Our Principles
Grow a Farmacy.
We believe in growing food for our community. We love growing healthy, organic food, and harvesting it right before our neighbors pick it up. In a world that is less personal every day, we pride ourselves on knowing all of our customers by name, and selling them delicious and nutritious food.
You are what you eat, and this farm is a farmacy. Food affects how you feel and heal. Extremely fresh food grown naturally is medicine. It can help you feel great. It can help you get better when you don’t.
We are committed to local, healthful food, and choose to reject the so-called food produced by the industrialized food system. It can be addictive but is by no means good for anybody or the Earth.
“Globalized industrialized food is not cheap: it is too costly for the Earth, for the farmers, for our health. The Earth can no longer carry the burden of groundwater mining, pesticide pollution, disappearance of species and destabilization of the climate. Farmers can no longer carry the burden of debt, which is inevitable in industrial farming with its high costs of production. It is incapable of producing safe, culturally appropriate, tasty, quality food. And it is incapable of producing enough food for all because it is wasteful of land, water and energy. Industrial agriculture uses ten times more energy than it produces. It is thus ten times less efficient.” - Vandana Shiva
Be Plant Positive.
Always leave the soil better than you found it. Incorporate fallen leaves. Create compost and add it to your soil. Use cover crops such as clovers & vetch, oats & rye, to replenish your soil. Stevie Wonder, in his “Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants”, asks where we would be without plants and our ecosystem: “But if you ask yourself where would you be without them / You will find you would not.”
The tiny seeds we hold will become prosperous, nourishing crops that enrich the lives of others -- we simply need to create adequate growing conditions for the plants for them to succeed. We must trust the ability of plants to ward off threats when planted in healthy, nutrient-rich soils.
Plants become susceptible to pests and disease when they are stressed by inadequate growing conditions. We believe in a “plant positive” approach to agriculture - not a “pest-negative” approach.
“The fact that stress might have a detrimental effect on plants is not surprising in light of the similar effect of stress on humans. When we are under stress we too become more susceptible to the ills that can befall us. And, just as in agriculture, we can either choose chemical aids to mask the symptoms of our stress or we can make changes to correct that cause - changes in our lifestyle or work environment or daily habits.” - Elliot Coleman, from The New Organic Grower (p. 173)
Cultivate Diversity and Respect.
We must cultivate, celebrate, and value diversity, both culturally & agriculturally. As the climate is unpredictable and at times extreme, crop diversity will ensure our success - be it partial or whole.
For example, we might grow two varieties of broccoli - one picked for withstanding cold snaps well, one picked for heat tolerance - to increase the dependability of the harvest despite an undependable climate.
Animals and plants alike should be treated with the same respect and compassion regarded to humans. Humans are part of the Earth and her ecosystems and cannot be separated from them.
Animals and plants are to be lived with and among, not conquered and controlled. We of course must eat and live in housing, but we should strive to do so with respect to our environment instead of assuming total ownership over it.
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be measured by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma Gandhi.
Reject Oppression.
The oppressions of nature, animals, women, people of color and working classes are all byproducts of broad systems that divide and conquer. The earth is being destroyed, animals are factory farmed, and basic human rights get denied.
We reject this system, as it threatens the vitality of the entire planet, humans and the environment alike, and encourage new ways of living that celebrates and unites all people, nature, and animals. We upcycle “trash,” we barter with our neighbors, we give food to the hungry.
We are a woman-owned and -operated farm. We are ecofeminists. Both our broad environmental and societal injustices can be resolved by shifting away from this societal structure that always takes and never gives.
Question, Observe and Learn.
We must learn from the cultures that understand sustainability. Since there are or were indigenous cultures that lived sustainably in dynamic equilibrium with their land in virtually every inhabitable place on Earth, we would do well to learn all we can from them as we seek delicious, healthful, sustainable ways to eat wherever we are. (From http://www.vinland.me)
As a farmer, it is easy to make conversation about fortune based on the current weather: is it too hot, too rainy, too early frost, etc. However, we must question our categorizations and attempt to make the best of everything we have when we have it. Blessing turns to disaster, and disaster to blessing: the changes have no end, nor can the mystery be fathomed.
“Ecofeminism is about connectedness and wholeness of theory and practice. It asserts the special strength and integrity of every living thing. For us the snail darter is to be considered side by side with a community's need for water, the porpoise side by side with appetite for tuna... We are a woman-identified movement and we believe we have a special work to do in these imperilled times. We see the devastation of the earth and her beings by the corporate warriors, and the threat of nuclear annihilation by the military warriors, as feminist concerns.” - Ynestra King
There was once a poor farmer who could afford to own just one horse. He cared well for the animal, but one summer night it escaped through a weak fence and ran away. When his neighbors discovered what had happened, they visited to offer their condolences. “What bad luck!” they exclaimed. The farmer replied, “Maybe. Maybe not.”
A week later, the fugitive horse sauntered back to the homestead, accompanied by six wild horses. The farmer and his son managed to corral them all. Again the neighbors descended. “What great luck!” they exclaimed. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. “Maybe not.”
Soon the farmer’s son began the work of taming the new arrivals. While attempting to ride the roan stallion, he was thrown to the ground and half-trampled. His leg was badly broken. The neighbors came to investigate. “What terrible luck!” they exclaimed. They farmer replied, “Maybe. Maybe not.”
The next day, soldiers visited the farmer’s village. Strife had recently broken out between two warlords, and one of them had come to conscript all the local young men. Though every other son was commandeered, the farmer’s boy was exempted because of his injury. The neighbors gathered again. “What fantastic luck!” they exclaimed. “Maybe,” the farmer said. “Maybe not.” - old Taoist folk tale
Cultivate community / Cultivate peas / Cultivate lovage & compost & kale & pickles & presence & thanks & pecks.