Mike Collins and Rebecca Nixon own and operate Old Athens Farm in Westminster, Vermont. They sell produce wholesale to food co-ops and natural food supermarkets, at Brattleboro and Londonderry farmers' markets, and through a CSA that pools products from several local farms and takes weekly orders from 100 members.

Mike manages 3 acres of mixed  vegetables, berries and herbs, but his main product is organic greenhouse tomatoes, for which he is widely known. He has 10,000 sq. feet in production, and he utilizes production techniques such as grafted transplants, carbon dioxide enrichment, zoned bottom heat, and biological pest control.

His greenhouses have a variety of heating systems including oil, propane, and  wood. Recently, he put in a system that allows him to burn unprocessed vegetable waste oil from local restaurants in his wood-fired boiler.

Directions from the South:

Take Exit 4 off I-91, turn left off the ramp, back over the interstate to the intersection with route 5. Turn right, go straight through Putney village, staying on  Route 5 north for about 3 miles. Take the left before Harlow's Sugar House (Pine Banks Rd.).  At 2.8 miles turn left on Daigel Rd. You will see the greenhouses in the second driveway on the left, number 463.

Directions from the North:

Take Exit 5 off I-91, turn left off the ramp, go under I-91, then take the first right, Kurn Hattin Rd. You will crossover I-91, then after the Kurn Hattin school campus take the first left, Piggery Rd. At the Y, just before you would go back under I-91, bear right onto Pine Banks Rd.  Your first right is Daigel Rd. You will see the greenhouses in  the second driveway on the left, number 463.

Questions? Contact Vern Grubinger. vernon.grubinger@uvm.edu