Gregory Farm CSA Plan

Symbiosis and Year Round Local Food Production

At a time of year when most farmers are thinking about what they will be planting, buying some seeds, or doing a little rototilling, Paul Gregory is  harvesting a few crops that are still in the ground.  He says he’s pretty amazed that he still has these crops.

Farmer Paul Gregory and Master Baker Mark Downen

At least once a week, he delivers some onions, maybe a little kale, or perhaps a few baby carrots to Monica’s Waterfront Bakery and Café.  It’s a symbiotic relationship here – owners Chef Mark Downen and his wife Monica give Gregory their kitchen scraps for his compost pile. Gregory points to a pile of egg shells among the scraps.

“These are great for bringing calcium to my tomatoes – it’s something they really need,” says Gregory.

Downen looks at the crisp, bright green onion tops with tiny bulbs that Gregory has just brought in.  He says they’ll be great in one of his famous quiches. And Gregory is glad to find a market for them.

Green Onions Are The Life For Me.

“These are some regular onions that didn’t bulb out, but the tops are still as fresh and green as a small green onion,” says Gregory.

And he’s brought in some just-harvested tiny, sweet Royal Chantenay carrots. Downen says he can use these too.  Next week he’ll bring in some kale that will be destined for Monica’s delicious kale and sausage soup.

But Gregory wasn’t always a farmer.

He grew up in Yakima, land of many fruit tree orchards, so he really didn’t have much early knowledge of western Washington farming.  After earning a degree in journalism from Washington State University and a brief stint with a bi-weekly paper, Gregory decided to become a commercial salmon fisherman in Alaska for ten years.

In the meantime, his parents had purchased two and a third acres in the Olympic View area and after Gregory left commercial fishing he started gardening on their property.  At first it was just a hobby but then, as he grew more and better crops, he began taking produce to the Poulsbo and Bremerton farmers markets.

“The soil here is innately very rich, there is a lot of sun, and I do a lot of soil enriching with compost, including leaves and grass,” says Gregory.

Next came his foray into Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).  He’s now entering his fourth season offering CSAs.  He started with six shares, grew to 12 and is now offering 20 shares this year.  Gregory says his mother originally helped him with some of the work but she’s now in her eighties and he farms about two acres by himself.  He says the CSA members come first with his harvest but he often has enough to continue offering produce at the Poulsbo and Bremerton farmers markets.

Gregory says his biggest crops are onions but he also grows a lot of leeks, cucumbers, beets, carrots, beans and other crops, plus tomatoes and lettuce for his CSA customers.

“I ask my customers for suggestions they might have for next year’s crops – someone just called me the other day and suggested a new type of cucumber that I’m going to try,” he says.

And Gregory goes back to his eastern Washington roots for some produce that many here don’t offer.  He still has connections to some excellent fruit growers and will go over to eastern Washington to hand-pick his fruit …by leaving here at 3 a.m. arriving in time for a morning pick, stopping during the heat of the day, picking again in the late afternoon and early evening and making the round trip back.  This way his customers have the freshest possible fruit.

He also operates his CSA a little differently than many farmers.  Beginning with a set price of $250 per share for the season, Gregory keeps a weekly running tally of how much money is left in each share by what the share owner orders each week.  This way, if a customer wants a box of apples to make applesauce one week or several pounds of tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce another week, they can order accordingly.   If a CSA customer uses up his share price, he can still continue to buy at ten per cent less than the farmers’ market price. And his customers get a bonus of some sort at the end of the season.

“I can get blueberries over in eastern Washington a month sooner than they ripen here and one of my customers last year ordered five pounds of them,” said Gregory.

But you’d better hurry if you’re interested in one of his CSA shares – he says he’s almost sold out.  Reach Paul Gregory and Gregory Farms at (360) 692-0528.