Buy Local Food In Kitsap

Download Handsown and Homegrown 2010 CSA Brochure Here

Why You Need Community Supported Agriculture Shares

Last modified on 2009-02-04 19:45:45 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

From: Monica and Mark Downen of Monica’s Waterfront Bakery & Cafe in Silverdale.

Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, brings farm-fresh produce and other grocery items into your home every week. You invest now, and the farm gets to plant in the Spring, and you reap the benefits of the harvest throughout the summer and fall.

Come to our CSA Q&A Saturday, February 7, 2009, 2 pm at the cafe. We will chat with Jared & Sara Hankins of Hand Sown Homegrown about their new Heirloom CSA, what they can do for you and why it is important.

On The Right-Jared and Sara Hankins

Every farm is unique and can offer different experiences and items.

Do you:

• Want to see how a farm works?
• Want to bring your kids to community events on a real, working farm?
• Want the freshest produce available on a weekly basis?
• Want to reduce your carbon footprint?
• Want to have healthier food options at home without having to plan a grocery list?
• Want to learn about Heirloom produce and why it is important?

Jared & Sara will have those answers and more. Whether you are just a little curious, desperate to know more, or already signed up, this is a great time to find out more and enjoy some time with your community.

Click here to see their 2009 CSA brochure

Hand Sown Homegrown Announces Their 2009 CSA

Last modified on 2009-02-04 19:24:50 GMT. 2 comments. Top.

Sara and Jared Hankins have announced the opening of their 2009 CSA. They operate an organic farming operation inspired by bio-dynamic practices. Their first year saw them win best tasting cherry tomatoes at the Great Tomato Taste-Off at the Poulsbo Farmer’s market.

Download a copy of their 2009 CSA brochure here.

You can read a little about their short (so far) history here. For localvores in Kitsap, Sara and Jared are “A-Listers”, young farmers that we should all encourage with our support. They have received help from some farmers moving out of the business and rent of sharecrop land in Kitsap but it is very tough. They used hand tools for all of their cultivating the first year because that was all they had to work with. While that is satisfying for purists it is a circumstance that any farmer must grapple with if they are to succeed long term, equipment-wise I mean.

You see, even farms with only a couple of acres need tens of thousands of dollars of equipment like cultivating tractors, fencing, greenhouses, outbuildings, refrigeration, etc. if they are to have a chance of generating sufficient income from their farming to make a career out of it.

If you are interested in local food in Kitsap you should definitely jump on this opportunity. In the 2008 growing season al of the farmers with CSAs sold out early. In 2009 I know a few who are planning to cut back on their CSA memberships to have more to sell for the growing demand at the local farmers’ markets. The Poulsbo market sales grew 60% from 2007 to 2008 for instance. CSAs are the best method for assuring your supply and to become involved in helping farmers increase production sustainably.

Sara and Jared have offered a price incentive for the first five people who sign up. If you are one of the lucky five, I would consider taking your bonus savings and offering to invest in some equipment for the farm, you know, like an agri-capital investor. Maybe you could start a seed fund to help them acquire some land, build fences or procure a cultivating tractor? Come to think of it, maybe you could consider doing that even if you weren’t one of the lucky five to sign up early and get the discount.

They will be at the Harbour Pub, Madrona School, KCAA New Years’ day bash at the Bainbridge Island Grange Hall, a good opportunity to get signed up.

They put together a nice photo album of their first year. You can see it here.

Best wishes.

How To Start A CSA For Your Farm

Last modified on 2009-01-18 02:33:19 GMT. 3 comments. Top.

Marilyn Holt, Paul Gregory, Nikki Johanson

At this month’s KCAA meeting, veteran Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farmers Marilyn Holt of Abundantly Green and Nikki Johanson of Pheasant Fields provided a wealth of information for anyone interested in starting a CSA. And there were plenty of tips available for those who are farming for their own consumption or selling in a farmers market.

Johanson emphasized two “V” points in her advice to those considering starting a CSA:

- Vend at a farmers market – sell your products here and get to know other farmers who are willing to share some of their farming experiences with you.   You’ll also get a feel for pricing, supply and product demand.

-Volunteer to work on an established CSA farm – here you’ll get a feel for the amount of time you will need to spend, the work and expenditures as well as the income involved, and some of the problems that can surface in running a CSA. Most CSA farmers are more than willing to share their information with other farmers.

Holt and Johanson made some other points during their presentations.  People really need to be educated in the benefits of eating local food.  And many are unaware of the vitamin and mineral richness of some of the lesser known greens.  Recipes explaining these benefits and providing tasty uses of these greens are a good idea.

“I publish recipes that use currently available produce every week my CSA is in operation,” says Holt.  “It seems to be very popular with my subscribers.”

Both Holt and Johanson are high on farmers markets, both for selling and as a pick-up point for CSA customers if they are unable to get to the farm.  It’s also a place to recruit new CSA customers.

Develop a relationship with your potential and existing customers says Johanson. If you have other activities during the year such as a corn maze, holiday activities, etc., keep them informed during the off-CSA season.  Keep your contact list up to date and send out notices as soon as you can  about your upcoming season.

Holt and others say they can’t emphasize the importance of trying to fill your CSA subscriptions as early as possible. Advertise in local papers, put up a good web site with on-line subscription capability, develop a good brochure or flyer and put them where they can be accessed easily in such places as libraries. Early subscription gives you a better idea of how much working capital you will have for your growing season.

“Plant an abundance, variety, and things that will be ready to harvest at different times throughout the CSA subscription period,” says Johanson. “You never know what’s going to happen in a growing season.”

