Homeward Bound: My Childhood Connecticut, Only Better, at Dirt Road Farm – Gardenista

All week, we’re republishing some of our favorite Garden Visits that have a personal connection to our writers. No public gardens here, no vast estates, no professionally designed landscapes—just the backyards, vegetable patches, and flower beds that remind our writers of home. This story by contributor Kendra Wilson is from October 2017.

Sometimes a distant but well-loved place is even better than you remember. Weston, CT, has reached mythical status with the younger members of my family ever since we were uprooted to live in London, England, signaling the end of long summers, muggy evenings, and the sounds of crickets (and mosquitoes).

Going back to Connecticut from Grand Central Station this summer was hardly an ordinary commute; fortunately our destination included Dirt Road Farm, the 5.5-acre home of farmers Phoebe Cole-Smith and her husband, Mike Smith. With lunch in the barn overlooking the garden and circa-1830 saltbox house, the dream of a perfect Connecticut setting was very much alive.

Photography by Kerry Michaels. See more of her work on Instagram: @kerrymi.

Like many residents of Weston (and Westport, where commuters got off the train), Phoebe found Connecticut by way of New York, needing more space for her family. With a background in food and a training at the International Culinary Center, Phoebe’s days in publishing in the city were left behind as she made country life work for her. The small farm that she runs with husband Mike Smith offers something for local people, or those chasing a dream of New England, in the form of brilliantly conceived barn suppers.

Weston in the 1960s and early ’70s was a small town of farms and an “artist’s colony” that included New Yorker cartoonists, authors, and actors. The ratio has changed but this is one farm that has been added, not subtracted, having achieved farm status in 2011.