A Dane County Farmers Market Booth Gets Rebooted

Nearly a month ago, a popular sustainable wildcraft booth at the outdoor Dane County Farmer’s Market got a new name and expanded its offerings. Oakridge Farm is now New Leaf Fields.

Oakridge Farm founder and New Leaf Fields co-founder Anna Hill-Chesmore said the change is due to a new partnership that will bring more variety to the booth.

Hill-Chesmore sold her farm near Augusta  and bought a different piece of land closer to where her friend, Jade Siechter, lives. Siechter has a commercial kitchen and gardens where she grows produce.“We each make separate products but we work together in the fields and kitchen,” Hill-Chesmore said.

Hill-Chesmore worked for almost eight years on Oakridge Farm providing customers and grocery stores with local, seasonal produce. After struggling to compete, she shifted her focus to producing specialty items made with her produce in a unique way at the Dane County Farmers Market.

Oakridge Farm originally came to the Dane County Farmers Market nearly a year and a half ago with a niche of specialty pestos, herbal tea blends, jellies and other sustainable “wildcrafts.” With its transition to New Leaf Fields, the business will add more variety.

New Leaf Fields offers samples of their wildcraft pestos and jellies at the outdoor Dane County Farmers Market. (Trina La Susa/Madison Commons)

“I combine whatever culinarily or medicinally pairs well with each other,” Hill-Chesmore said.“There a lot of really interesting and delicious herbs out there and I plan to experiment more with tropical herbs from my year-round greenhouse in the future.”

Recently, they started selling a raw apple cider vinegar infused with herbs. Some of the vinegars are infused with wild or cultivated herbal ingredients like the native Wisconsin flower, bergamot. Hill-Chesmore said the vinegar is great for a dressing or marinade.

Siechter also makes hummus, fresh salsa and garlic spreads.

The name “New Leaf Fields” was coined not only because of the fresh partnership, but also because the sustainable wildcrafting is now done in the woods, fields, gardens and greenhouse rather than on a farm. All of the herb and plant ingredients are grown by Hill-Chesmore and Siechter and they handcraft all of the products together.

“We grow some of the ingredients in Augusta where the kitchen is, in the land up north we do wild growing and gardening and also garden and do wildcrafting south of Oregon, Wisconsin,” said Hill-Chesmore. “We grow everything organically, I'm no longer certified because it was a little expensive to keep up with the cost of it, but I run my gardens as if I was certified organic.”

Nicholas Chesmore, Hill-Chesmore’s husband, attends the market with her on most Saturdays and has seen her customer base grow. Chesmore said her originality in her wildcrafts and display of her products is what makes her stand out.

“She takes great care in the preparations and ingredients that go into her products. I've never seen someone in the farming business be so meticulous in their craft,” Chesmore said.