Last year, my marketing plan was simple.  I farmed one acre.  I had 27 CSA shares.  I figured, CSA comes first and then, whatever is left-over, goes to farmers’ markets.

I didnt’ have enough for supermarkets, and, therefore, no interactions with produce managers took place.

 

This year, we earn as much from supermarkets as we do from farmers’ markets and CSA.

This brings a new level of reponsibility, organization, phone calls, and, yes, quality.  It is quality of a different sort - the kind that can hold on a shelf for a few days.  If we bring a squishy tomato to the farmers’ market, we are responsible only to ourselves.  We can simply throw that away in the compost bucket.  However, that doesn’t work with the supermarkets - our squishy tomato is their loss.

It’s a bummer for everyone when the produce doesn’t hold up.  Invariably, it happens.  Some managers understand better than others.  

It’s hard to please everyone.  The more we put ourselves out there, the more we realize there are many standards to conform to. We do our best to make sure our CSA members, market shoppers, friends, land owners, and produce managers are happy.  It doesn’t always work out.  That’s business. And, also, it’s my second year.  I have a lot of learning to do.  By year 10, I expect to hear mostly positive news.   

I suppose the last two years have taught me to roll with critical commentary as much as they’ve taught me to grow veggies and keep the books.  I do my best.  Sometimes it gets me down.  Not as much now, though.  I think I am callusing myself to all sorts of feedback - positive and negative alike.  I just try to learn from it the best I can.

This is an update to the saga with the farmers’ market police on tuesday. We do three farmers’ markets on Saturdays.  Logan does one in the town of Auburn, about 45 minutes or so from the farm.  One of the board members of that market let Logan know that rumors were spreading through the market about us.  they were saying that we don’t grow all the food we sell.  the board member assured us that he/she believed us and that we should take the rumors as a compliment.   Compliment… Read the rest of this article »

Hello Everyone.  June has arrived and our CSA has started.  We just finished our first week.  We have 60 members in our CSA right now and hope to elevate that number to 90 within the next couple of weeks.   The first zucchini of the season is here as well - a herald of the summer upon us.   We also are going to three farmers markets per week, soon to be six.   All told, we are planted up around 6 acres, with about 3.5 left to plant.  Those will be filled up with more peppers, winter squash,… Read the rest of this article »

We’ve had a great few days here on our farm.  We thank our customers in our communities of Bainbridge Island and Poulsbo, WA.  It’s good to have all the support we can get. We’re working every single bit we can to bring you our heirloom biodynamically planted produce.  Once again, love following the biodynamic calendar.  Really looking forward to learning more about using biodynamic methods.  So far I’m digging on the methods of Elliott Coleman combined… Read the rest of this article »

The seeds have been planted.  The “Antonio” bean is in the ground, courtesy of Bluebird Farm, courtesy of Riverhill Farm, courtesy of Antonio. I am plunging into the world of dried grains and beans.  I don’t know how this fits in with Wildgrace Farm and the CSA and the Farmers’ Markets and everything like that, but, we’ll see.  I am devoting a little space to beans like “Antonio”, ‘hutterite soup bean”, “Jacob’s cattle bean”,… Read the rest of this article »