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Maureen Anderson teaching a recent “Homesteading” applesauce canning class at Jamestown Feed and Seed.
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Homesteading instructor Maureen Anderson with students Liz Chapman, Joanne Chapman, and Michael Kellum. “Sometimes it’s like a party in here,” says Jamestown Feed and Seed owner, Shirley Hatten.
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Maureen Anderson and students transform a bushel of fresh apples into quarts of tasty applesauce. Each participant took home a jar of applesauce at the conclusion of class.
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Williamsburg resident Joanne Chapman came to the applesauce making class out of curiosity with her daughter, Liz Chapman, a recent transplant from Charlottesville.
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“I’m very interested in the farm to table movement and really getting into learning more about that and pretty much getting back to our roots,” Liz Chapman said.
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Speckled Sussex Chicks are available at Jamestown Feed and Seed. They offer baby chickens and ducklings of all colors, sizes, and breeds.
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Shirley Hatten (left) is pictured with instructor Maureen Anderson.
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Jamestown Feed and Seed products range from the traditional seeds, livestock feed, pet food and supplies, mulch and topsoil, trees and shrubs.
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Jamestown Feed and Seed has an entire room for the birds—literally, it’s for the birds with food and supplies for the avian lovers—hay and straw and beekeeping supplies.
Simmering chunky applesauce freshly cooked up from a cornucopia of apple varieties that included Jonagold, Stamen, Winesap, Pippin and Golden Delicious was being ladled into canning jars by Maureen Anderson. Mike Kellum’s eyes grew big!
Among an intimate group of prospective canners at a recent monthly “Homesteading” class at Jamestown Feed and Seed, Kellum thought perhaps a vanilla bean, or even alcohol, or something altogether out of the box could be dropped into the jar.
“I would love to put something really spicy in there,” Kellum said. “My mind’s racing right now.”
“I don’t think out of the box,” Anderson replied with a grin, “so it’s good to hear ideas like that.”
“If you like it,” Kellum said, “why not try it?”
The class, like others offered at Jamestown Feed and Seed, proved inspirational.
Williamsburg resident Joanne Chapman came out of curiosity with her daughter, Liz Chapman, a recent transplant from Charlottesville.
“I’m very interested in the farm to table movement and really getting into learning more about that and pretty much getting back to our roots,” Liz Chapman said.
Joanne Chapman said Anderson is a wonderful teacher. Many years ago, Joanne Chapman had canned but hasn’t for a long time. After the applesauce canning class she envisions a future of jars of homemade canned goods again in the Chapman household.
“I’m inspired to do it again,” Chapman said. “It was fun and we got to taste the applesauce.”
It’s evident that Jamestown Feed and Seed is more than your traditional, old school dusty and musty feed store with burlap bags full of grain, baby chicks under heat lamps and an ample supply of farm and ranch supplies.
You’ll find plenty of those things, but Hatten has reimagined Jamestown Feed and Seed thanks in part to a “farmrepreneur” who ducked in with some goat’s milk soap samples.
Jamestown Feed and Seed was launched in 1982 under the name it sports today. It changed hands in 2008, when Hatten and a former business partner were looking for a business to buy and were directed to the store in Norge. One of the attractions in buying the property was the 1.3 acres that came with the purchase of the store, located on Richmond Road just down the street from Williamsburg Pottery Factory.
Hatten’s timing wasn’t perfect, however, as she bought the store at the cusp of the Great Recession. To say things were hard and cash flow tight would be an understatement. But Hatten managed to keep things afloat through the hard times by attracting a new breed of customers.
An irony of the Great Recession that made things so hard economically for many businesses is that as income tightened and food prices went up, people began gardening and growing their own produce. Surging grocery bills led people to plant tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers and other produce, Hatten said, which was good for her.
Hatten has a target market of people who care about what they eat and where it’s sourced for her strategic plan to expand her gardening—and canning—section of the store. It’s what’s trending culturally now, she said, and you can find the topic of gardening and canning on social media like Pinterest.
It mirrors the rise nationally of interest in growing your own produce, or buying locally from farms or Community Supported Agriculture operations, as well as at farmer’s markets like the popular and vibrant one in Williamsburg.
“That’s what’s cool now,” Hatten says. “Now everybody’s cooking more. I’m really trying to appeal to the millennials. And they’re into this and into gardening.”
One of Hatten’s big breaks for her business occurred when Anderson, recently relocated from a 30-acre farm in Virginia Beach, stopped by Jamestown Feed and Seed with some of her handcrafted goat’s milk soap to see if she could interest Hatten in selling it.
