Retreat Farm

06/03/2026

The Farmhouse Square and North Barn will be closed on Saturday, June 6th for a private wedding. Photo by Jemima Richards.

06/02/2026

We spent a sunny morning getting plants in the ground for our Harvesting Hues: Natural Dye Workshop series! A big thank you to teaching artist and garden extraordinaire Kate Milliken for her guidance. The series includes:
6/20 - Compost Dyeing
7/18 - Sun Printing with Turmeric
8/1 - Garden Harvest for Dye Making
9/6 - Eco-Printing
Link in bio to sign up!

06/01/2026

A recording of our May 7th panel, The Meaning of the Declaration of Independence, is available to watch now! Thanks to Brattleboro Community TV for recording and producing this.

Leading historians discuss the origins, meaning, and legacy of America’s founding document. Christopher Brown, David Schmidt, Maya Jasanoff, and Jane Kamensk...

06/01/2026

This is the last week to get season passes to Food Truck Roundup 2026 at a discounted rate! Weekly tickets are also available now. For passes, tickets, and more info, go to retreatfarm.ticketspice.com/food-truck-roundup-2026. We can’t WAIT 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

Art by Clover Ajamie

05/31/2026

With our first Resilience series event happening this Thursday, June 4, we thought we’d let you in on some details about the second event, coming right up on the following Thursday, June 11. We will be showing the film, “Sugarhouse,” and having a Q&A with the filmmaker, Jesse Kreitzer!

Jesse Kreitzer is a Vermont-based filmmaker whose fiction and nonfiction work explores rural life, folk cultures, and traditions. His films have received Oscar®-qualifying and New England Emmy® awards, and have screened at galleries, museums, and festivals worldwide, including the National Gallery of Art, Museum of the Moving Image, Raindance, Rooftop, Big Sky, Camden, and Oldenburg.

Kreitzer holds an MFA in Cinema and Comparative Literature from the University of Iowa and a BA in Visual & Media Arts from Emerson College. His work has been supported by Kodak, AARP, National Arts Strategies, the LEF Foundation, and state arts councils in Massachusetts and Vermont, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is the founder of Lanterna, a film and video production company specializing in short-form documentaries, narrative films, and commissions.

Get your ticket by going to retreatfarm.ticketspice.com/resilience-series. Food by Anon’s Thai Cuisine, drinks available from the Thirsty Goat Bar.

Art by Clover Ajamie

05/29/2026

Retreat Farm, West River Trail, and Friends of Island Park Present Bridging Communities: 21st Century Trail Connectivity, Riverfront Activation, and River Access

The 2026 Bridging Communities rally on Monday, June 22 will provide regional trail interests and stakeholders an opportunity to share projects, strategies, and successes.

Held at Retreat Farm and co-hosted with Friends of Island Park and Friends of the West River Trail, the 4:00 PM - 8:00 PM gathering will include representation from Southeast Vermont and the West River Valley, the Monadnock Region Rail Trail Collaborative, the Mass Central Rail Trail, the Burlington Bike Path, and more!

Exciting new, expanding, and possible projects will include:
- The Brattleboro Words Trail
- A Connecticut River Sculpture Park
- Friends of Schell Bridge
- The Connecticut River Valley Trail
- The Wantastiquet-to-Monadnock Trail

We look forward to sharing the exciting confluence of projects connecting southwest NH, southeast VT, and potentially Western Mass. Local projects now promise to elevate the Brattleboro Riverfront and Bridges Complex as an outdoor recreation hub and trail nexus for hundreds of miles of trail experiences.

For more information and tickets, go to https://retreatfarm.ticketspice.com/bridging-communities

05/28/2026

As a part of the Land and Its People Initiative and the recent renovation of the Hope Garden, we are excited to announce our Harvesting Hues: Natural Dye Workshops series. The first event in the series, Compost Dyeing, is coming up on June 20th, 2-4pm.

Compost Dyeing: Join teaching artist Kate Milliken for an introductory workshop about how to turn food scraps into natural dyes! Participants will learn how to make richly hued dyes using commonly composted materials such as onion skins, avocado peels, black beans, and spinach.

The workshop goal is not only to create a colorful and natural piece of fabric, but also to take a creative risk. “It’s about experimenting and being open to not fully knowing what the outcome will be. There are so many possibilities.” - Kate Milliken

For more information about Harvesting Hues and to register, go to https://retreatfarm.ticketspice.com/harvesting-hues

05/28/2026

BRATTLEBORO-On a bright, cool early May evening, more than 1,000 people gathered both under a tent at Brattleboro’s Retreat Farm and peripherally in lawn chairs to hear a panel of four high-powered historians and filmmakers, moderated by scholar Jill Lepore, on the nature and value of the Declarat...

05/26/2026

“It certainly LOOKS like a cow…doesn’t quite smell right, though.”

Mac on one of his Market visits!