Carrots may grow hidden underground, but their frilly green tops give them away — little leafy bushes scattered across the soil. Growing and harvesting them is fairly simple, but as with any farming, challenges are bound to pop up — like weeds — and that’s when the farmer swoops in to save the day. 

“Forget the carrots, I’m going to get these weeds out,” said Kelli Roberts, tossing the garden fork aside and pulling a giant green weed out by hand from among the carrot tops. 

Kelli is the co-founder and owner of Roots Farm in Tiverton, joined by her husband, Mike, at their one-of-a-kind, all-organic, year-round vegetable farm. The way this weed grew mirrors how the couple ended up here — through roots, or more precisely, roots and spreadsheets. 

Being from Tiverton, Kelli returned to her roots — the purchase of the land is symbolic of that — but the farm itself was also carefully planned on paper. “I still have spreadsheets to … yeah, to be honest, I have a lot of spreadsheets,” she said with a laugh. Every winter, the couple sits down to plan nearly the entire following year — mapping out what to grow and when, how to rotate crops, and managing all the other moving parts of the farm. 

The foundation of those spreadsheets was their original business plan. 

Just after graduate school, both Kelli and Mike decided to take a year off to explore a path outside of engineering. “We thought, ‘Oh, we want to learn how to grow food, so let’s try working on a farm.’ We apprenticed on a farm in Maine and kind of just got hooked. Even after we went back to our other careers, we really missed farming.” That’s when the spreadsheets first came into play, as they created a business plan to launch their farm rooted in winter farming — Roots Farm. 

Movable Parts 
Though the farm is called “Roots,” and roots imply staying in place, that’s definitely not the case here. “The other thing that’s a little different about our farm is all our six tunnels are movable,” Kelli said. One of their first purchases was something called a “Rolling Thunder.” “They slide on these rails, and we move them three times a year,” she explained. The rolling enclosures extend the growing season but also make crop rotation easier. 

Kelli Roberts tends to some of the plants inside one of Roots Farm’s portable enclosures. The farm grows vegetables year-round through a well-planned system of management and care.

“Another odd thing you probably see around the farm are these heaps of plastic,” Kelli said, pointing to large sheets covering some of the beds. She lifted one to reveal drying crops underneath. “What we’re doing with that is solarizing. When a crop is done, we put these pieces of clear plastic over the bed and it basically cooks any weeds or crop residues to clear the bed.” 

“And that whole tunnel over there is netted,” Kelli added, pointing to a tunnel full of cucumbers. While the netting prevents cucumber beetles from getting in — its intended purpose — it also creates new problems. “But what happens is you end up with other challenges, like beneficial insects can’t get in. So we buy beneficial insects to release inside instead.” 

As she lifted another white cloth, revealing broccoli growing low to the ground, a moth fluttered out. “Oh no — how did that get in there?” she asked, noting that the insects might lay eggs that hatch into caterpillars, which then eat the plants. The cloth — meant to prevent this very problem — hadn’t worked this time. 

But that’s part of the fun, Kelli said. Every new challenge sends her back to her spreadsheets, adding more ideas and plans to make this unique, all-organic vegetable farm in Tiverton even better. 

“And the other unique thing,” Kelli said, “is that we farm almost 50 weeks a year.” All the winter crops they grow are cold-hardy — spinach, kale, carrots — so they can take the cold weather. Essentially, at Roots Farm, for Kelli and Mike, winter just means more time for crops like spinach — and plans on spreadsheets.

Kelli Roberts begins harvesting carrots at the farm after clearing a giant, overgrown weed that was blocking her way.