Welcome to our farm!
Free Living Farm has emerged from our desire to be a source of real, healthful, local food and information while stewarding the ecology around us in a familiar and beloved region. The Farm name broadly encompasses our vision of growing food in a manner that encourages the free living soil organisms that sustain us all and preserving the essence of feeling truly alive, vibrant and aware in this modern world.
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We are a human-scale "market farm" (based on French market gardening) that uses efficient and fairly intensive methods of growing lots of quality food in a small space. With a high attention to detail and close spacing, we don't need heavy equipment or lots of land to grow abundant produce!
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Our Growing Methods
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We choose to practice regenerative methods of farming that build soil structure and biology, mineralize the soil and encourage biodiversity without relying on corporate chemical concoctions that deplete and poison the land. We don't use synthetic pesticides/herbicides/fungicides/fertilizers. Instead we focus on tending to the needs of the soil and plant environment with synergistic growing methods. Biologically active soils provide the evolutionary relationship plants thrive on, resulting in deeply nutritious food/medicine.
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Our farming practices include a blend of holistic, ancient and modern practices including: minimum/no-tillage, diverse cover cropping, beneficial/pollinator habitat incorporation, composting, mulching, crop rotations, pasture-rotation for chickens, beneficial soil and plant inoculations, foliar nutrition and soil mineral balancing/remineralization.
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Fall 2022 Farm Footage
Farming is our passion and we believe smaller regenerative farms are the way of the future to begin connecting a local foods network. Growing food for our local community reduces our environmental impact and allows consumers to make choices that support a local food economy, local business owners and healthful food for human and environment. We want to do right by nature and by focusing on soil health we are inherently improving the land's carbon storing capacity, nutrient cycling and food quality. Although difficult at times we love what we do and being able to provide healthy food for ourselves and community while making a positive impact on the future makes it all worth it.
WHAT WE GROW
Arugula, Asian Greens, Basil, Beans, Beets, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celery, Celeriac, Chard, Cilantro, Collards, Cucumber, Dill, Eggplant, Fennel, Garlic, Husk Cherries, Kale, Leeks, Lettuce, Mustards, Onions, Parsley, Peas, Pea Shoots, Peppers, Potatoes, Radish, Scallions, Shallots, Spinach, Summer Squash, Sweet Potatoes, Tomatillos, Tomatoes, Turnips, Watermelons, Winter Squash, Zucchini...and more!
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Pasture-raised, Organic Eggs
(year-round)
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Broiler/Meat Chickens
(limited, main season)
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Medicinal and Culinary Herbs
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Fresh Young Ginger
(Sept.-Oct.)
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Seed Garlic
(Sept.-Oct.)
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Dried Flower Arrangements
(Sept.-Dec.)
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Dahlias
(Aug.-frost)
Where's the Organic Label?
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For various reasons as a small farm, for now we have chosen not to get officially certified organic, here's why:
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We mostly sell direct to our customers where they can know us and interact directly to assess the quality of our produce and how we grow it. If we sold mostly wholesale to stores, this would be more of a priority as it is what customers recognize.
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The certifying program, at least in some parts of the country and for certain size operations, have been too flexible to allow subpar growing practices to be certified (whether produce or animal products), including hydroponic production.
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Extra cost and paperwork not worth it on our end since we know we are growing the absolute best we can. We go above and beyond with planning and care we put into our growing; no extra work needed here, thanks.
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Limits on certain products or nutrients we can use. We utilize synergistic nutrition applications via foliars (to the plants leaves) or to the soil, and the organic program limits what you can use as it has to be documented by a deficiency, such as with a soil test which is not accurate enough to really show what's going on in the soil for various biological and chemical reasons (though we do use annual soil tests to track general soil minerals status). Stimulating the plants through their leaves is a totally different pathway that has different results for the plant and soil environment. We're really trying to stimulate plant health and higher nutrient density in our produce with these practices.
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*This is not at all to say avoid organic! If we go shopping at the grocery store, we almost always choose that over conventional or unspecified! Though limited in reach, there is a program called "Real Organic Project" Certified which holds producers to the highest standards.
Your local organic producers are most likely good quality, and then you may have the chance to talk with them. Locally grown is always the priority for freshness and community connection!