07/26/2013
Peggy Hall, the Hill-Stead Farmers Market manager, recently wrote a wonderful article for the Hill-Stead newsletter on Eloise Marinos and her farm, GeoRoots! Here's what she wrote:
Eloise Marinos is a woman with an unusual dual career: architecture and farming. Unusual – but familiar! As a young girl, Theodate Pope Riddle wrote in her diary that she wanted to live on a working farm and this dream was realized when she designed Hill-Stead for her parents, a beautiful Colonial
Revival house placed on 250 acres of farmland.
Impressively, Theodate created a sustainable farm in 1901, before “sustainability” was the buzz word it is today; Eloise’s architectural designs and farming practice take sustainability to a whole new level. Eloise specializes in “Regenerative” design. “If a building is just sustainable,” says Eloise, “the use of energy remains unbalanced, you are still losing, as you are using more energy than what you are putting back…”
Growing up in Pennsylvania, Eloise’s family always had a kitchen garden and wouldn’t think of purchasing vegetables at a store. Her grandfather grew olives in Greece; it seems her love of Mediterranean and Asian greens is part of her heritage. Eloise first ventured into commercially growing her greens in 2008 when she supplied the Norwich Inn and Spa with her unique produce. She expanded to several other restaurants and joined her first Farmers Market in 2009 – our newly established Hill-Stead Farmers Market!
Standing on a knoll at GeoRoots Solar Growth Farm, overlooking 50, mostly still forested acres, I asked Eloise how she came to take on farming while maintaining her busy architectural practice. I learned that the evolution of blending these two careers was organic (no pun intended!). “We’re standing on a geo-thermal field,” said Eloise. In 1998 she designed her own unique and beautiful passive solar home with the added ability of utilizing the earth’s energy for the heat and cooling required. Five feet down from the surface where we stood, below the frost line where the earth maintains a stable temperature of 50-52 degrees, are horizontal slinky-like coiled tubes filled with a mix of propylene glycol (a food grade antifreeze) and water. A pump slowly pushes the fluid through the coiled tubes during which it takes on the ground’s 50-52 degree temperature. When the fluid completes its loop, 4-8 degrees are extracted from it, then it is run through a compressor which raises the air temperature and is sent through the duct work in the house to heat it. The process is reversed in the summer to cool the house. Only a minimal amount of electricity is used in the process, so depending on the source of electricity (wind, solar, conventional) the amount of fossil fuels used in the house can be negligible. With growing food in mind, she chose to lay the geo-thermal field horizontally rather than vertically. In summer, the process warms the ground above the geo-thermal field which nurtures the growth of GeoRoot’s seedlings.
From the knoll it is apparent that central in all of Eloise’s gardens and plant beds are huge, indigenous granite boulders. These serve as “heat sinks” or heat storage devices. Eloise grows edible violas and herbs all winter long – outside in her herb garden! She covers the boulders with their surrounding plants at night and during snow storms, then she uncovers them when the sun shines so that the rocks absorb the sun’s heat and emits that heat to the surrounding plants. Eloise has not yet built a greenhouse but, despite storms that brought up to 4’ of snow at a time this past winter, she provided Millwright’s restaurant with fresh edible flowers and herbs all winter long! She also utilizes her home’s passive solar design in winter to nurture seedlings inside near all of the south facing windows.
Patrons at Hill-Stead Farmers Market line up and patiently wait for the delicious, delicate and incomparable Mediterranean and Asian greens and vegetables from GeoRoots Solar Growth Farm. Eloise can not contain her passion; she cannot fill your recycled container with your chosen greens without enthusiastically imparting some wisdom of amaranth’s ancient history or purslane’s “super food” status as a green that “has it all,” protein, vitamins and omega 3’s. Many of her heirloom varieties you will not find anywhere else in Connecticut! The history and stories behind the greens impart even more flavor but knowing Eloise’s commitment to farming in the most natural, ecologically sound way is the extra spice. The name says it all; GeoRoots Solar Growth Farm!
Fortunately, Eloise is introducing seminars this season so loyal patrons can learn even more about GeoRoot’s heirloom greens and her unique farming practices. Visit the farm’s website http://www.georootssolargrowthfarm.webs.com for details!
