With our community partners, Atkins Field and our community green space is the place for your history, trails, art, family, food and more. Join us! Visit Atkins Field at 100 Granite Street in Hardwick. 

📽 Where History Meets the Future

We had the great pleasure of working with many of you, community members, on a video about Atkins Field in 2025.

 

Video Description:
Atkins Field is a dynamic community gathering place in Hardwick, Vermont. It is stewarded by the Center for an Agricultural Economy, and has served different purposes over the years including being the site for community celebrations, the Hardwick Area Farmers Market, community gardens, a small orchard, and pump track, among other uses. It is situated adjacent to Cooper Brook, and July rains over the past two years have resulted in flooding that has spurred a call for rethinking how best to use this space. Atkins Field highlights the collaboration between the town of Hardwick, its community members, and the surrounding participation with Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE), Hardwick Farmers Market, Rural Vermont, NEKO, and the Institute for Agroecology.

The video focuses on Atkins Field past, present, and future. From youth to elders, intergenerational connection and a deeper connection to the land through the use of Atkins Field is helping redefine and encourage future visions.

This video was created in collaboration with Martha Caswell & Katie Horner with additional video by Elizabeth Rossano Films, drone footage by Kyle Gray, additional content from Hardwick Community Television. Edited by Myles David Jewell with graphics by Peltz Creative. Special thanks to CAE Staff: Bethany Dunbar, Reeve Basom, Hayley Williams, Lylee Rauch-Kacenski, Kelly Stokes, and others.

This video is part of a two-year partnership funded by a grant from the Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships, which helps to create university-community partnerships for the benefit of our rural places. This project involved the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE) - an organization with wide reach including programs that support food access, farm viability, and working landscapes focused on building a healthy, regenerative food system by promoting local foods and the people who produce them; Northeast Kingdom Organizing (NEKO) - a multi-issue, member-led, coalition organizing for justice for the people and the places of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom; Rural Vermont - a statewide, farmer and member led organization educating, advocating, and organizing for justice and equity in the food system; and The University of Vermont’s Institute for Agroecology (IfA) - a research institute that aims to contribute to agroecology transitions through engaged scholarship and action that uplifts agroecology as a holistic, systems approach to confront multiple intersecting crises. The community partners hold embedded knowledge of place, people, and lived experiences from previous and ongoing organizing processes in the NEK, and the IfA brings an agroecology-based approach and participatory tools for collecting and synthesizing data. 

Celebrating Atkins Field as a Critical Resource 

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If you live in Hardwick, you have probably been to Atkins Field, the stretch of green space at the end of Granite Street. This beloved community gathering place features a large open air field, a timber-framed pavilion, trails, an orchard, and a bicycle pump track. It is also home to the Hardwick community gardens and hosts the Hardwick Farmers Market that takes place every Friday afternoon during the growing season. Atkins Field is open to the public (and their dogs!) and hosts numerous events, workshops, and opportunities to engage and connect to nature and each other.

L: Hardwick Farmers Market | Elizabeth Rossano
R: Atkins Field Flood Resiliency Workshop with Hardwick Elementary School 6th Graders | Reeve Basom

Teachers often bring their classes to Atkins to have hands-on experiences in nature. In October, 6th grade students from Hardwick Elementary visited Atkins Field for an afternoon of exploring flood impacts and resiliency in our community. A group of Atkins-focused staff from CAE hosted a circuit of stations around the property, each one centered on a different story from the flood, what was learned, and how people can help. Stations included honey bees, soils, hoop house, and Cooper Brook. 

L: Atkins Pavilion on opening day | Bethany Dunbar
R: Horse-drawn wagon rides, Community Farm and Food Celebration | Kent Shaw

Since CAE took ownership of the 15-acre property in 2008, its use by the community as a place to meet, celebrate, engage, and learn has grown exponentially, with the COVID-19 pandemic only solidifying its status as a critical community resource. Over the years, and especially since the pandemic, we’ve seen the ways that Atkins Field is a critical piece of community connection in the greater Hardwick area. Being able to gather outdoors with resources like electricity, wi-fi, and a port-o-let allows more meetings, workshops, and other activities to take place outdoors. In an era of compounding emotional, mental, and physical stress, access to nature and community are vital to our health and well-being. Opportunities for community connection directly fight the social isolation that has become a serious concern in rural communities like ours. 

L: Peaceful protest at Atkins Field Pavilion | Bethany Dunbar
R: Students from Reach! Hardwick work with Emily Cayer of the Northeast Grainshed Alliance | Reeve Basom

 
The dedication, hard work, and heart that staff from CAE have put into Atkins Field is palpable, and a huge part of what makes the space a special part of Hardwick. As we begin to think about the upcoming growing season and operations at Atkins Field, we interviewed our very own Bob Duggan, Atkins Field Orchard Manager and jack of all trades. We also discussed his other roles at CAE, including Farm Connex delivery driver and former production staff for Just Cut. His unique perspective broadens our understanding of the connections between the programs of CAE and their significance within the local agricultural system.

