We (Patty Carton and John Newlin) want to warmly welcome you to this overview of Scatter Good Farm.

Scatter Good Farm aims to model climate-friendly farming and forestry practices while providing beautiful indoor and outdoor “public” gathering spaces that help foster a strong sense of community.

In addition to the two of us, Scatter Good Farm is home to a climate-friendly 3-acre grow-for-donation vegetable operation run by the nonprofit, Growing to Give, one dog, five pet goats, lots of birds and other wildlife, a house with rental apartments at both ends, a renovated barn with a room for groups of up to 50, and a few cabins and other outbuildings. The farm’s 30 acres of woods is managed primarily for climate succession, wildlife, and firewood; the 7 acres of hay fields are managed for swallows, monarch butterflies, and long views; and the scattered flower beds for pollinators and colors.

Scatter Good Farm is located in the western part of Brunswick, Maine, about as far from the coast as one can be and still be in Brunswick. Downtown Brunswick, Lisbon Falls, and Freeport are about 10 minutes away, and Portland, Wiscasset, and Lewiston/Auburn are about 30 minutes away. Going up the coast, it’s about 75 minutes to the Campden Hills area, and going down the coast, it’s about 75 minutes to the New Hampshire border. For directions to Scatter Good Farm, please click here.

From the early 1900s to the 1980s, what is now Scatter Good Farm was the “far field”of the Two Echo Dairy Farm, and based on the rock walls in the woods, the land was almost certainly a sheep pasture for more than 100 years before that. But from an even longer historical perspective, the farm sits within the historic lands of the Abenaki people, members of the Wabanaki Confederacy, who stewarded these lands for more than 16,000 years (and never ceded them).

In 2002, we moved to this land with our two young sons, on which we had just built a new house and barn in the back corner of a hayfield with a great view. From 2002 to 2014, the property was basically a small “hobby” farm that produced firewood, eggs, hay, meat chickens, wool, maple syrup, and veggies. At the same time, we enjoyed hosting regular gatherings for family, friends, and neighbors, often in conjunction with solstices, equinoxes, and fundraising events. These gatherings often involved singing, campfire storytelling, youth sports, and yard games.

In 2014, we began implementing a plan to transform our family hobby farm into a community-oriented, climate-friendly, agri-tourism family farm with vegetable, chicken, orchard, firewood, educational, and rental operations.

Fast forwarding to 2026, many aspects of the 2014 plan have been realized, along with some wonderful surprises, but a few aspects of the 2014 plan have been discarded or have not happened yet. More specifically, climate-friendly biochar soil amendments were used for several years, but weren’t great for the farm’s clay-dense soil and are no longer used. (However, we still believe in biochar’s broader potential, and more on biochar can be found here: .). In addition, we haven’t had chickens for years, and the planned “permaculture orchard” has never come to fruition [sorry], but again, many things have gone well, and it all has been a great learning experience!

In 2015, we formally established Scatter Good Farm and piloted a (short-lived) gap-year program with 4 post-high-school farm hands/artists-in-residence. In 2016, the farm received MOFGA organic certification and dramatically increased vegetable production.

In 2017, with our friend Theda Lyden and others, we started a project at the farm that quickly became Growing to Give, a climate-friendly, nonprofit, grow-for-donation vegetable operation – in many ways, a farm within a farm. We enjoyed working with others to help Growing to Give grow, especially in our roles as volunteer executive directors for the first 6 years. In addition, during that period, Patty was the volunteer lead for almost all G2G events, and John did almost all the “dirt work” to create and shape the farm.

We have also enjoyed providing a free home for Growing to Give’s 3-acre operation at Scatter Good Farm since G2G began, and we’re deeply grateful that G2G has become a wonderful climate-friendly vegetable operation with great educational and community activities.

In 2020, we completed a 4-year renovation of our barn, including a multi-purpose “Barn Room” (on the second floor) for up to 50 people. While yoga classes no longer happen in that space, current Barn Room activities include Growing to Give meetings, book group meetings, sound baths, therapy sessions, and singing group gatherings.

The aspect of the 2014 plan that took the longest to complete was to create several beautiful and restorative outdoor gathering spaces for our own enjoyment and to share with family, friends, renters, Airbnb guests, and others. Finally, as of 2026, the landscaping for all of these gathering spaces has been completed, and going forward we’re grateful to be able to share the beauty and energy of these spaces. In addition, while our five goats and one dog were not part of the 2014 plan, we’ve been pleasantly surprised to see them become an important part of the outdoor experience at the farm for many people, and they seem to give lots of people a good moment in their day.

Another nice surprise has been the opportunity to support the local ceramic arts scene through a lease with Portland-based Handful Pottery Studios. This lease provides a space on the farm for their wood-fired kiln (and cover building), and parking for several weekend-long kiln firings each year.

Finally, while the farm is still our home and a wonderful place for sharing both special and everyday meals with family and friends, we’re grateful, to all involved, that the farm also seems to support a deeper sense of community for many people who come – for singing in the Barn Room, volunteering at Growing to Give, stopping by to visit the goats, or many other reasons – and we are exploring additional offerings for the indoor Barn Room and outdoor gathering spaces that we hope will continue to foster community building.

Names

We chose the farm name for a couple of reasons. The phrase “Scatter Good” is similar to another phrase we like, “Commit Random Acts of Kindness.” In addition, some readers might know about Scattergood Friends School, a wonderful Quaker boarding school in rural Iowa with a farm of its own. John went there for his first two years of high school, and a few years later he served on its Board. The school was named for Joseph Scattergood, a Philadelphia Quaker, but the school also tries to “scatter good” in the world. In hopes of preventing confusion about the two farms, we separate the words “Scatter” and “Good” to emphasize our focus on scattering good in the world, and we have included our farm’s location in the state of Maine (ME) in our farm’s url, scattergoodfarm.me.

We named the road (gravel driveway) that we built from Hacker Road to the farm, “East Coxon Road” – after John’s mother’s family name, Coxon, who were farmers “out west” (in Iowa).