Farm Team
We are dedicated to the land, the sea, and our local community. We’re invested in a vibrant future for agriculture in Washington County and beyond.
Smithereen Farm is a super diverse family farm with a small farm team who make it all possible. Full and part time positions focus on vegetable production, seedlings/ nursery, wild harvest, farmstore clerking, processing, packing and shipping in kitchen/warehouse, and of course in the office coordinating.
Severine von Tscharner Welcome
Severine feels so grateful to be making a home, a family, and a diverse orchard in this beautiful town of Pembroke, and to welcome kids, campers, and workshop attendees from near and far. Making delicious products from the farm’s own production is a long-held dream come true, in 2024 Severine and Terran welcomed their second child to enjoy the fruit from the farm’s young orchards.
The holistic goal for this farm, farmstore, and U-Pick operation is to produce and serve the community with local food, to build a diverse and generative agroforestry farm system, to offer fun and intersectional nature study, and to welcome artists, teachers and young farmers to this little corner of northern New England. To achieve these goals, Smithereen Farm partners with our sister organization, Greenhorns which hosts a series of summer workshops and camps on the farm.
Severine has been at the helm of Greenhorns for seventeen years, making films, books, workshops, radio, guidebooks, and multi-media for and about the young farmers movement. She is co-founder of the National Young Farmers Coalition and currently serves on the boards of The Merwin Conservancy, The Schumacher Center for New Economics, Farm Hack, Agrarian Trust, and The Savanna Institute. She is also publisher of the New Farmers Almanac, now in its seventh edition.
Brought up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Severine has worked on alpine dairies, and tropical agroforestry projects and various organic farms; apprenticing at the Kirstenbosch Botanic Garden in Cape Town, South Africa and Camp Joy in Boulder Creek, California. She got certified in Grow Biointensive in Mendocino, California; did permaculture teacher training at Bullock’s Permaculture Homestead on Orcas Island, Washington; and received the 12-week farm-to-table cookery school certificate at Ballymaloe in County Cork Ireland.
Previous to arriving in Pembroke in 2017 she lived in upstate NY where she helped start a food hub, created a farm for the Standard Hotel in Staatsburg NY, and oversaw a biodynamic transition for a family citrus ranch in Southern California. She holds a B.S. in Conservation with a focus in AgroEcology from the College of Natural Resources at University of California, Berkeley. She is pleased to serve on the planning committee of Washington/Hancock County’s newly designated National Heritage Area. Other valuable networks include the Maine Seaweed Council, Slow Fish USA and the Local Catch Network, and the Seaweed Commons.
Terran Welcome
Terran Welcome is a young farmer born and raised in rural Maine. He holds strong ties to the highlands of our state and to our local bold coast. His mother Rhonda and her husband Chuck run the Turtle Dance Co-op in Lubec.
Terran brings with him a varied history of work experience, including multiple seasons of organic market gardening, several years spent as a farmhand on a commercial dairy operation, years as a coordinator and trip leader for youth wilderness outdoor recreation camps, and most recently as a private landscaper and caretaker. Terran is passionate about self-sufficiency, grassroots community service, and environmental education, and is pleased to bring all his skills to Smithereen Farm and the Downeast community. Severine and Terran were married on board the historic sail vessel ROSEWAY in 2022.
Our farm is blessed to be joined by daughters Alva Cosima von Tscharner Welcome and Penelope Overton von Tscharner Welcome—already fully involved in every aspect of our diverse operation.
Kyle Miller
I grew up on Maryland’s Eastern Shore where I spent my childhood years fishing, crabbing, and exploring the Chesapeake and its many tributaries. I spent six years as a math and social studies teacher in Washington D.C., where I started a gardening club and my interest for growing food began. I decided to step away from the world of education and pursue a life in farming. I moved to Hawaii where I worked on a farm on the island of Kauai and was able to deepen my understanding of permaculture and organic farming. Prior to arriving at Smithereen, I lived in Vermont and spent time as a carpenter while also working with a local commercial compost maker. I am passionate about high quality, sustainably-grown food and its ability to bring a community together and am excited about helping to play a part in it while at Smithereen!
