Maplewood Farm

As a parochial school principal of fourteen years, farming was the last thing on her mind when Judy Carvalho’s father suddenly passed away in 1988. Manuel Carvalho grew four hundred acres of potatoes on Maplewood Farm for more than thirty years. When he died, one hundred acres worth of potatoes were still buried in the soil. Not knowing a thing about farming, Judy arrived at the farm ready to work. Judy managed the first harvest of potatoes and ordered more for the next year. She hasn’t looked back since. 

Twenty years later, a lot of changes have been made on Maplewood Farm. Judy still grows potatoes but only on about 15-20 acres. Shoppers - at the farm, farmers markets around the state and at the Aquidneck Growers’ Market - still look to Maplewood for their favorite tubers; and what a variety there is. In short order, Judy can list them off: “All-purpose Norwis, Yukon Gold, Russets, Dark Red Norland red potatoes, All Blue, French Fingerlings and Russian Bananas, to name a few!”

In addition to reducing the acreage in potatoes, Judy has turned Maplewood from a one-crop, one-season farm into a three-season farm. In the spring, her nephew Stephen Anderson is hard at work in the farm’s two greenhouses growing herbs, annuals and perennials. Later in the season, the team grows and harvests acres of sunflowers for sale to local florists and at the farmers’ markets. And the fall, through Thanksgiving and Christmas, is dedicated to harvesting, storing and selling those famous Maplewood Farm potatoes.