Book & Plow Farm Arrives on Campus

For many Amherst students, Book & Plow Farm on Tuttle Hill is out of sight and out of mind. Perhaps students visit once or twice during first-year orientation — but most don’t realize all the farm truly has to offer.

Green Dean Farm Fellow Marissa Crue ’24 is on a mission to change this by introducing a weekly farm stand on the First-Year Quad. “The primary purpose of [the farm stand] is to bring awareness that the farm exists to campus, to show off the beautiful things that students have worked really hard to grow, and also to provide more access to the fresh food to our community members,” she said. The stand operates from 3:30 to 5 p.m. every Tuesday in front of Frost Library, a time period that Crue hopes will allow for faculty and staff to swing by during breaks from their busy schedules. 

Crue, who started her year-long fellowship at Book & Plow in early July, came in with a clear vision: creating a farm stand that would connect the campus with fresh, student-grown produce:, “My work experience has been for other small farms taking part in their farm stands or their farm stores, so it was a skill set that I wanted to bring to the table,” Crue said.

Crue hopes the weekly stand will serve a dual purpose of “being present so that people on campus know about the farm and giving access to our community members to the fresh food that we grow just up the hill.”

In the past, the farm operated a 75-member Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), a system in which customers buy a “membership” to a local farm, and in return receive a weekly share of the farm's produce during the growing season. Book & Plow’s CSA operated on a pay-what-you-can sliding scale and served mainly Amherst community members, faculty, and staff, just like the stand. But, with recent fluctuations and changes in staffing coupled with a reduction in the number of acres actively being farmed, Book & Plow managers opted not to host a CSA this year. To Crue, this left a gap that needed to be filled: “We [needed] another [consumer] market because we don’t have the CSA this year, but I still wanted to be able to reach the community.”

The farm stand started this past summer with the help of the Book & Plow summer interns. Crue described how the interns created a “really cute” setup for the stand, which was also partially inspired by Crue’s previous experience working in small fruit markets.

Crue, along with other farm staffers, loads up the Book & Plow van each Tuesday with what Crue calls “the basics”: a tent, table, and baskets. What produce is being sold is decided based upon a myriad of factors. “What’s ripe at the time, what’s ready, what do we have enough of, and what do we think that people are going to buy the most?” Crue said. 

Since Book & Plow is incorporated into Amherst as part of Dining Services, it operates as a non-profit under the college. Crue shared that one of the most rewarding aspects of the stand is “Seeing people able to access food … and knowing that we’re cushioned by the college also makes it feel like we can do that.” Given the proximity of the weekly farmers’ market on the Amherst Town Common, Book & Plow is frequently asked why they don’t choose to sell there. Crue shared that the farm abstains from the town market because they want to avoid competing with other local vendors. 

The money that the Book & Plow stand makes goes right back to the farm and its staff. “I’m using [the profits] to get supplies and fund stuff for events. Or, [for] the times we take the [interns] out to ice cream,” Crue said. To Crue, the stand is not “a [chance to be] lucrative and bring in more income,” but to be a source of “outreach and education and access.” 

While part of the stand’s appeal is its convenience for faculty and staff, Book & Plow staff stressed the accessibility of the farm to all Amherst community members. In particular, Crue emphasized the advantages of the completely free Pick Your Own garden at the farm, “It’s something that we hope that everybody gets the chance to visit at least once this fall. It’s open any time, any day. Things will be growing until it’s too cold.” At the Pick Your Own garden, visitors can find “cherry tomatoes, an assortment of hot peppers, the flower garden, and herbs.”

Editor’s Note, Sept. 17, 2025: The author is an employee at Book & Plow.