Farm Manager Ember Fleming (she/her) discovered her fascination with plants when she took a botany course as a student at McDaniel College in Maryland. A summer spent building and maintaining trails in Massachusetts with the Student Conservation Association awakened a love for working outdoors.
“I decided to try a season of farming and was instantly hooked!” she says. Through her studies as an environmental policy and science major with a concentration in biology, she learned about the importance of diversified farms practicing organic and sustainable methods.
A Duxbury native, Ember worked one season at Dragonfly Farms in Pepperell. She moved on to Siena Farms in Sudbury, where over four years she rose from apprentice to greenhouse manager and senior assistant grower. She came to Stearns Farm as the assistant farm manager in 2017, attracted by the opportunity to get to know sharers during work hours and pickups. “Serving my community is a large reason why I farm,” Ember says. Beets, spinach, broccoli, kale, and “any and all herbs” are her favorite crops to grow.
Ember lives in Hudson with her partner Mike and two cats. When she isn’t working, Ember enjoys hiking, reading young adult fantasy novels, tending her own garden, and learning how to make things.
Hannah Ladesic (she/her) excitedly joins the Stearns crew as Assistant Manager.
After growing up canning pickles and tomato sauce from her family’s garden, and making gooseberry pies with her dad from their prolific backyard bushes, she came to know food would be a throughline in whatever work she pursued. In college, she had a magical experience volunteering at The Food Project’s Baker Bridge Farm in Lincoln, so much so that she took a job as the The Food Project’s Communications Manager and Graphic Designer after graduating. In the spring of 2020, Hannah pivoted from the office to the farm and farmed her first season on the same piece of land in Lincoln where it all started— there she fell deeply in love with working outside, sharing the harvest bounty, and developing deep relationships with place. She spent three farm seasons there, and recently spent a year as the Garden Fellow at the John C. Campbell Folk School— a folk art school in the mountains of Western NC.
Hannah loves to think about cultivating reciprocal relationships with land— knowing plants well enough to know what they need and being offered a bounty in return, of lessons from processes in nature and an abundance to harvest for food, medicine, and craft. Hannah is one of those people who loves to trellis tomatoes, and also loves growing peas, hot peppers, and any and all kinds of flowers.
Outside of farming, Hannah is excited to be starting an herbalism program this spring, hopes to grow lots of indigo for natural dye projects, has fun playing the banjo for and with friends, and enjoys involving herself with community organizing efforts in Boston, where she lives.
Hannah is excited to meet all the folks that make Stearns the special place it is— and would love to nerd out with anyone about dye plants, food preservation projects, dahlias, and seed saving.
Assistant Grower Kerry Beyrer (she/her) left her office job five years ago and hasn’t looked back.
She joined the Stearns Farm crew two winters ago as assistant farm manager after stints farming vegetables at Fishkill Farms and raising pigs at Coppersea Distilling, both in New York’s Hudson Valley. Before farming, Kerry worked as an outdoor educator, then as a paralegal.
Fennel and tomatoes are her favorite vegetables to grow. “Fennel is beneficial for insects and it smells great, it looks beautiful. And making tomatoes neat and tidy is very fun for me,” she says. Kerry has a degree in chemistry from the State University of New York, New Paltz. Her science training has been useful for thinking through decisions in the field, such as making soil amendments. “There are two brains you meet as farmers—artists and scientist—and they meld together in different ways,” Kerry observes.
Since moving to Marlborough, she has spent time hiking, walking in the area and rowing. In 2020, Kerry and her husband John welcomed Freckles into their family, adopting him from through Buddy Dog Humane Society in Sudbury. Freckles joins Kerry and Ember at the farm throughout the season and is a very good boy, digging holes, guarding against pests and catching a few Zzzs.
