Triple Green Jade Farm in the Adirondack’s Champlain Valley

Nov 6

Written By Eat

A small but mighty diversified farmstead on the Boquet River in Essex County offers incredible baked goods and delightful farm products.

Triple Green Jade Farm in Essex County in the Adirondack Mountains. — The view from Triple Green Jade Farm. All photos courtesy Triple Green Jade Farm.

Triple Green Jade Farm is a growing, diversified farm on the Boquet River, nestled in the rolling hills just outside of Willsboro in the Champlain Valley on the eastern edge of the Adirondacks. The Champlain Valley has the most favorable conditions for farming in the Adirondack Park, with a climate and fertile soils suitable for various types of agriculture and dairy farming.

A commitment to sustainability in the New York State’s Northcountry.

After a long search for the right property, Dan and Kimmy Rivera acquired Triple Green Jade Farm in 2014. They've been working their land for almost a decade and have made remarkable progress. The property spans 80 acres of southern-facing pastures that had not been farmed for years. It has riverfront access to the beautiful Boquet River, and the property's silty, clay loam soils are ideal for legumes and pasture grasses. Presently, they grow and cut hay, and they have plans to expand their crops.

The couple is devoted to improving the soil health of their fields through their grass-based micro-dairy and pastured poultry operations. They have installed a modern milking parlor and are renovating the property’s historic barn. The farm is home to Milking Shorthorn/Jersey cows, which are grazed on the farm’s pastures.

Laying hens and broilers are also part of the farm's rotational grazing system. It's an excellent way to improve soil health and fertility. Here’s how: Triple Green Jade's chickens follow the farm’s cows as they meander about the farm’s pastures. The chickens eat and pick through fresh, young grass regrowth that is provided after the cows have been through a paddock. The hens eat bugs, flies and other insects that tend to congregate around cow manure.

When the hens scratch up and through cow manure piles, they are doing the soil a great service by de-concentrating, distributing, and decomposing beneficial organic fertilizer. The farm's mobile chicken coops and tractors allow Kimmy and Dan to move the hens around to paddocks where the cows have just been, like a fertilizer Uber.

The Riveras set up solar fencing in a perimeter around the coop, which gives the hens safe and protected access to fresh, young grasses. All of this helps to sanitize the field and add nitrogen-rich fertilizer to the soil.

Triple Green Jade Farm’s incredible bread and baked goods.

Triple Green Jade Farm is known far and wide for its excellent breads, pastries, pasta, cookies and crackers. Dan and Kimmy built a massive wood-fired bread oven in one of the farm’s buildings, which they refer to as The Breadery.

They sell their renowned hand-made, wild-fermented artisan breads, sourdough bagels and other baked goods at farmers’ markets, local stores and restaurants.

Retail customers can find Triple Green Jade’s breads at the Saranac Lake farmers’ market, the Hub on the Hill in Essex and Nori’s Village Market in Saranac Lake.

We also recently learned we can find Kimmy’s delicious crackers in the shop at Nettle Meadow’s Hitching Post, which makes excellent sense since Kimmy’s crackers pair so well with Nettle Meadow’s prize-winning cheeses.

What a long, strange trip it’s been. And it’s not over!

Dan and Kimmy didn't always live in the northeastern wilds of New York State, farming, baking bread and communing with their livestock. Dan was originally from the Bronx, and he and Kimmy lived in various locations in the NYC metro area, Hudson Valley, and even Norway before moving to the Adirondacks. They did a stint with Kimmy's folks in Saranac Lake until they finally found their happy homestead in Willsboro.

Like all great stories, their journey began with a dream and a vision. Dan and Kimmy's goal was, and still is, to live entirely self-sufficiently. Many years ago, a Mother Earth News article inspired them to bake a beautiful and delicious overnight fermented round loaf in a cast iron pot at home. Maybe it was the sign they needed to know they could make their dream a reality. It proved to be the first step on their long journey toward Triple Green Jade Farm.

From there, Kimmy and Dan embarked on a quest to become skilled breadmakers. They attended a week-long intensive course at the Artisan Bread School, led by renowned master breadmaker Carl Shavitz. This course delved deep into sourdough and other necessary skills that would enable them to open a wood-fired bakery. Breadmaster Shavitz now teaches a week-long intensive bread course with Dan and Kimmy at Triple Green Jade Farm.

They also attended the annual Kneading Conference of the Maine Grain Alliance. They met fellow bread enthusiasts and learned about the local grain revitalization movement, which Amy Halloran chronicled in her best-selling book, The New Bread Basket.

The couple’s journey culminated in a workshop with Pat Manley on building a wood-fired oven. This workshop was the final piece of the puzzle, or as Dan puts it, "the firebrick in the arch."

Constantly evolving, growing and ever-changing.

All you need to do is spend 5 minutes speaking with Kimmy and Dan about their farm and vision, and you quickly find out that these are not two people just sitting around watching the dough rise. They are busy restoring and making improvements to their farm, finding new ways to contribute to their community, and listening to their customers to identify new products to market, all while trying to have a great time along the way.

The Riveras recently purchased a building in downtown Westport, NY, which they’ve christened Trigo that they currently use for pop-up events. Its second story has two Airbnb short-term rental apartments, one with gorgeous views of Lake Champlain. They host workshops in pasta-making, pizza-crafting and bread-baking, including the very popular week-long intensive bread class.

To find out where to get their products and more information on upcoming events, visit Triple Green Jade Farm’s website, Facebook page or Instagram profile.