BELLOWS FALLS, Vt. — Kathleen and Rick Govotski were just out of college — she at Northeastern, he at Boston College — and newly married in 1976 when they first went camping along the Battenkill River in Vermont. That was it.

“We said we’re moving here within a year, and we did,’’ Kathleen recalls. Rick and a friend planned to start a chimney sweep business — but the first night, started a chimney fire.

“The business didn’t last,’’ Kathleen says with a laugh. The Govotskis did open an antique store in Dorset, and then a catering business.

In 1984, they bought Halladay’s Greenhouses and Florist from two brothers for about $75,000. The deal included 20 acres of land, 13 greenhouses and a house that hadn’t been lived in for 13 years.

“We proceeded to dig ourselves into a big old hole of debt,’’ says Kathleen.

In the 1990s, during the slower winter months in the greenhouse business, the couple began experimenting in their kitchen with herb dip mixes, which they sold at county fairs. When they sold out of the five mixes one weekend in Chester, they were thrilled.

Today, Halladay’s Harvest Barn makes 70 dips, soup mixes, apple and fruit crisp mixes, cheesecake mixes, burger blends, pasta blends and other seasonings and rubs. I had my first taste when a friend made dinner for me a year ago. It was the carmelized onion dip — and it was love at first bite.

The small company does about 20 shows and fairs in New England each year, and their line is carried in hundreds of small stores, orchards, and farmstands nationwide: they stay out of big groceries and chains.

I’ve become an online customer, surprising friends with my newfound talent of producing great “homemade’’ soups. You just add a few ingredients to the mixes — the recipes are on the back. The Govotskis’ son Justin and his girlfriend Jen Thurgate have developed many recipes and have produced a cookbook for the line.

When I learned that the family also owns an inn in Bellows Falls, I had to go. They bought it in 2010 and spent a year renovating it. Halladay’s Harvest Barn Inn is a classic New England farmhouse, nothing fancy. But it has a long porch with amazing views of the Connecticut River.

Best of all is the bottomless jar in the dining room filled with homemade chocolate chip cookies, and the breakfast cooked by innkeepers Jon Farnham and Gayle Ballard. When we went on a recent summer weekend, over two mornings we had homemade scones, fresh orange juice, blueberry pancakes, sausage, quiche, bacon, hash browns, and cinnamon buns. And countless cookies throughout the day. There’s also coffee and tea all day and afternoon appetizers, which we missed in favor of a hike. Rooms range from $129 to $159, and include those goodies.

Just down the street from the inn is the Queen Anne Victorian where the Govotskis live, and work. “It’s just kind of a silly business that’s grown,’’ Kathleen says, as she and Rick give a tour. “We started out in a closet, then moved to a bedroom, then a shed. We were just trying to figure out how to translate things we love into dried items that don’t have artificial color or flavors or other nasty things.’’

Eight years ago, they began to close the greenhouses, which were using thousands of gallons of oil a year. They moved the plant business to downtown Bellows Falls, where they own a charming florist and gift shop that sells many of their mixes and blends. “People come from all over,’’ says Marsha Austin, the store manager. “Mostly the Northeast, but other places, too.’’

Today, the company has three full-time and four part-time employees. They buy herbs from wholesale farmers. A barn behind the Govotski home is the production area, where the herbs are blended and packaged by hand; there’s not a machine in sight.

“I would much rather hire people,’’ Rick says. There’s a sugar room for the cheesecake mixes and soup room for those mixes. It all smells great.

On Saturday after breakfast, my husband and I wanted — and needed — to go for a hike. The innkeepers produced directions for a good one in hills across the river.

That night, at Kathleen’s suggestion, we ate at the Restaurant at Burdick’s in nearby Walpole, N.H. They were booked but said we could show up at 5:30 and take our chances on snagging a sidewalk table.

I wasn’t taking no for an answer, when I learned that this was the Burdick’s chocolate family. What? You’ve never had their to-die-for hot chocolate — basically a melted bar — in Harvard Square?

We had just gotten our outdoor table when a woman rode up on her bicycle and began to greet guests. She introduced herself as Paula Burdick and told us that a year ago, her family sold the chocolate shops in New York, Cambridge, Boston, and Bellows Falls. But they kept the restaurant and a grocery store just down the block.

Paula grew up in Quincy, husband Larry in Dorchester. They learned the chocolate business in Paris and Switzerland, and they work with farmers in Grenada who produce the cocoa and own most of the factory there.

The meal was wonderful, French bistro style. We skipped dessert and walked next door to LA Burdick’s Chocolates, no longer owned by the family but still producing velvety candies and rich pastries, and of course, that cup of liquid chocolate.

Bella English can be reached at english@globe.com.