Driving along bustling Plymouth Street in Halifax you might take easy notice of the big box store, the food establishments, and the local businesses lining the main road in the town. But if you slow down a bit and look around you will not be able to miss spotting the picturesque Nessralla Farm stand tucked into the town scene. With a storefront flanked by two large Paperbark Maple trees, dozens of rows of long tables bursting with colorful flowers of all kinds, a sign advertising a local Lebanese festival, and hanging baskets heavy laden with curtains of cascading blooms, it is impossible to resist pulling in to further investigate such a cheery sight.
The inside of Nessralla’s Farm stand is no less charming and stocked with all the jewel-colored produce delights one would expect to find grown on a farm, as well as more preserves, jams, jellies, sauces, and handmade, local gifts than could be accounted for in one trip. Honey from their own hives, fresh local bread, baskets tipped on their sides to display an abundance of onions, garlic, and sweet potatoes and fridges packed with local meats, more produce, and fresh juices leave one inadvertently planning dinner for the evening.
All of this local bounty is the legacy of John Nessralla, who alongside his brother Mansur, are the head farmers and proprietors of Nessralla’s Farm in Halifax. If the beautiful farm store isn’t inspiring enough to visit, then learning about the family behind the operation will quickly make Nessralla’s Farm your favorite local destination. Nessralla immigrated to America in 1968 from Lebanon where his father and uncles were passionate farmers growing fruit, flowers, and vegetables. When his uncle and father came to Halifax they built their greenhouses on the site of the old Sturtevant Farms, at the intersection of Routes 58 and 106. Little by little they began to expand. They started Nessralla’s in Marshfield and took over Penniman Hill Farms in Hingham. Other members of their farm-skilled family have similar businesses in Wareham and Avon. Nessralla spent his youth following his uncle and father around their farms, observing their techniques and soaking up all the knowledge he could. “I learned from my father. Not by a book but by watching him and being out there every day.”
Nessralla certainly gleaned a wealth of knowledge enhanced by what must be a dash of inherited genetic instinct for farming because today Nessralla offers just about everything on the farm’s 55 acres on Hemlock Lane -from annuals and perennials to a wide range of produce and honey from the hives on site. “We grow about 80% of the flowers we sell here. We use greenhouses as that environment is easier to control.” The crops are further enhanced by the farm’s ten beehives kept on the growing fields. “We need the bees to grow this much. We make raw, natural honey, a light and dark honey, with nothing added,” Nessralla explains, “It will crystalize sometimes and that means its real.”
Nessralla is not only dedicated to farming, but dedicated to turning out top quality products with more than a price tag connected to them. It is easy to see in every voluptuous flower pot and the nearly picture-perfect produce displayed like an edible rainbow that nothing less than wonderful gets past Nessralla’s discerning evaluation. “We are not like one of the big stores. I won’t sell you something that I would not take home with me,” Nessralla says, “We offer people the best of what we have.” When asked what sets his grocery- filled store apart from others in the area, Nessralla points out that the quality of small-scale farming can’t be matched in mass-produced goods. “Our products look visibly different. You have to care about what you do and you can see that in what we sell -we care about it very much. We try to get things as picture perfect as we can. You can’t find this kind of quality in a store.”
Nessralla’s enthusiasm for offering only the best is not just a good business tactic, but downright enjoyable. When asked if there is any other profession he would have considered had farming not worked out he quickly says, “No. Farming is all I have ever known. I would not want to do anything else.” Nessralla also says he does not have a favorite crop to grow. “Everything. I like to grow everything. I also like to experiment growing new things.” One crop Nessralla is particularly proud of, “Mums. I grow 10-12 different colors of mums,” he says showing a picture on his phone of a tidy, black landscape fabric field with hundreds of healthy-looking young mum plants in pots being watered. Nessralla also explains that they used to grow pumpkins and corn, but have since stopped for crops less subject to nature’s harsh dealings.
If there is one life lesson Nessralla has learned from farming it is that farming is not a sure thing. “Farming is a gamble. One day it’s nice, the next day its 100 degrees or flooding rain. It is like rolling the dice. One year we had six inches of rain in August, and another six inches of rain in September – our pumpkins were out floating in the field. We lost them all. It is a huge investment to plant, say corn, and then lose it all. You have to adapt to what nature does.”
Still, Nessralla says that farming is not to be shied away from. Considering that Nessralla’s foundation for farming was built on the example of his family before him, he realizes that farming is something that must be passed on to the next generations. Nessralla’s also aims to show what a local farm can offer in a community. “It is where our food comes from. We need it. Everybody should learn about farming.”
Nessralla sees modern day habits coming between the required hands-on experience that farming requires. “Society is too into gadgets. You can’t watch a video or read something online and learn to farm. You have to be out there -weeding, watering, picking produce -if you aren’t out there in it you won’t learn it.”
Nessralla is certainly one to learn from as during the interview I am given several tips and recommendations for various gardening woes and profitable crop ideas with visible joy in the exchange of his freely shared knowledge. It is apparent that Nessralla truly loves what he does. “I don’t ‘go to work’. I enjoy it. Sometimes I am up at 1 a.m. to go to Boston to pick up produce and then at 5:30 a.m I am out in the field watering the mums. It is hard work but I enjoy it. If people come into the store and they see what we have and they like what they see, that makes me proud. That is what I love.”
As summer winds down, Nessralla says to be on the lookout for his beautiful mums for fall but also says he has plans to eventually bring back a tradition that Nessralla’s used to offer to the community. “I am hoping to do the corn maze again. It is a lot of fun and it’s located in an isolated, beautiful area that is quiet. I just need to be able to find help in running it. But I would like to do this again.”
Whatever the endeavor Nessralla and his family undertake, one thing is sure -it will be done remarkably well, with passion and purpose, and with a true love for the community. What can the community do for Nessralla’s? “Participate in our farm and business. We are not like the big stores. It is all done by us and we can offer quality that they can’t.”
As I leave with an extraordinarily large and vibrant pink Mandevilla plant in a hanging basket and a mental shopping list for next week’s dinners based on clocking several tantalizing jars of sauce, Lebanese bread, and stunning produce grown minutes away, I can’t help but feel that I am also bringing home a bit of Nessralla’s joy because his love for his life’s work in embedded in every product found at Nessralla’s Farm -and that is something that mass production and money can’t buy.