Hatten agreed. It was a prescient business decision that quickly paid dividends.
“The goat’s milk soap took off,” Hatten says. “Because it’s good stuff.”
Anderson modestly says that people who purchase her soaps are altruistic and initially are making an impulse purchase. But then they find out how good the soaps are and they keep coming back.
Anderson, the Jamestown Feed and Seed homesteading specialist and consultant, operates her own business called, “Tasha’s Own Goat’s Milk Soap.” She lives minutes from Jamestown Feed and Seed on her four-acre farm, Hearthside Farm. The name of her soap line derives from a goat, Tasha, that helped launch her products.
Anderson pops in the store frequently and is available to answer questions, or can be reached through her email at hearthsidefarm@gmail.com.
“She’s the one with the homesteading knowledge and she’s the one people are coming to see,” Hatten says.
Hatten has high praise for Anderson, calling her the “heartbeat” of the store and beaming as she describes her presence at Jamestown Feed and Seed.
“You are such a people person,” Hatten says. “Sometimes it’s like a party in here. The people that come in to see her are just drawn to her.”
Anderson is just as effusive in her praise of Hatten and her store, which she says she views as a hub of activity. It’s important to have businesses like Jamestown Feed and Seed in the community. That’s because if they fall by the wayside then it’s not good for people who are learning about things like producing their own food, healthy all-natural herbal treatments, not to mention the loss of a sense of community, Anderson said.
Hatten echoes Anderson when she says she’s intentionally more community minded.
“That’s important,” Hatten says.
She also donates items to local clubs and non-profit groups as part of her belief that as a sense of belonging to a community it’s important to give back.
On November 19, the Gifts from the Homestead class is on candle making and how to make homemade bath salts and scrubs. On December 7, the Gifts from the Homestead features making handcrafted gifts using Ball jars.
Anderson has expert knowledge in the uses of herbs and essential oils, home canning and preserving and making homemade, all-natural
products from her goats such as cheese and soaps. She grows a large variety of crops at Hearthside Farm as well, including cucumbers used for a pickling class at Jamestown Feed and Seed in the summer. For a while there it was touch and go with her cucumber plants, that suffered in the suffocating heat of summer.
“It was a really rough summer. As it started to cool off, they picked back up just in time for the pickling class,” Anderson says.
In the spring, Hatten’s greenhouse features a wide variety of vegetables such as cucumbers, peppers, melons and 30 varieties of heirloom tomatoes such as Cherokee Purple and Mr. Stripey.
In the spring of 2017, Hatten and Anderson are planning a seed starting class, a reprise of a class they held earlier this year that attracted a wide range of people, including local chefs, older residents who have been gardening for a long time and a younger group of participants in their 30s and 40s. “Sometimes there’s a parent with a child,” Hatten says.
Other classes they envision include making cheese from goat’s milk— Anderson knows a thing or two about that, herbs and essential oils, canning basics, jellies and even beekeeping.
Hatten is also looking ahead to ordering next year’s seed-planting packets and that “they will all be non-GMO and organics.”
It has to do with the type of customer they’re attracting and the types of products they’re hunting for.
“People are generally asking for organics,” Hatten says. “Much more than when I first came.”
Hatten has grown her business to the point she can compete for contracts against larger, more national chains and win those deals. Case in point: Supplying Colonial Williamsburg and Busch Gardens with feed for their animals. It’s hard to understate how significant it is for Jamestown Feed and Seed to have those contracts.
“I’ll give Colonial Williamsburg kudos for choosing a small-town store for their feed supplier because they didn’t have to do that,” Hatten says.
Jamestown Feed and Seed employs seven full-time dedicated and knowledgeable employees and one part-time worker. The products range from the traditional seeds, livestock feed, pet food and supplies, mulch and topsoil, trees and shrubs, an entire room for the birds—literally, it’s for the birds with food and supplies for the avian lovers, hay and straw and beekeeping supplies.
Seasonal products include Fraser fir trees and poinsettias around Christmas and crab pots in the spring. And aquatic plants have been “real good sellers because people tell me they really don’t know where to get them,” Hatten says.
But it’s the homesteading classes that have tapped into a new “foodiecentric” Williamsburg.
“I love the series of classes that are coming up,” Liz Chapman said. “I feel like this is exactly what Williamsburg needs.”
Jamestown Feed & Seed • 7348 Richmond Road • Williamsburg, Virginia 23188 • 757-564-8528 • jamestownfeed.com