By Maria Amador
EAST HARDWICK — Driving by the swaths of green lining the Center Road between East Hardwick and Greensboro, it is easy to miss the driveway with a wooden sign reading “Whitefield.” The name belonged to the first owner of the land just beyond the marker, land which today sustains an ambitious farming operation rooted in history.
The farm at Green Mountain Merino and Whitefield Hop Yard began in 2012 with Kevin and Karen Broderick. Mr. Broderick, a former teacher at Hardwick Elementary, grew interested in hops after teaching a history lesson on maps. Students compared local maps from 1855 and 1875, on which Mr. Broderick noticed hop yards were labelled. He soon learned of Vermont’s once-booming hops industry, which in the mid-nineteenth century produced more than 8 percent of the nation’s supply.
The female flowers of the hop plant are ….
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