When Barb Wilson, a telecom product manager from New Jersey who used to work 80+-hour weeks, started concocting homemade triple berry jam and peach chutney for family and friends as 
Christmas gifts over 15 years ago, she had no inkling it would eventually inspire a gigantic life turnaround. “Her stuff was head and shoulders above anything you could get in a store,” says her husband George. “I remember telling her she could make a business out of it—it was that good.” Perhaps a germ of an idea was planted back then, because his off-hand comment turned out to be prophetic. Fast-forward to 2006: Barb and George fell in love with a plot of land in Shoreham and built their passive solar “net zero” dream house. Perched on a hilltop with a tremendous view and 25 acres of mostly forest surrounding them, it would have been easy for the couple to finally sit back and relax into retirement.
However, Barb’s magnetic energy and dynamic vision guided her in a different direction: berry-farming. She grew up on a dairy farm in Michigan, where her mom taught her how to jam and can, and that background—combined with endless hours of internet research —gave her the confidence to pursue her new adventure, despite that it was a universe away from the telecom industry. Although Solar Haven Farm is still in its infancy, she has channeled the drive and hard-working ethic that helped her succeed in the business realm into her berry bushes and her value added products. “I’ve always been very goal-oriented and possessed with whatever I start out to do,” she says. “And so far, the experience has been incredibly rewarding. ”
While Barb is busy tending to the farm and making value added products in their kitchen, George develops energy-efficient farming tools to help things run smoothly and greenly. He designed a solar-powered irrigation system that pumps water from the couple’s pond up to the berries, and most recently built an energy efficient cool room to store the freshly pick fruit. “We also make mulch from our buck-thorn and fallen trees,” Barb adds. “We try to use as much from the land as we can.”
Last year, Barb whipped up over a thousand jars of jam to satisfy the demand for her product. It’s no wonder, really. She uses handpicked berries and a fraction of the sugar that most recipes call for, so the fruit flavor is remarkably fresh and intense.