Read the interview with Bob 

The pavilion at Atkins Field is available to reserve for the season. If you would like to make a reservation, please contact atkins@caevt.org

Hardwick Community Garden: 

HARDWICK COMMUNITY GARDENS & ORCHARD

Since 2009 at Atkins Field, CAE has provided community gardening space for local people who want to grow their own food and need a place to do it. Individual raised beds, collective gardening space and a hoop house have all been part of this project, as has support for gardeners, from registration and orientation to shared tools and supplies, shared learning and mentoring opportunities, social gatherings and more. We have also worked with community members to build raised beds at several apartments. 

The community orchard at Atkins Field was planted in 2016 and has grown to more than 50 fruit trees and berry bushes, including apples, pears, plums, seaberries, nuts, blueberries, and raspberries. Fruit is free for anyone to take a handful, and in a plentiful year apples and pears are pressed into cider at community events.  

In the aftermath of flooding at Atkins Field in 2023 and ‘24, CAE entered an agreement with Hazen Union School to relocate most community garden raised beds to higher ground at the school. Flood-resilient community gardening projects at Atkins are also being developed, as we continue to learn how to work in this special place.
 

Discover how you can grow with us!

If you are interested in getting involved with community gardening, please reach out! Whether you need a place to grow, want to volunteer, or have a question or idea, our team would be happy to hear from you and can help connect you with available opportunities and resources.

Get In Touch: communityconnections@caevt.org

 fun way to be in community here in Hardwick. Every growing season is a new experience and adventurous." 

- Hardwick Community Gardener

Hardwick Farmers Market 

Atkins Field is pleased to be the physical home of the Hardwick Farmers Market. Visit the market every Friday, 3:00 - 6pm from late May through early October. 

The Center for an Agricultural Economy and Hardwick Farmers Market are in a collaborative partnership that benefits both organizations’ missions to support local farmers, food producers, and community. CAE provides space at Atkins Field and pays the market manager. The market provides a vibrant, welcoming, free weekly gathering with live music that celebrates agriculture in the Northeast Kingdom. Customers connect directly with farmers and vendors every week from Memorial Day weekend in May to October Indigenous Peoples Day in October. 

HISTORY of Atkins Field:

Do you know the history of the Atkins Field property? It’s amazing and fascinating: 
At the turn of 20th Century, Woodbury Granite Company owned Atkins Field, and grew to employ nearly 1,400 people in our town. Bustling granite sheds, trains, and stonework manufacturing enabled the company to ship Vermont granite all across the United States. Courthouses, city halls and other foundational buildings from Chicago to Washington DC utilized this natural resource.

When the Company closed in 1935, the 15 acre space became an informal town green, where horse pulling contests, beagle trials, and even a winter ice rink were set up for the Town's citizens to enjoy. As the granite company buildings fell into disrepair, Hardwick locals would use the fields, and the leftover stone, for their own purposes. Whether Vt Association of Snow Travelers, Vt All-Terrain Sportsman Association, or birders and dog-walkers, the field and forest have had both formal and informal trails for decades. Hardwick's Kiwanis Club hosted the very first Spring Festival on the field in 1950 - a tradition that's still in full force decades later!

In 2008, the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE) purchased the land with an easement by the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board including a provision that it will always be open to the public. CAE’s intent was and is to showcase the history and to provide a space for community to grow food and learn together. In addition, trails, a bicycle pump track and the gardens and orchard provide natural recreation resources used by all and well-placed to connect with the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail in the near future.

 
2011: Hardwick Farmers Market moves to Atkins
2013: Hardwick Community Gardens move to Atkins
2015: Community Hoop House is built, and gardens expand
2016: Community orchard and permaculture plantings are completed - by Hazen high school students
2019: Timber frame open-air pavilion built with scissor truss design to mimic the granite shed’s internal structure.
2021: University of Vermont engineering students created a vision and plans for a repurposed granite shed 
2022: Plans are for a schematic design to assess how the 350-foot granite shed can be renovated.

Want to get involved? Have some ideas? Get in touch! 

Visit Atkins Field at 100 Granite Street in Hardwick, VT 05843. 

CAE Anonymous Reporting Form 

This form allows you to send an anonymous message directly to the Human Advocacy Director at the Center for an Agriculture Economy to report any incidents involving abuse, harassment, intimidation, discrimination, or unsafe practices that put yourself or others at risk. You may also use this form to report injuries, equipment or property damage, vehicle damage or accidents, or something situational such as witnessing an altercation at Atkins Field property, suspicious activity, or people tenting on site. This form also serves the purpose of ensuring unfettered, good faith reporting of any suspected violation of law, policy or procedure.