She adds that a farmer does his best if he gives good value in return for that money the consumer has spent.  Farmers agreed that this was a tough year because of the long, wet, cold spring and the large amount of rain in August.

That’s when you need to become innovative say seasoned CSA farmers – develop relationships with other farmers who offer different produce or perhaps meat, wine, flowers and other items that can be traded.

“You should feel a real responsibility to meet that commitment to offer the best that you can to your community subscriber,” says Johanson.

Some CSA farmers, such as the newly minted CSA, Handsown Homegrown, offer ad-ons that you can purchase to go with your weekly CSA share.  A small north end farm, Handsown Homegrown offered some of the finest heirloom tomatoes around at last season’s Poulsbo Farmers Market.

Another important point Holt says to consider is how much land you want to buy or lease, how big a labor force you want to manage and how much refrigerated space you will have.  The latter is very important when it comes to picking fresh crops in  warmer weather.

“A CSA farmer must be willing to work long hard hours during the season – one night Nikki and I were picking corn by the headlights of the car,” chuckled Holt.

CSA web resources – contain on-line articles, reference to books, etc.:

-WSU Extension site at:  http://smallfarms.wsu.edu/marketing_CSA.php and

-USDA lists many articles that can be read on-line at their site http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csafarmer.shtml

-“Community Supported Agriculture:  An Introduction to CSA”  describes a CSA but also lists many excellent articles and books at:  http://www.biodynamics.com/csa.html

CSA farms represented at KCAA meeting who are available for share subscription in 2009:

Gregory Farms – (360) 692-0528

Pheasant Field Farms – (360) 697-6224

Abundantly Green – (360) 692-2504

Handsown Homegrown – (360) 598-4711

Soon we will be compiling a list of peninsusla farms offering CSA shares in 2009. Check back often!

The Great Tomato Taste-off

Last modified on 2008-09-12 23:42:09 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

When the tomato taste-off contest is held tomorrow at the Poulsbo Farmers Market, among the top prize contenders will be the delicious tomatoes grown on the tiny, two-year-old Poulsbo farm called Hand Sown Homegrown.

Some of the farm’s forty varieties and seven colors of naturally grown, organic, open-air pollinated, heirloom tomatoes will be featured among those competing in three categories of the popular taste-off contest.

Hand Sown Homegrown owners, the recently married couple of Sara and Jared Hankins, haven’t decided which of their many succulent varieties will be entered in the three contest categories but Jared says that their favorite, with the unlikely name of “green zebra” will definitely be among them.

“This is a wonderful, flavorful, colorful tomato with a punchy, acidic taste to it,” says Jared.

Self-described as a formerly “very urban” young couple, the pair became fascinated with, organic, sustainable farming and says it’s been an incredibly steep learning curve for them. But both believe very strongly in cultivating and growing heirloom produce which will reproduce themselves and create crop sustainability.

Last year they started with a small plot of lettuce, carrots and heirloom potatoes and Jared apprenticed under well-known tomato farmer, Ann Pyles. This year they’ve also leased a second, larger plot of land, which they intend to treble in crop planting next year. They also have three hothouses for their tomato starts.

“Unlike hybrids, you know what you will be getting with the next generation of your best heirloom seeds – they go back to the early forties or sooner and are generally much more hardy and resistant to disease,” says Jared who, though not certified, adheres strictly to the principals of natural organic farming. They do not use herbicides or pesticides and enhances their soil only with compost and natural chicken manure for planting and may enhance the soil with natural lime, rock phosphate, grain sand or other natural products during the growing season but only if necessary.

For Sara and Jared, the past two years have been a whirlwind of frantic activity. Both have held down full-time jobs in addition to their farming activities. He’s a sound engineer for a band and is often on the road…which recently included a taping for the David Letterman show. She’s a full-time nanny in Bellevue so literally all of their spare time is spent farming, often past midnight.

But this spring, the pace was probably at its most frenetic. The pair has only one truck and they do three farmers markets – Bainbridge and Poulsbo on Saturday and the Port Townsend Wednesday farmers market. Because they believe that sustainable farming should be practiced by anyone able to grow their own produce, the couple had no less than 7500 heirloom tomato starts available to sell in these markets at the amazingly low price of $3 and $5 per start. They sold about 5000 of them and say that many of their customers have come back to the farmers markets to tell them how happy they are with their plants.

“We got up to pick our produce at 5 a.m., Sara sold at the Poulsbo Farmers Market and I’d be at Bainbridge where there would be these long lines and sometimes I’d sell out of the starts so quickly, I’d run back to the farm for a second load,” says Jared.

He says that this April was so cold (tomatoes need at least 50 degree temperature to plant outside) that he had to keep his plants in the hot house a lot longer than usual and they spent long hours far into the night rotating the starts until it was warm enough to plant theirs outside.

“If you want a good summer crop of tomatoes, you should have them in the ground by May 1 so it was a very short planting season this year because it was so cold, so late,” said Jared.

This year, Hand Sown Homegrown has even more varieties of heirloom potatoes – some beautiful blues, golden Yukons and several other varieties. They’re also offering summer and winter squash, carrots, radishes, lettuce and a few other items. They try to generate their own next generation seed as much as possible but occasionally buy new products to try from very carefully selected sources such as Baker Creek Seed and Seeders Exchange.

So what’s next for this energetic young couple? They hope to have shares available for Community Supported Agriculture next year and want to keep spreading the word about growing and buying local food in Kitsap County.

“Growing and buying local produce should be at a price everyone can afford and enjoy and we try to encourage people to keep their own seeds and grow their own food for the future,” says Sara. Hand Sown Homegrown can be reached at: handsownhomegrown@yahoo.com