The Art of Growing Food 
By Clementina Verge
Photographs by Ryan Lavine

On a Millbrook hilltop, art intersects with agriculture at Thistle Pass Farm.

The land is Ellie Brown’s canvas, and she meticulously fills it with color and textures: vibrant blue bachelor’s buttons, fiery nasturtium and other edible flowers, speckled lettuces, rainbow beets, and more than a dozen varieties of tomatoes.

“I am making food. I am making art,” reflects Brown, owner of the farm she established in 2023.  

Being a farmer was not always part of her plans. In 2013, she graduated magna cum laude from Syracuse University with a degree in art photography. She secured work in galleries in Syracuse and New York City, and though she loves art, she didn’t quite find fulfillment.

Feeling “incomplete,” in part because she preferred being outdoors, she was “seeking happiness.”

A friend’s invitation to spend time on a family farm in Vermont altered Brown’s life. What followed were years working on various farms—in upstate New York, Vermont, Orcas Island, and the Hudson Valley, which she has called home for the past four years. 

Each place imparted knowledge, different farming techniques, and lessons in “what to do and what to avoid.” Last year, confident in her knowledge and passionate about growing food, she established Thistle Pass.
Today, standing in a high tunnel lined with tomatoes and peppers, she joyfully reflects on her days. They are long and solitary, but filled with creativity, flavor, and satisfaction. 

She beams when she talks about the tricolor beets she grows: red, gold, and chioggia (an Italian heirloom variety with red and white rings inside) because a meal should be as beautiful as it is nutritious.

“I’m still using my degree,” she smiles, referring to her approach to integrating variety and color into what she grows.

Brown begins the day early, with her farm collie Reggie staying close by her side. There’s always much to be done: Tending to seedlings, monitoring pests, soil testing, composting, watering, harvesting, and preparing produce for sale. All this is crucial to mindful, organic, regenerative agriculture methods, notes Brown, who uses silage tarps to kill weeds instead of spraying chemicals. 

Saturday mornings she brings bountiful harvests to the Millerton Farmers Market: arugula, radishes, turnips, spigarello, and kohlrabi (a versatile vegetable widely consumed in Europe and Asia).

The rest of the week, she works the farm, experimenting with varieties, and always striving to deliver grand flavors. Her partner is Daniel Meissner, executive chef at nearby Willa (where you’ll see Thistle Pass lettuce on the menu); he helps on the farm on Mondays, with everything from running strings for tomatoes to consulting on what varieties to grow.

Now in its second year, Thistle Pass is flourishing; a successful plant sale in the spring, and local venues now offering its produce on their menus have left Brown “ecstatic and grateful.” 

”I create beauty. Making other people happy makes me happy,” she says. “When customers show me recipes they made with different vegetables, or when I hear their excitement about salad greens or lunchbox peppers, that makes me happy.” —thistlepass.com