“Borrowed from their children”
Happy Earth Day shareholders!
It may be that expressing any surprise at the strange and fickle seasonal weather patterns of modern Ohio is foolish, still, it was an atypical early spring. But after an oddly warm February, an oddly cold March, and an oddly dry April, there should no longer be any worry that our growing season is established. As our biosphere warms, awakens, propagates, and stimulates the rapid expansion of floral and faunal biomass that we see crawling, inching, and floating all around us, the responsibilities of nature’s caretakers accumulate and seasonal horticulture requires more of our immediate attention.
We want to reconnect and introduce ourselves to returning and new shareholders of this upcoming 2023 harvest. To our returning CSA members, we thank you dearly for your annual investment and encouragement. We certainly couldn’t have done it, and couldn’t continue to do it, without you. You’ve been patient, flexible, and assuring. Your participation has allowed us to pursue a lifestyle providing a truly unique and invaluable day-to-day experience. Our animals, our plants, our soils, our own bodies are healthier and happier because of you.
This analog/digital hybrid community incorporates us into a symbiotic network despite being physically rooted to our land and unavoidably isolated. We are like heirloom garden tomato plants, stuck in soil. We depend fully on the attention and support of transient selfless pollinators. They use our pollen as currency, exchanging and bartering, funding the start of this resilient new hybrid variety. As in nature, in harmony, we collaborate as a cooperative and healthy ecosystem for mutual and influential benefit.
To our new shareholders, welcome! We’re fairly new farmers with a fairly modest operation, but our production efficiency and quality gets better each season without sacrificing organic and regenerative principles. We are ready to provide your family with our best harvest yet and a full season of diverse, fresh, and local whole foods.
As new or perennial CSA shareholders, you may or may not need to be reminded of the virtue of your investment. Your family is funding a farm that is, without compromise,…
Organic- Though we lack an official organic certification, we can assure that your food will never be sprayed with inorganic or synthetic, broadly destructive pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides. Our animals are grass-fed and pasture-raised with supplemental grains sourced as locally as possible.
Regenerative- We work unreasonably hard to avoid any degenerative practices within our farm & gardens. We tread lightly on the soil, using hand tools as often as possible, mindful of our use of fossil fuels. We till minimally, using tillage equipment and tools to simply shape and amend our established garden beds, avoiding deep soil disturbance and destruction. We hope to maintain fertility not by shipping in synthetic chemicals derived from fossil fuels, but by recycling our waste and incorporating local composts and fertilizers.
Sustainable- We strive to minimize our use of materials, prioritizing recyclable and reusable inputs in our production and distribution, consistently aware of our waste and downstream influence.
Local- Our long-term goal is to figure out how to “close the loop,” completely eliminating outside inputs contributing to our farm’s productivity. For now, it is still necessary to bring in organic amendments like local compost and production materials like local potting soil. While we temporarily depend on these inputs, we intend to source them as locally and responsibly as is reasonable.
We recently watched a program discussing the hardships of conventional farm workers, of whom many are immigrants, of whom many are impoverished. It was a reminder of how meaningful and important it is to know who grows your food, or at the very least, to reflect compassionately about who is contributing to that convenience, how they’re being treated, and why they’re involved. Many fruits and vegetables are still hand-picked as they are too delicate to be machine-harvested. The following is paraphrased from an interview with a conventional farm worker in California:
Sometimes, you would feel the breeze from the pesticide being freshly applied in the neighboring field, but it had been so hot that we couldn’t help but feel relief from the cool spray. It felt good.
Those anonymous farm workers are hand-picking fruits and vegetables, for low wages, in hazardous conditions for the purpose of increasing a heartless corporation’s stock value. Your family has chosen to vote with your dollar to avoid contributing to such a toxic industry, and support a passionate, small-scale, local grower hand-picking whole foods specifically for the purpose of feeding your family. We think that’s meaningful. We think that’s noble. We think that’s important.
Our farm’s borders contain roughly six acres of managed pastures, cultivated gardens, and native/wild land. It’s a small but mighty ecosystem supporting and naturally satisfying flocks of over 100 laying hens and roosters, two dozen sheep, and scores of varieties of annual and perennial vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs.
Sheep and Poultry are regularly rotated around the property providing fresh paddocks to forage. The omnivorous poultry aerate and stimulate the topsoil, scratching for bugs and seeds while the herbivorous bovidae prune and mow bushes, forbs, and grasses. We employ Salatinian regenerative “mob-grazing” techniques, rotating micro paddocks daily, keeping flocks tightly grouped and closely managed using electric fencing in order to concentrate nutrients, manage pasture condition, and prevent over-grazing.
Right on time, our spring garden is planted and established! As nights continue to gradually warm, we will see an exponential increase in new growth. We have the following crops sown for upcoming spring harvests:
Carrots, Spring mix Lettuce & Mustards, Arugula, Head Lettuces, Garlic, Onions, Spinach, Asian Greens and Pac Choi, Potatoes, Collard Greens, Kohlrabi, Kale, Snow Peas, Snap Peas, Broccoli varieties, Cabbage varieties, Beets, Swiss Chard, Radishes, Turnips, various herbs, and Cherry Tomatoes.
As we get closer to feeling confidently safe from frost in early May, we will proceed to transplant summer seedlings including many varieties of tomatoes, peppers, and squashes.
We have officially reached our goal to provide for at least 40 families this season! While our egg shares are officially sold out, we still have capacity for a few more families if anyone has friends or neighbors who may be interested in vegetable and flower shares.
Our first boxes will be delivered in about a month, we will provide exact delivery dates and schedules as our membership finalizes these next few weeks.
To close, we’d like to share a captivating quote, upon which we’ve reflected much. It is often attributed to Wendell Berry, and the Audubon Society subsequently:
A true conservationist is a person who knows that the world is not given by their fathers, but borrowed from their children.
We love and appreciate you, feel free to reach out with comments or questions, more news to come!
Erin & David