Ferndean-Farm

ROOTED IN VERMONT. OPEN TO POSSIBILITY.

Food, learning, and community take root together at Ferndean Farm.

Discover Ferndean ↓

Growing food • Growing community • Growing possibility.

01 / OUR STORY

Rooted in place.
Growing beyond it.

MADELINE RAYNOLDS / EDUCATOR & FOUNDER

Four continents.More than twenty-five years.One enduring question.

Madeline Raynolds has led schools and developed learning communities in Rome, Lisbon, Beijing, Brazil, and the United States. Across cultures, her work has been guided by a question:

How do we create places where people learn by participating in something meaningful?

Ferndean Farm brings that experience home to Vermont. Here, growing food becomes a way to learn, care for living systems, and contribute to the community.

Grow something real.

Hydroponic greens connect fresh local food with the daily practice of tending living things.

Follow a question.

The farm is a living laboratory—a place to observe, experiment, and connect learning with experience.

Share what grows.

Food, knowledge, and relationships help build a community that can care for itself and its neighbors.

Madeline at the Woodstock Community Food Shelf.
Fresh greens, shared close to home.

The quiet of winter.

Growing indoors through winter.

The Essence

Open video separately ↗

02 / GROWING FOOD

Fresh greens.
Even in winter.

Ferndean focuses its hydroponic growing on Vermont’s colder months, when the outdoor growing season is limited and fresh local produce is less abundant.

Plants grow with water and nutrients in a controlled environment. It is both a way to produce local greens and an opportunity to learn how food, technology, and natural systems connect.

In summer, Ferndean steps back from planting while Vermont’s soil farmers are growing abundantly. It is a deliberate choice to complement the local food system and support the growers around us.

FROM THE FARM

Interested in local greens?

Ask us what is growing and what is available. Winter greens arrangements are being developed; availability and pickup details are confirmed directly with the farm.

Ask about greens ↗

03 / LEARNING & EXPLORATION

A seed holds a future we help shape.

Let curiosity
take root.

The farm offers a starting point for learning that connects what we understand with what we can do.

School programs

Connecting classroom questions with living systems: plants, water, food, and the relationships that sustain us.

Workshops

Exploring hydroponics, local food, and practical growing through observation, conversation, and hands-on discovery.

Community learning

Bringing people together to exchange knowledge and explore ways to strengthen the places where they live.

04 / COMMUNITY & RESILIENCE

What grows here
reaches beyond here.

Local food contribution is part of Ferndean’s work. Sharing fresh greens with the Woodstock Community Food Shelf connects the daily care of plants with the everyday needs of neighbors.

We see resilience as something people practice together: growing closer to home, sharing knowledge, and building relationships that help a community respond and adapt.

The agency of the small.

A small farm can put larger ideas into practice. Ferndean explores what becomes possible when growing food, learning, and care for neighbors happen in the same place—small experiments with lessons to share.