SUMMER 2024 | 15 Salvaterra says. “If it’s too small, it’s not going to actually be harvestable. When the light conditions drop, it won’t be harvestable until the next February. If it’s too big, it actually just causes disease problems.” Salvaterra even has a strategy for field mice. Knowing they’ll snack on the crops, in one tunnel he plants more dill than he plans to harvest on the outside and then the eggplant goes in the middle. He says the field mice eat the first thing they find and leave the eggplant alone. GETTING INTO GARDENING Salvaterra excelled both in the classroom and on the gridiron while at Lehigh. But it’s his memorable moments on the field that make him well-known to many Mountain Hawk fans, including a Rivalry game MVP and one of the most dramatic comebacks in recent history. With the Lehigh football team trailing Lafayette 10-7 in the 136th edition of The Rivalry, he recorded his first of two interceptions on the day, both of which led to points for Lehigh and helped the sophomore become just the third defensive player to earn the MVP award for the 2000 regular season finale. Two years later, after switching positions from cornerback to strong safety, Salvaterra picked off a pass and returned it for a touchdown after suffering a slight concussion and delivering a pep talk to his teammates, who were down 17 points at halftime. The play was part of a 24-point fourth quarter that rallied the Mountain Hawks and extended their regular season win streak to 26 games, the longest in the nation at the time. After graduating from Lehigh with a degree in education and psychology, Salvaterra taught fifth grade in the Bethlehem Area School District. His wife worked at Wegmans, a regional supermarket chain. They lived in Allentown, and looking for something to do during his summers off from school, Salvaterra put in a garden while redoing things around the house. Enjoying it, they rented pieces of land to expand their hobby. The couple quickly realized they were yielding more crops than they could use and joined Easton Farmers’ Market to sell their excess produce. It was the perfect summer job for a teacher. Wanting kids—they now have two—they decided Jessica would eventually stay home to raise their family. He would continue to teach and farm, so they bought the property that would become Salvaterra’s Gardens. When they bought their current home during the 2008 housing market crash, none of it was a farm. “It was just fields and woods,” he says. They kept their full-time jobs and farmed until Jessica became pregnant with their first child. Even then, Salvaterra continued to teach and farm. “That was kind of a crazy idea,” Salvaterra says. “We did it for a while.” In addition to the farmers’ market, they now operate a CSA. They were involved in selling wholesale, which they stopped during the pandemic, but Salvaterra says they’re getting back into it and plan to do even more. They also have supplied different restaurant owners in the area, such as the owners of Bolete Restaurant and Mister Lee’s Noodles at the Easton Public Market. Pausing wholesale sales when COVID-19 hit opened up another opportunity—a farm stand right on the premises that they sell out of all year long. “They were shutting so much stuff down in March [2020], right when you’re starting [to grow],” Salvaterra says. “Basically what happened was all the farms that are the same as us, going to markets, things like that, we just all sold to each other off our property. So I would buy their stuff and bring it here and I’d sell them stuff.” In addition to Salvaterra, the Gardens have two full-time employees and one part-time worker. Home-schooling their children, Jessica no longer helps in the field, but assists with the CSA, the farmer’s market stand and their website. L There are 100 tunnels on the property, one of which is heated and can be used to extend the growing season for some crops, such as tomatoes.
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