Eckerton Hill Farm, Fleetwood, PA

Eckerton Hill Farm has its origins on the rooftop of a Brooklyn brownstone, where owner Tim Stark started his first tomato seedlings 15 years ago. It started with 3,000 tomato plants and 1,000 chili peppers at his apartment building.  Eighteen years ago, on a shoestring budget, he finally started the farm.  Today, the farm sits on 58 hillside acres, the land Tim grew up on, which include more than 100 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and peppers, overlooking the fertile Oley Valley of Berks County, PA.  On the southern facing hillsides, where the tomatoes are grown, the fields look like fields of grapevines in France the way they’re all trellised out.  

Eckerton Hill Farm is known for its colorful heirloom tomato mixes, their Sungold cherry tomatoes in particular, which were featured in NY Magazine.  Tim attributes the flavor of his tomatoes to the well-drained soil of his land because of the drier the crops, the less watery the flavor.  Tim has a gardener’s approach to his farming methods.  This means a lot of personal care goes into the development of his plants, including hand weeding and hoeing.