History of the farm
Rainbow Harvest Farm is owned and operated
by David Paysnick in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
About the Farmer
While my love of playing in the garden stretches back beyond my earliest memories, my real passion for growing food began in 2000 while attending Colorado College in Colorado Springs. I had always loved to cook (and worked in restaurants through high school) and became frustrated with the lack of Organic high quality vegeables available in most supermarkets. It was in the backyard of my little cottage on Wahsatch St. that I started my first garden by adding loads of compost to the barren yard and a fence to keep the dogs out of the garden area. I bought some healthy transplants from the farmers' market and some organic seeds from Seeds of Change and I was off and growing. Despite repeated breaches of the fence by the dogs, the garden produced tons of fresh vegetables and when autumn came, I couldn't bear to let everything die. I made a makeshift greenhouse with builders plastic and some crude supports. I added blankets on the first really cold nights and stuck a little electric space heater in there as well. My first experiments with season extention were fruitful. I extended the life of my garden for weeks but eventually winter took hold. A couple of years later I moved to a larger house with great sun exposure and again got a load of compost and a load of woodchips and I was off and running with a 1000 sq. ft. front yard garden where I grew tons of heirloom vegeables with a three sisters garden, heirloom tomatoes, cukes, squash, chile peppers, and more. Fast forward to 2003, I spent a year apprenticing at Pyramid Farms in Chico, CA where I learned a TON about running a small vegetable farm from farmer Matthew Martin. After a second season at Pyramid Farms, I began my own farm, Healthy Harvest Farms in Durham, CA. I built a propagation greenhouse in the backyard of my rented Chico house and traded fresh produce for the use of 2 acres of a former organic Walnut orchard in Durham. It was a successful season but difficult due to being surrounded by abutting conventional nut operations that were constantly spraying their trees. After moving the farm to another location in Chico, I moved back home to Massachusetts when my daugter, Aliza, was almost 1 year old.
Rainbow Harvest in Massachusetts
In 2006, I grew a half acre of vegetables on borrowed land off of River Rd. in Deerfield, MA and in 2007 purchased my current home and Urban farm on Conway Street in Greenfield. I attended the Greenfield Farmers' Market in 2008 on a few occasions as a substitute vendor and began attending regularly in 2009 after acquiring 9 acres on Adams Road in Greenfield. The property was purchased from the Franklin Land Trust, which holds a conservation restriction on the property ensuring that is it forever preserved for agricultural and conservation purposes. While half of the property can be used for farming, the other half must remain predominantly in its natural state. It was at that time that I changed the name to Rainbow Harvest Farm. Currently, Rainbow Harvest operates our nursery and grows greenhouse crops on our 1/3 acre urban farm on Conway St., and field crops on 2 acres of our Adams Road property. We also grow oyster and shiitake mushrooms at both locations. I began making Rainbow Harvest Infused Sea Salts in the fall of 2015 with our own chiles, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, and herbs.
