Westerly Land Trust Farm Dinner Celebrates Local Food at Barlow Nature Preserve
[The dinner is sold out, but you can register on a waitlist by clicking the Event Ticketing link at the bottom of the page]
Westerly Land Trust Farm Dinner returns to Barlow Nature Preserve on Saturday, September 12, bringing guests together for an outdoor meal built around locally grown food and the land that produced it.
The annual dinner begins at 3:30 p.m. at the 80-acre preserve on Westerly Bradford Road. This isn’t simply dinner with a pretty farm as the backdrop. The location is part of the story.
Barlow Nature Preserve has become a working example of the Westerly Land Trust’s efforts to connect conservation, sustainable agriculture and the community. The property is home to Frontier Farm and Echo Rock Flowers, and ingredients grown locally will make their way onto the dinner table.
This year’s meal will be prepared by husband-and-wife chefs Johan Jensen and Abbey Hemmann, the team behind Whitecrest Eatery and Backdoor Kitchen.
From Preserved Land to Working Farm
The story of Barlow Nature Preserve begins well before the first dinner table is set.
The 80-acre property became the Eleanor F. & Edward W. Barlow Nature Preserve following a bequest from Eleanor Barlow in 2018. The land contains an unusually diverse combination of agricultural fields, upland forest and extensive freshwater wetlands and sits beside Rhode Island’s 111-acre Newton Swamp Management Area.
Rather than simply preserve the property and leave it untouched, the Westerly Land Trust saw an opportunity.
The organization decided to make Barlow its headquarters while also returning part of the property to active agriculture. The existing farmhouse was renovated into office space in 2019, and young local farmers were invited onto the land to begin rebuilding its agricultural life.
Today, that work can be seen in the fields surrounding the Farm Dinner.
Farming With Conservation in Mind
Only about five acres of the 80-acre preserve are suitable for farming, according to reporting by ecoRI News. That farmland is now used by Frontier Farm and Echo Rock Flowers, which employ regenerative growing practices.
Frontier Farm moved to Barlow in 2019 and developed a 2.5-acre commercial farm there. The farm grows vegetables, fruits and herbs without synthetic chemicals or fertilizers and uses regenerative and no-till methods whenever possible.
That’s particularly important at Barlow because of what’s beyond the cultivated fields.
The property contains extensive freshwater wetlands adjoining Newton Swamp. Protecting soil and limiting agricultural runoff were important considerations when farming was reintroduced. The Land Trust worked with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service on irrigation and water infrastructure while its farmers committed to environmentally responsible soil-management practices.
In other words, the vegetables growing here aren’t separate from the Land Trust’s conservation work. They’re part of it.
The Farms Behind the Dinner
Guests at the Farm Dinner will be eating in the same landscape where food and flowers are being grown throughout the season.
Frontier Farm focuses on sustainably grown produce, while Echo Rock Flowers fills another part of the property with locally grown cut flowers.
The two farms also operate the seasonal Barlow Farm Stand, selling produce and flowers grown on the preserve along with products from other area farms. For 2026, the stand operates on an honor system and accepts cash and Venmo.
The Land Trust has increasingly used Barlow as a place where people can experience agriculture rather than simply read about it. Its Farm Squad children’s program, for example, introduces kids to planting, pollinators, soil health, harvesting, composting and farm biodiversity right on the property.
That makes the Farm Dinner something of a culmination of the growing season: people gathering around a table on land they’ve watched produce food throughout the summer.
Dinner by Whitecrest Eatery and Backdoor Kitchen
For the 2026 Farm Dinner, Westerly Land Trust has invited chefs Johan Jensen and Abbey Hemmann to prepare the menu.
The husband-and-wife team is behind Whitecrest Eatery and Backdoor Kitchen and will create the meal around local ingredients.
Jensen is known for globally influenced cooking and an approach that puts flavor ahead of unnecessary formality. Hemmann brings an equally important ingredient to the evening: hospitality.
The result should fit the setting particularly well. This isn’t intended to feel like a restaurant dining room transplanted into a field. The idea is to gather around a table with neighbors, eat food connected to the surrounding landscape and celebrate the people preserving and working that land.
More Than 80 Acres to Protect
Barlow represents only one piece of a much larger conservation effort.
The Westerly Land Trust, established in 1987, now protects more than 1,900 acres of forests, wetlands, grasslands and agricultural fields throughout Westerly. Its properties are used not only for conservation but also for public recreation, environmental education and community programs.
The Farm Dinner celebrates that work while helping connect the people supporting conservation with the places being protected.
And Barlow is particularly suited to telling that story because visitors can see several pieces of it at once: cultivated fields, working farmers, woods, wetlands and trails all occupying the same protected landscape.
Explore Barlow Nature Preserve
The dinner might also introduce some guests to a preserve worth returning to another day.
Barlow Nature Preserve has two separate trail systems, with routes through woods and along the agricultural portions of the property.
One trail area overlooks the hayfield and working farm, with several trees identified by species. Another runs near Newton Swamp, offering a more wooded walk with wetland and marsh views.
Visitors heading toward the farm stand will also find a Little Free Library devoted to nature books. There’s even a hidden compartment on the back containing seeds visitors can take home.
It’s a small detail, but it captures what Barlow has become: not simply land saved from development, but land being actively used to get people interested in farming, nature and conservation.
Event Details
Event: Westerly Land Trust Farm Dinner
Date: Saturday, September 12, 2026
Time: 3:30–7:30 p.m.
Location: Barlow Nature Preserve
Address: 449 Westerly Bradford Road, Westerly, RI
Chefs: Johan Jensen and Abbey Hemmann
Featuring: A locally sourced dinner celebrating Westerly’s farms and conserved land
More information is available at the Event Website link at the bottom of the page.
You can register to be put on a waitlist by clicking the Event Ticketing link below.
