Our 3rd generation family farm is located in the southern part of the Town of Yorktown, NY, called Kitchawan (though our mailing address is Ossining), in Westchester County in the lower Hudson Valley, about 45 minutes North of New York City. The farm is home to three generations of our family as well as our horse boarding business and the gardens & retail site of Back to the Garden.

Our great-grandfather bought this land at Kitchawan in 1908, and members of our extended family have lived here ever since! The property is located close to the Old Putnam Rail Line  (now the North County Trailway) at Kitchawan Station, where the family would take the train out to the farm from Brooklyn. In the 1950‘s when he died, he made it possible for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to purchase 280 of the total 300 acres of land, to become their field research station and to be preserved. In the mid-1980‘s the BBG sold the land to Westchester County, and it became Kitchawan Preserve, which we’re very fortunate to be surrounded by on two sides of our property, thanks to the foresight of our great-grandfather. Our fields were first cleared for farming in the 1700‘s, and our soil is relatively free of rocks and wonderfully fertile from an ancient glacial silt deposit. Some of the buildings on the farm were built before the Revolutionary War. The Kitchawank of the Mohican tribe lived in this area.

In 1979, the Cochran family moved to the farm where our father, Van, had grown up spending summers with his grandparents and aunts. We came to live and help our great-aunts care for the property, and so we were very fortunate to grow up here. In 2008 we started a horse-boarding business to help keep the farm in our family, and currently, three generations live and work here. We board up to 10 horses and have a wonderful community of horse boarders. In 2008, we decided to invest in solar power for our farm, and we now have an awesome array of grid-tied solar panels that provide us with renewable, clean energy. We incorporate sustainable technologies when possible, like the composting toilet in the barn’s bathroom and efficient on-demand hot water heaters in all our buildings. We’re blessed to steward this special and historic piece of land, receive its many gifts, and call it home.