Thistle Moon Farmstead in Wilton, Maine

High on a windswept ridge in Wilton, Maine, Stephanie Henley and Mat Bickford steward Thistle Moon Farmstead, where history lingers in the rows of highbush blueberries first planted in the 1940s by the Neuman family. Those heirloom bushes still bear fruit under their care, now joined by native herbs, edible flowers, and seasonal vegetables. Every crop reflects the couple’s commitment to reciprocity and restoration through regenerative, biodynamic, and organic growing methods.

Stephanie’s path to farming began with a diagnosis of Crohn’s disease in her early twenties, a turning point that revealed how little clean, nourishing food was available to her and her community. What began as a personal necessity soon became a shared mission. With Mat by her side, she began growing herbs not just for healing, but with healing as a guiding principle. Today, their crops - like milky oats, lemon balm, tulsi, and nettles - anchor a broader vision that includes a line of seed-to-skin botanical products rooted in Stephanie’s experience as a clinical aromatherapist, herbalist, and licensed aesthetician. Through that transformed necessity, she has built purpose: seedbeds of healing that would reach well beyond her own table.

Beyond the fields, the couple is reclaiming long-forgotten logging trails that wind through the wooded back acres, transforming them into spaces for forest bathing, sound therapy, and deep connection with the land. These quiet paths, like the cultivated beds, are tended with intention and care. Here, the philosophy of Thistle Moon Farmstead takes full form: to tend land and body as one. Patiently, reverently, and in rhythm with the natural world.