Ben Greenfield's been a lot of things: marketing promoter, entrepreneur, product developer, snack-food inventor.

And now he can add one more: farmer.

Greenfield, a Noank businessman who created, among other things, Mystic Chips - later sold to Utz Quality Foods in Pennsylvania - has taken up cultivating about a half acre's worth of farmland at Wychwood Farm.

The site, in Greenfield's own words, sits on "600 of the most beautiful acres of farmland in Stonington and North Stonington."

Greenfield has also taken to writing a daily blog about his adventures down on the farm. It's found at www.somecountryforoldben.blogspot.com. Greenfield says his son dubbed the Web site name, a take off on the novel-turned-movie, "No Country for Old Men."

"It's a great movie," quips Greenfield, though it bears no resemblance to the farming life.

Since late May, Greenfield has gone to the Wychwood property and tilled it, nurtured it, seeded it - and hoped for the best.

Despite some initial challenges, both from Mother Nature and from the fledgling farmer, the crops are growing.

As Greenfield talks on his cell phone about his farming prospects, he walks through his field, describing what's planted: corn, cucumbers, pumpkins, beans, tomatoes, herbs, even onions. He's planted quite a bit in his half-acre plot, and he's excited about the prospects of his crops growing into marketable goods.

In fact, he says that the Wychwood Farm's owners have given him the green light for a summer produce stand at the farm's entrance on Route 201, which Greenfield hopes will be populated with the products of his hard labor (his girlfriend, Debbie, also helps out as much as she can, he points out).

Greenfield says he's grateful to farm owners George and Ann Brown. He says he visited several farms before "Farmer Brown," as he calls him, agreed to let him test his budding agrarian skillset. That was, of course, as long as Farmer Brown's wife agreed - and she did with a smile.

When Greenfield was attempting to explain why an entrepreneur and snack-food inventor wanted to work the land, he handed her a bag of Mystic Chips.

As Greenfield writes in one his early blogs, he told her, "I like to create products that have real roots, and would like to say that I at least took the time to learn how to raise food before selling it."

And, for the first time in a decade, Greenfield says, "I'm getting the feeling that the craziest of plans somehow have a way of taking on a sensible life. For me, it means there is promise, once again. I believe that if I want to, I can create once again!"

Greenfield, ever the inventor-entrepreneur, has plans to create a candy-related product. He can't say too much, what with all the competition these days, but he's already trademarked a popcorn-related product, which is why he's growing a popcorn-variety seed in the Stonington soils.

He also considers creating a mean batch of salsa. "Maybe Stonington Salsa," he says, almost rhetorically. You need good, beefy tomatoes for that - so he's growing them. "There's always room for more salsas," he says.

"Everything I've done," Greenfield reflects, "has come from the sea or farms." When he was creating and distributing Mystic Chips, he says he visited plenty of potato farms.

"I just realized that if I could find a farm and learn some of the ancient arts of growing things - my mother always said I had a green thumb - at least I'd have some integrity to the (food) products I'd like to bring out," he explains.

Greenfield admits that he loves to write, hence his prolific blogs about his agricultural adventures. "I just thought it would be a nice way of chronicling what I'm doing, sort of one person's story about how I was able to get this new business going - or that I had fun trying."

Greenfield says he enjoys his new offbeat pursuit. It is, however, hard work, he stresses. He says he relishes the Browns' common-sense help and their reservoirs of farming wisdom. "We really get along well. They share a vision for doing things right. It's all got to be done slowly and in 'Yankee' time."

In the meantime, the farm is still inviting to Greenfield, the land is receptive to his plantings, and, who knows, maybe he'll have plenty of hearty stock to stack up at the hoped-for produce stand at Wychwood Farm this summer.

"If I can adapt the skills I've learned over almost 30 years and put them into the practical aspects of learning how to bring things up from the earth, then I'll really have fun," he says.

Anthony Cronin is The Day's business editor.