We’re still in the permitting process for our new vegetable barn. Once all the ink is dry, the building will start to go up next to the farmstand on West Tisbury Road.

The new barn, sketched above by Simon, is a state-of-the-art design by an engineer from the Massachusetts Department of Resources, who worked with the Athearns to create a facility that meets all the standards of  the federal Food Safety Modernization law that was passed in 2011 and modified in 2014.

“It’s built like a kitchen,” Simon said. “This building is all about sanitation.” 

Crops from the field will go straight to the barn for cleaning and refrigeration before they are distributed to Morning Glory’s farmstand, wholesale and kitchen divisions. The results you’ll see, beginning in 2019, will be cleaner, fresher produce, provided more efficiently.

Photo by Alison Shaw

In other construction news, our new bunkhouse makes its debut this season. Tucked away in the back of our Meshacket Road property near Bennett Way, the new staff residence has a green design that includes composting toilets to keep nitrogen out of the soil and water.

This spring we’ve been building a new fence along our Slough Cove Road field and switching some noisy diesel irrigation pumps to electric pumps. The new pumps run much more quietly than the 65-horsepower diesels, and use less energy to get the job done.