ESSEX — When Melissa Glorieux lived in San Francisco she went to a lot of farmers’ markets, since two of her favorite things are eating and local produce. She loved being around the farmers — the dirty hands, the worn jeans, the sunburned noses: “That casual, hands-on feeling about what they’re doing.”

So Glorieux, a Falmouth native, decided to move back to Massachusetts and become a farmer. The fact that she’d never grown anything except a cherry tomato plant didn’t faze her. She was sure she could do it.