MADISON, Maine — Spring is starting to announce itself in Somerset County. Trees are budding out, crocuses and daffodils pop from lawns, heavy coats are shed with abandon. But inside Backyard Farms in rural Madison it’s a sunny, hot July day.
Standing in sprawling greenhouses that would cover 32 football fields, head grower Arie van der Giessen reaches over and plucks a ripe cocktail tomato from the vine.
“We only pick them when they are red. That’s the peak of flavor,” he said, handing over a ruby red dollop, urging me to take a bite.
As the acidic, sweet, juice bursts forth, I understand how he got his nickname. Whatever the polite, jovial Dutchman is whispering to the endless harvest of red orbs that seem to fall from the sky in this Willy Wonka-like factory, it works. Everywhere you look tomatoes in all states of ripeness twinkle from lush, thick green stems like exotic flowers. It’s red and green as far as the eye can see. This flowering, surreal horizon is his canvas.
Wearing a baby blue smock that matches his eyes, van der Giessen is the crucial backbone behind New England’s largest year-round tomato producer. If you’re familiar with the produce aisle at Hannaford, Shaw’s, Market Basket or Whole Foods, you know his artistry.
“Each one has a little bit of Arie,” director of marketing Jim Darroch said.
To grow 25 to 30 million tomatoes per year, delivered across New England and as far south as New Jersey, the company has simulated an ecosystem, complete with honeybees and pests. Van der Giessen sees to it that each beefsteak, cocktail and cluster tomato plant grows a foot per week, producing 500,000 pounds of tomatoes every seven days.
“Every time I check the greenhouse, it changes all the time. It’s alive,” he said, surveying a cluster of tomatoes in shades of green, yellow, pink and red. As their main caretaker, he keeps a vigilant watch on weather, sunlight, humidity, condensation and the clock. “Greenhouses are my passion.”
It’s no surprise to discover that the region of southern Holland where he grew up is known as Glass City. In Maasland, greenhouse agriculture is everywhere. Van der Giessen’s youth was shaped by hothouse vegetables.
“I grew up with tomatoes. My whole life I’ve loved tomatoes, and I really like to eat them fresh,” he said with a wink.
In his family, the tomato doesn’t fall too far from the vine.
His father and his grandfather were tomato growers. Though enamored with fresh vegetables and the colorful tulips of The Netherlands, he started out on a different path. “I was more into electronics and technology. When I was a kid, I never thought I’d be in the tomato business,” he said. At 16, something shifted.
Van der Giessen enrolled in night school to learn the trade, worked part time in a greenhouse and received a diploma. His training as a certified electrician was not for nothing. “There are a lot of electrical parts in a greenhouse, so that’s helped me a lot.”
Rising like Emerald City in the mythical Land of Oz, Backyard Farms’ glimmering greenhouses, covering 42 acres, are a point of pride for this small town that’s about to lose its longtime paper mill. When Madison Paper closes in May, Backyard Farms will be the town’s leading employer.
The awesome enterprise owned by a private investment firm affiliated with the parent company of Fidelity Investments serves one purpose: to grow succulent, ripe tomatoes year-round.
“You are growing great tomatoes at a time when you can’t get great tomatoes,” Darroch said. “It’s magic.”
Magic backed by an attentive workforce.
Of the company’s 240 employees, 215 work in the greenhouse. They are pickers and handle crop care, pest management and maintenance. Several are empowered to oversee as many as 10 rows of tomatoes, or 6,000 plants. Signs bearing their name hang above the rows indicating ownership. To van der Giessen, this is the real hocus pocus.
“If you don’t have the right people, you can’t do the job. You can have the most beautiful plants in the world, but you are only as strong as your weakest link in the chain,” he said. “With farming and natural growing, everything is dependant on each other. It’s a combination of people, teaching, weather, growing strategy — but you can still lose it. Everything is time sensitive.”
At 58 he’s probably in better shape than most midlifers. He walks from greenhouse to greenhouse, 6 to 11 miles a day, to assure his plants behave. His Apple Watch tracks his steps.
He could do it differently. There are high-end computers and sensors behind the scenes keeping this investment flush. But they only detect so much. Like a cop or reporter, he likes to walk this beat and check in with his subjects, always looking for information. “A computer can’t measure everything. You have to feel what’s going on,” he said.
This time of year his goal is to keep plants strong enough to transition into the warm weather months. They need to “have enough energy.” He tests this by examining fruit loads and “developing a strategy to increase plant density,” he explains.
Despite being with the company off and on since its 2006 inception, he’s always wondering, “how do you maintain the right temperature to let it grow? It can’t be too cold or too warm.” This time of year, the greenhouse must average 68 degrees 24 hours a day.
Out of earshot Darroch calls him “a rockstar, like Steve Jobs.” But in person, van der Giessen is un-Job’s like in his approach. More like Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island, he implores his employees to smile. “It’s good for the plants,” he says.
A retention pond on site supplies Backyard Farms with 98 percent of the water needed to grow the plants. New clusters are ripe every eight weeks. “We are in constant production,” van der Giessen said.
Orchestrating this year-round symphony in the largest single-roof structure in Maine could make anyone sweat. But Madison’s tomato whisperer exudes confidence and pride.
“There is always pressure. You need to deal with it. You need to be realistic and positive. You need to feel confident but not too confident,” he said, admitting there is “always something that can go wrong, you need to also look at the bright side. You can’t be happy with an unhappy crop. It’s how you deal with it. I like to do it. I love it so much.”
To stay on top of in indoor farming breakthroughs, he often travels to other greenhouses to learn from peers. When he’s in Madison, van der Giessen remains in constant contact with leaders in the field.
“We have a group on WhatsApp,” he said referring to the mobile messaging app. “We ask each other questions, send pictures, talk about tomatoes and plants and growing. There is a lot of communication. Networking with colleagues is very important. Sometimes you need someone else to talk to.”
After all, plants can only say so much.
And he’s discovered the more he knows, the more he wants to learn. “I have so many questions,” he said. “You need to love what you do. It’s not a job from 9 to 5,” he said with a laugh. “It’s my hobby.”