Nadine Biss
Nadine Biss is a native Eastporter who, after many years of global wandering, is back in Washington county and excited to be a part of the local food ecosystem at Smithereen Farm. She grew up very musically-involved at the Eastport Arts Center and ended up working on community projects and fundraising for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 2017, she flew across the world for a year of exploration in Australia, which turned into five years between Oz and New Zealand. While there, she developed interests in cookery, permaculture and intentional communities—which she put to use in Christchurch to co-create a warehouse community based on principles of inclusion, resourcefulness and a good bit of scavenging. In 2022, she returned to Eastport and, in-between travels in Europe and North Africa, she worked remotely managing the Maine Civic Halls Initiative, a project of Greenhorns, Maine Preservation and the Friends of Liberty Hall. This research on Washington and Hancock counties’ local community infrastructure was published in July 2023 and will be extended to include a statewide map and survey. This year, she has plans to cook up a storm at Smithereen’s own commercial kitchen, the Minke, play fiddle music, sew and quilt and go for lots of swims at Nash Lake with family, both human and canine
Molly Adams
Molly Adams is the Southern Maine Liason for Smithereen Farm, and helps with PR and marketing for the Eat Downeast campaign. As a professional conversationalist who can lift fifty pounds, Molly loves to provide logistics, labor, and promotional efforts for Smithereen Farm in the commercial center of the state. She lives in Portland with her family.
Kacie Loparto
Kacie Loparto is Smithereen Farm’s Seaweed Harvest Capitan. Kacie formerly worked as a seaweed harvester for several well-established and budding seaweed businesses between 2007 and 2015. She became well versed in the work and rhythm of the wild seaweed harvest as apprentice to Larch Hanson of Maine Seaweed Company. Extending her experience to the waters of the West Coast, Kacie worked with Pacific Wildcraft Seaweed.
She assumed leadership roles helping the owners of these businesses train new workers in nearly every aspect of the seasonal and cyclical work.
Today Kacie enjoys traveling three hours up coast to Pembroke to lead workshops in foraging the seven primary edible varieties of seaweed found on the Maine Coast. Although Kacie no longer sells seaweed as she once did under the guise of She Sells Seaweed, there is nothing she enjoys more than walking along Maine’s Piney coast smelling the salt air with an eye always out for a few morsels of seaweed.
Charlotte Watson
Charlotte Watson has made her way Downeast by way of the Mississippi Delta. What was initiated by a desire to beat the heat farming the humid South has resulted in a continued interest in what is possible at Smithereen Farm.
Charlotte’s earliest experiences of agriculture were annual spring visits to a family favorite farm stand and U-Pick where she and her sisters harvested strawberries and snapdragons. After spending the last five years farming flowers, Charlotte comes to Smithereen Farm with a big heart for beauty and an infectious ethic of care.
Here is a short list of many of the kind people who have helped Smithereen farm to grow.
- Glen Leighton built the cedar oyster boxes
- Steve Brown did all the tractoring, mowing, stone moving and machine work at the farm
- Ginny Maki made all the labels for our products
- Raivo Vihman of Haystack Joinery built most of the structures on the farm.
- Mike Lancona built the yurts
- Dan Paluska built all the composting toilets and mud ovens
- Robby Cushman slaughtered most of the animals on the farm
- Gil Whitehead cut most of the trees on the farm.
- Colin Sullivan Stevens painted most of the signs on the farm
- Rosy Keyser designed the mast head and painted murals
- Bob Mcallister fixed most of the pipes and wires on the farm.
- Jason Leighton plowed all of the snow on the farm and milled the lumber
- Tom Baldwin laid out and helped plant the first orchard
- Abby Barrows and Adam Campbell taught us about farming oysters
- Elijah Brice taught us about farming kelp and hauled all the kelp in his boat.
- Evangeline Krajewsk tended the farm lovingly for the 2020–2021 seasons
- Jon Leavitt has documented us and taught us birds on the farm
- Jim Kovaleski taught scything lessons to all the interns
- Regina Grabrovac pruned all the apple trees
- Vidar Bay built the timberframe and made all the seedling trays
- Jenn Eager grazed her sheep on the pastures, taming and improving them.
