By LEAH ASTORE

With music as fresh as the vegetables she harvests, local singer-songwriter and organic farmer Hayley Sabella is proving her “farm fingers” are just as good at strumming a guitar as they are at picking tomatoes.

Bright and cheerful, Sabella seems to have the unlikely rough edge you’d expect from a farmer, but Sabella isn’t afraid to roll up her sleeves and get her hands dirty, which she has done now for three summers. Alongside her music, Sabella works at both Holmes Farm in Manomet, Mass. and Soule Homestead in Middleboro, Mass.

On August 3, Sabella took a break from farming and played an intimate outdoor concert alongside local singer-songwriter Hayley Reardon at the Homestead. Seeing her perform at the farm where she works, it was clear where Sabella’s music gets its raw, honest quality.

“It was cool to look around and see [Soule Homestead] in a different context…it definitely cast the place in a different light,” she said.

Although farming began as a seasonal job while she was an English major at Bridgewater State University, it has become a passion and inspiration for her. This inspiration can be heard in her 2012 EP Farm Fingers.

Along with playing intimate local venues and house shows, Sabella is preparing to record her first full length album to be titled King Solomon, after one of her songs on her Farm Fingers EP.

In October, Sabella will travel to Minot, Maine, to record for the second time with Josh Ray at Owl Head Studios.

“I want to invite a lot of friends to come up and play their instruments and I think overall it’s going to be great and people are going to want to see what it’s like,” Sabella said.

To fund the album and a “behind the scenes” documentary, Sabella said she plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign.

“I’m looking for minimally $10,000,” Sabella said. “I want to record the record and also hire a film crew to document it because it’s in the middle of the woods…and it’s going to be a really cool process.”

In the meantime, Sabella is playing around three shows a week at intimate venues throughout New England, including Sarah Blacker’s upcoming CD release concert at Club Passim in Cambridge, Mass., on August 22, 2013, at 7 p.m.

“[Blacker’s] delightful – she’s just such a nice, warm person,” Sabella said.

Along with encouragement and advice, Sabella said Blacker has helped to introduce her into the music community in Boston. After the projected release of King Solomon in February 2014, Sabella hopes to tour and spread her roots even “further and wider”.

“I’m very excited and I’m pleased that I am so busy, it means I’m on the right track,” she said.

For more details about Sabella and her King Solomon album, visit facebook.com/hayleysabellamusic.