Yellow Birch Farm
A MOFGA certified organic farm on Deer Isle selling goat milk cheeses, gelato, yogurt, cajeta, organic produce, and EcoVita skin creams — all made on-site in a nineteenth-century post-and-beam barn that doubles as an art gallery. The annual farm dinners, limited to sixteen guests, are one of the more unusual dining experiences on the island.
Yellow Birch Farm has been running on Deer Isle for years, raising Alpine, Oberhasli, and Saanen dairy goats and farming certified organic produce on land that looks and feels like a different century. The founders, whose art is also exhibited in the Greene Ziner Gallery inside the old barn, have built the farm as an integrated project: food, art, community, organic practice.
The goat milk operation drives the specialty food list: fresh and aged cheeses, gelato, yogurt, and cajeta — a traditional Mexican caramel sauce made by simmering goat milk with natural sweeteners in copper pots for hours. Their version uses local maple syrup. It's a product that doesn't exist many places in Maine, and it's made by people who take the process seriously.
The EcoVita skin cream line came out of working the farm itself. They needed a cream that could handle Maine outdoor conditions — wind, salt air, sun — and developed one using organic ingredients from their own MOFGA-certified land. It's sold at the farm store alongside the food products.
The farm store opens mid-June through mid-October, Thursday through Sunday, 10am to 5pm. The annual farm dinners are limited to sixteen guests per evening, held in the barn surrounded by the Greene Ziner Gallery, and focused on matching Yellow Birch's produce with expert preparation. They book separately from the farm store — check the website or call.
Local Tips
- Farm dinners fill quickly — sign up for the mailing list or check the website in spring.
- The cajeta is the sleeper hit. Buy more than one jar.
- Off-season or out-of-hours visits are possible by appointment: call (207) 348-2601.
- Rainbow Farm pasture-raised chicken, pork, and beef are stocked at the farm store if you're cooking for the week.
- Jackman Organic Maple Syrup is also available — a good Maine pantry staple.
Connected To
- Aragosta at Goose Cove — Chef Finigan sources from local farms; Yellow Birch is the kind of farm in that network
- Stonington Farmers Market — may have market presence on Friday mornings in season
- Fish Creek Oysters** and **Deer Isle Oyster Company — fellow small-scale island producers with similar values