone know that this early experience would mark the beginning of a vegetable farming career!

During his teens, the garden transformed for Jamie—from a place of wonder, to a place of refuge. The pressures and difficulties of being a teenager faded away as he tended his garden after school each day. In the summer he spent hour after hour watching his garden produce. Jamie had his first roadside stand when he was 13, set under a giant locust tree in the front yard of his parent’s farmhouse. The original handmade plywood sign advertising “produce” now hangs as a reminder in the washroom at Wyllie Fox Farm.

At about the same tender age, Maggie began working for a landscape company in San Francisco. Her duties started out small, but like Jamie, she loved her work and eventually it led her to a degree in Landscape Architecture from UC Davis.

While Maggie was going to school she continued working at that landscape company and there she met a new foreman from the east coast, a young man named Jamie. After dating for less than six weeks, In January of 2000 the pair eloped to Las Vegas. Little did the city girl know what she was getting herself into. After a few years of city life, Jamie’s heart pulled the couple back to Central New York, back to the farm!

After a year of looking, in late 2003 Jamie and Maggie found a well-worn 1850’s farmhouse on 25 acres. The house needed a LOT of work. There were no barns. No greenhouses. But the they could see—optimistically—a lot of potential.

Jamie and Maggie completely remodeled the farmhouse, not just overseeing the project but doing much of the work themselves, touching more than 95% of the materials that have gone into the renovation. In 2015, after over ten years of work, the house is almost complete. Maggie teases Jamie that they only thing wrong with the house is that he forgot to put an electric outlet on her side of the bed.

While the house was being fixed up, the fields lay at rest. In 2006, Jamie interned at Grindstone Farm in Pulaski. Jamie could not have asked for a better mentor to show him the ins and outs of being an organic farmer than Dick Degraff.

In 2007, a cover crop of buckwheat was planted on 9 out of 10 of the tillable acres. The other acre was planted to vegetables. Finally!!! During this first growing season Maggie and Jamie were still both working off of the farm full time. On Saturday mornings they would pack up the produce from their “garden” and take it to Natur-Tyme to sell to the public.

2008 was a year for big strides: Jamie became a full time farmer, the Wyllie Fox Farm CSA was launched, the first real greenhouse was built and a washroom was pulled together. In 2009 another greenhouse was added as well as a walk-in cooler, and the CSA went from 23 to 87 members. In 2010, the farm started to wholesale to grocery stores and restaurants.

But in 2010, the farm’s growth began to overwhelm its capacity and Jamie had to plant more than could be irrigated. During that summer, Jamie spent long stretches unable to rest for more than three hours at a time. By the end of the summer, the growing pains became too much to handle.

In 2011, Jamie and Maggie took time off from farming to step back and rebuild. To succeed, additional infrastructure would be needed including a few more high tunnels, a real irrigation system and a bigger tractor. But first they needed to amass capital and catch up on debts. But most importantly in 2011, Maggie & Jamie’s dreams of starting a family finally came true when they welcomed their daughter Anabelle to the world in December!  In 2012, although still not ready to start full-time farming again, Jamie needed to have his hands in the soil so he began selling certified organic seedlings to the general public.

In 2013, we were proud to offer over 200 varieties of vegetable, herb and flower seedlings to the home gardener. We also offered certified organic seedlings and produce wholesale to other farmers, retail stores and businesses.  In 2014, we faced our biggest challenge yet, when Maggie was diagnosed with breast cancer and we are happy to report that she survived her treatments and is in remission!  We are so thankful for the support we received from the community.

This year, we look forward to seeing you again after a long, cold winter!