For the first time in its nearly 40-year history, the farmstand at Morning Glory Farm in Edgartown will remain open through the month of January.

"We want to keep doing what we're doing," chief executive Simon Athearn told the Gazette Thursday. "We want to be here for people."

Open seven days a week except for holidays and the days after Thanksgiving and Christmas, the farmstand at the corner of Meshacket and West Tisbury roads will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2021.

Debbie and Jim Athearn founded Morning Glory Farm in 1975 and opened the farmstand in 1981, expanding it over the years from an outdoor porch to a grocery store with its own kitchen, bakery and jam cannery. The couple's sons Simon and Daniel and their wives have joined the family business, while daughter Prudence (Levy) runs Vineyard Nutrition with her husband Josh and helps out with special events like last summer's drive-through strawberry shortcake festival.

Beets, carrots and greens are the farm's most plentiful crops right now, Simon Athearn said. The farmstand is expected to suspend retail operations from February until early spring.

In 2020, the Athearns had planned to open the farmstand before Easter weekend, in April, but the pandemic requirement for summer employees to quarantine on Island for two weeks before starting work forced a postponement to May.