Buy Local Food In Kitsap

Abundantly Green Certified Organic Produce couldn’t have found a better name to suit their successful produce business.

It’s named in part after two of the four co-farmers, Brad and Barb Green, but the amazing abundance of tasty, herbicide, chemical and pesticide free produce grown on five acres astounds other farmers as well as those who bought shares for this season’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Abundantly Green sold its produce subscription shares out before the season even began.

For the 92 lucky share-owners who receive fresh produce each week for 20 weeks and discerning produce shoppers at the Poulsbo Farmers Market, every week brings a delectable new surprise. Approximately 40 different types or varieties of produce are offered throughout the season. Among the farm’s specialties is lettuce – eight different types are currently produced. Some have intriguing names such as “green deer tongue” or “flashy trout back”. The latter actually looks like a brook trout under water. Paired with some of the sweet, juicy, tomatoes just now ripening and a little vinaigrette dressing, the flashy trout back creates a succulent symphony of color texture, and taste.

To maximize the enjoyment of CSA share-holders throughout the growing season, Abundantly Green goes out of their way to provide as much variety as possible. If they are a little short of one product and another local certified organic farmer has a surplus, they will sometimes trade products so the customer has the benefit of both farms’ produce.

Abundantly Green started in 2004 with sales to the Poulsbo and Silverdale Farmers Markets and by 2006 the four partners began their first CS with 30 shares. Members may pick their produce up at either the farm or the Poulsbo Farmers Market. The first recorded CSAs in the U.S. were started in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 1986 – they are still in operation today.

“We went from 30 to more than 90 shares in our CSA in just three years,” says Barb Green.

Though five acres is used for organic farming, the overall acreage is 60 and it goes back four generations in another one of the farm partner’s family. Marilyn Holt took over the farm management from her father in 2000 and inherited the farm in 2001. Holt’s husband, Clifford Wind, is the fourth member of the Abundantly Green partnership.

Holt says her great grand-father, Frederick Walker, bought the property in 1892 from the original homesteaders, Mr. and Mrs. Cooksey. Her father, Maynard Holt bought the property in 1960 where he maintained a Class A dairy until 1972. It’s called the “Holt Ranch” because he raised beef cattle after retiring from dairying. 38 head of naturally raised , hormone, antibiotic and pesticide-free Hereford beef still graze on part of the farm not used to raise crops and beef can still be purchased there today by special arrangement.

“Our CSA is a single farm source model,” says Holt. “We grow a kitchen garden for our CSA family members.”

She says a kitchen garden is like the garden our great-grandparents had outside their kitchen door…where a family member could just step outside and pick the vegetables for that evening’s meal. Abundantly Green has made a special effort to choose and grow varieties of crops that are particularly well-suited to the farm’s Kitsap growing environment between Brownsville and Keyport.

Bremerton native, Brad Green, with the help of a few hired hands, assumes much of the responsibility for the crop planting, growing and harvesting. The home he and wife Barb own is behind the Holt ranch property so it’s a quick hop over to tend the crops. Retiring a mere year ago from his 35-year career as a truck freight hauler, Brad now devotes full time to his farming career. Barb, a pre-school teacher, helps out as much as she can on the farm and does the farmers market sales. She hopes to add flowers into the mix of available products next year.

The farmers say they have just about maxed out on the currently useable crop soil but hope to clear and prepare more in time to expand their growing area. And all four partners agree on one thing – the nutritional value of locally grown, fresh organic produce.

“Organic food is about what’s not in it – the herbicides, pesticides and chemicals – and ours doesn’t lose any nutritional value because it immediately comes straight to the consumer from the farm,” says Brad Green.

To learn more about Abundantly Green Certified Organic Produce, go to their web site at: www.holtcapital.com/abundantlygreen or e-mail them at: abundantlygreen@holtcapital.com