There’s no shortage of beauties on the beaches of Jamaica, but a trip to the vegetable garden can be just as exciting.
Stunning Marika Kessler founded her own 83-acre farm — tucked away up in Jamaica’s rough and rugged, northwestern Cockpit Country. And she did so after having studied fashion design in the US.
“I just got sick of that world,” she says. Kessler and her husband, Adam Miller — who grew up on a farm in Jamaica’s St. Thomas Parish and wound up studying the agriculture biz at LSU — broke ground on Potosi Farms in September 2011.
Kessler, also a native of Jamaica, is not a farmer. She is the quintessential farmer’s doting wife — a role, if you’ve ever witnessed it, that is just as labor-intensive, and demands just as many hours of the day, between the meet-and-greets, the promotion, the recipe-making (for meals and cocktails) and the cooking.
The farmer of the family is the in-bed-by-7-p.m. Miller, a tower of a man whose crops are entirely pesticide-free; theirs is Jamaica’s first Community Supported Agriculture organic farm.
This translates to row after row of vegetables, fruit, herbs and roots: red Russian kale, arugula, passion fruit, mung beans, squash, beets, eggplant, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, tango celery, Genovese basil, sugar snap peas and plenty more.
Potosi is growing food for all sorts of people around the island, from private households to restaurants to hotels. One notable client is the historic, grand dame of the island, Round Hill Hotel & Villas, a luxury resort in Montego Bay.
You might remember Round Hill as JFK’s honeymoon spot (he stayed in cottage 10 and wrote his inaugural address in cottage 25), or that time when Paul and Linda McCartney dropped by the four-bedroom cottage, Reid’s End. Ralph Lauren and family own a villa here (among other ridiculously huge homes around the island). It’s that kind of a place.
The real magic, however, is what’s happening in Round Hill’s kitchen. Utilizing Potosi’s crops for his truly farm-to-table menu, Toronto-born chef Martin Maginley is the mastermind behind Grill, the resort’s main restaurant. His specialties include spiny lobster, roasted organic chicken, sauteed callaloo and tri-tip steak, and the way he uses Potosi’s bounty to enhance his surf-and-turf is impressive.
Kessler and Miller’s farm is not yet a real destination itself. The road leading to it is (as yet) unpaved and bumpy as hell (though some ambitious folk have driven as far as they could, hoping to check the place out).
But Miller has plans for more. “I don’t really like to slaughter animals,” the critter-lover says, and he also wants to avoid the headache of building and running a dairy.
In theory, this leaves room for all sorts of alternatives: a restaurant, B&B, lodge. In the meantime, however, Miller is focused on mating donkeys, veggie-fying the island and caring for his two beloved Jack Russell terriers, Bella and Rebel. “We don’t have children — not because of biological reasons,” he says. “Our two dogs are enough.”
STAY: Round Hill Hotel & Villas, Montego Bay, from $629/night through March 31; from $379 in the summer, roundhill.com
GET YOUR VEGGIES: Potosi, Trelawny, 876-383-8471, veggies@potosifarms.com
MORE INFO: visitjamaica.com