A farm in Newcastle is generating a lot of pretty, healthy, organic seedlings this spring.

Morning Dew Farm is a six-acre, MOFGA-certified organic vegetable farm near Edgecomb. The owners, wife and husband Brady Hatch and Brendan McQuillen, who have two young children, are busy  planting, caring for and selling some of their seedlings, before planting the rest there at their farm and on their farmland in Damariscotta to sell later as full-blown vegetables, herbs and fruits.

Specializing in salad greens, the farm produces over 200 pounds a week during the summer season, and Hatch and McQuillen supply them to Rising Tide Co-op in Damariscotta, The Good Tern Co-op in Rockland, Ames True Value Supply in Wiscasset, and other stores, restaurants and farmers markets in Midcoast Maine, throughout the summer and into early winter.

The two do all of their farming by hand, with help from up to eight employees during the summer, and some year-round.

After farming in Newcastle since 2005, in 2017 they took over the former Spencer’s Greenery at 49 Center St. in Damariscotta, just off Route 1, where they now have the two nursery greenhouses and sell their seedlings and some farming tools and supplies, including soil amendment and compost. They call the business Morning Dew Seedling + Supply.

Hatch said they started their farm around the time people started showing an interest in local, organic foods. “We started farming out of a sense of idealism, and wanted to do something valuable with our time and our energy that was connected to our community.” All of their seedlings are organic and grown in a compost-based potting mix.

On May 1, McQuillen was cutting trays of microgreens grown in one of the greenhouses year-round, and packaging them to sell to stores and restaurants. Any unused, trimmed, thinned-out seedlings and produce does not go to waste. It gets thrown into a compost pile and eventually turns into good, rich, organic soil.

The seedlings will be for sale on Friday from 2 to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. through mid-June. This Saturday, May 5 there will be free coffee and donuts from Treats in Wiscasset.

Look for seedlings this weekend in the form of perennial and various culinary herbs, kale, chard, lettuces. bok choy, fava beans, snapdragons and perennial pansies, among others, as well as organic compost from Living Acres in New Sharon, and seeds from a Vermont company.

The couple grows seedlings for fall, too, that will be available at Rising Tide and Good Tern. “People can plant spinach, lettuce and broccoli in July and August, and they’ll have more food from their gardens in October,” McQuillen said.