- Margie Chambers cut the trails, inoculated logs and planted all the strawberries and raspberries and harvested seaweed
- Tide Mill Farm kept their cows on the land, taming and improving the pastures
- Lydia Lapporte organized lots of spreadsheets and paperwork for the farm and seaweed commons
- Peter Kirn catalogued most of the books in the library
- Branan Buehner pushed back the forest edges and made lots of mulch for the farm
- Tucka B set up the beehives
- Jacob Smoklinski hauled endless seaweed to compost the orchard
- Mike Reddy did lots of shingling and fixing on the farm
- Asher Kaplan made lots of beautiful bread
- Colin McMullin built the drying racks and gave us a kitchen sink
- Matt Lippencott and Joe Bossen advised us on equipment
- Lucy Zwigard set up the Hipcamp program for the farm
- Noah and Elizabeth Smith made lovely movies about the farm
- Rachel Darke took great photos
- Paul Molyneaux taught us catch and process Mackrel
- Brett Cicotelli taught us to dip and smoke alewives
- Kate Morgan set up so many of the office systems
- Tim Nelson did all the wood stoves and roof shingling
- Haley Marketos harvested and pressed the most of the apples
- Marcus and Malcom did a lot of shingling and mowing and grant writing
- Eric Francis re-clabbered Grey Lodge and Farm Shop
- Grant Shultz and Mike Change brought us the Mycological Lab equipment from North Carolina
- John Cox fixed all the windows in Odd Fellows Hall
- Trevor Hold put a new roof on Grey Lodge and Elver
- Patrick Mehar cleaned all the chimneys
- Alex and Flor Wolfe painted walls and halls all winter long
- Louis Hudson cleaned and organized the Odd Fellows Hall
- Tareq and Sam and Reid did a lot of painting, building and mowing and farming
- Andy fixed the heating in the Odd Fellows Hall
- Jonathan Hall advised us on repairs to the Odd Fellows Hall
- Eric Holms tested all the water
- Odessa Piper made recipes for our products
- John Morris taught us all the regulations
- Markley Boyer taught us mapping
- Rachel Bell made a lot of blueberry jam
- Rachel Alexandrou made a lot of blueberry jam
- Jarrod Fowler advised us on pollinator habitat and native plant selections
- Sarah Wenzel fisher made the clothesline and got us on slack
- Dave Olsen built the greenhouse and smokehouse
- Ryan Redmond and Brian Priest fixed all the cars many times
- John Melby sold us most of the furniture, cheap!
- Dan Colby fixed up the farmhouse before we got here
- Renata von Tscharner sewed all the cushions and all the tablecloths and all the holes
- Nicole Lavelle helps with graphic design and internet things
- Tess Rubinstein brought us the artwork for the fabulous Eat Downeast campaign, and painted signage on campus for the farmstore and Blueberry Land
- Butch Harris dropped our LPA moorings and helped us find them when they dragged
- Brett Cicotelli for inspiring us to ‘ shape the destiny’ of the motel and mill pond
- Finn Smith and Sophie Perry worked the 2023 season, Arrival season of Alva!
- Lee, Lou and Nathalie watched the farm all winter 2023
- Walter Sharon, Joseph and Jessica Terhune worked at the farm 2024 season
- Rob Lawrence set up the recycling center and joyfully served as hospitality director
- Noelle McIntyre built out the Square
- Michelle Bond making product all summer long
- Kelsey Pike has been helping since the beginning with farmstore, blueberries, hospitality
- Sue van Hook incubated and runs the MYCOBUOYS program, beginning here!
- Finn has thankfully returned for blueberry season support
- Angus Dieghan taught us hard cider, and makes cider from our Washington County Apples
- Shelley Thompson helped us put the first oysters, and joins in the aquaculture dimension
- Ron Morgan dug all the septic systems
- Aga Dixon did all the paperwork for compliance and permitting
- Jess Muise helped us prepare and write critical infrastructure grants
- Alex Shuey helped draw up our masterplan
- Rhonda Welcome corralling all the babies and taking them to the Pennamaquan to swim on those very hot days
- Rebecca Guiltner, wonderful alewife trail sign painter and babysitter
- Anna Grimshaw, resident anthropologist and champion of positivity
- Margarita Paredes and crew, wonderful painters
- Jenny McNulty, Tiffany Wolff, Rinne Allen, Chris Battaglia, Wilder Nicholson, Rachel Darke, Sarah Guiltner, Justin Smolski, all took wonderful photos of the farm
Working with us
We grow, make, pack, process and ship thirteen value-added products and run a Farmstore 7 days a week from May-October. We also host Greenhorns educational programming, run an agritourism campsite on the blueberry barrens, and host U-Pick blueberries. Our Minke Commercial Kitchen is a shared-use facility and our LFPP grant allows us to run the “Eat Downeast” marketing campaign and food producer database, and to provide connectivity support for growers in Washington County. Employees are mostly seasonal, we insist on in-person interviews for all posted positions, and we prefer longer lead times. All of the workers and helpers on the farm learn and contribute to a dynamic and positive environment that prioritizes agroecology, medicinal plants, native and rare fruits, life-long learning, community service and engagement, hosting of guests and artists, creating delicious food, and communicating well together.
Returning farm workers often come to help with blueberry harvest, seaweed harvest, or to help support special workshops.
We run a tight ship with Bangor Payroll, workers’ comp, personnel policies, required trainings, and lots of compliance paperwork and forms to fill out. We have quite a lot of certifications and licenses to keep up with. All applicants should send cover letter and resume to [email protected] and should be able to operate in a business-like manner with digital communications, spreadsheets, various online portals etc. We offer housing for farmworkers as well artists in residence, in shared historic houses, lovingly renovated with many amenities. We are grateful for the many wonderful people who have worked with us over the years and have learned to move slowly and carefully with hiring.