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171: Caroline Pam and Tim Wilcox of Kitchen Garden Farm on Scaling Up, Value-Added Products, and Wholesale Marketing

7/26/2018

Caroline Pam and Tim Wilcox farm 50 acres of vegetables at Kitchen Garden Farm in Western Massachusetts. Starting with an acre of produce in 2006, Caroline and Tim have steadily expanded the farm’s scale and added fire-roasted salsa and a naturally fermented sriracha to their farm’s production.

We discuss the value-added products and how those fit into the work and overall business of Kitchen Garden Farm, since they account for a significant portion of the farm’s revenue. Tim and Caroline dig into the process of scaling up their operation, including how they manage a multitude of different locations for production. And Caroline and Tim share how they’ve developed a wholesale-only marketing strategy, and the nuts and bolts of how that works on their farm.

Sponsors

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Vermont Compost Company: Founded by organic crop growing professionals committed to meeting the need for high-quality composts and compost-based, living soil mixes for certified organic plant production.

Farmers Web: Making it simple for family farms and farm cooperatives to streamline working with their buyers. By lessening the administrative load and increasing efficiency, FarmersWeb helps producers save time, manage their business, and work with more buyers overall.

Quotes From the Show

[Tim] we've always been looking for that unique sort of way that we can express our love of food and cooking with people.

[Caroline] I'm kind of a workaholic and really found that I wasn't doing the best for my child by just bringing her out into the field with me. That that wasn't actually ... the vision wasn't matching what I thought it was going to be like.

[Tim] You have to be stronger than you know you can be. [Quoting from the Terminator]

[Caroline] at a certain point, if you want to get bigger, you've got to find a market elsewhere, because there's just ... The River Valley Co-op in Northampton can only have so many suppliers of bunched carrots and pickle and cucumbers.

Show Links

Tim talked about how The Kitchen Garden has some parallels with Siri Erickson-Brown and Jason Salvo at Local Roots in Duvall, Washington.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode is brought to you byEarth Tools, offering the most complete selection of walk-behind farming equipment and high-quality garden tools in North America. And by Osborne Quality Seeds, a dedicated partner for growers. Visitosborneseed.com for high quality seed, industry-leading customer service, and fast order fulfillment. Additional funding for transcripts provided byNorth Central SARE, providing grants and education to advance innovations in Sustainable Agriculture.

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170: Rebecca Graff and Tom Ruggieri of Fair Share Farm on CSA Transitions, Greening the Farm, and a Fermented Food Business

7/18/2018

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Rebecca Graff and Tom Ruggieri raise vegetables for a hundred-member CSA, manage a small laying flock, and operate a cottage-scale fermented food business at Fair Share Farm, 45 minutes north of Kansas City, Missouri. They’ve been farming together on family land since 2004 after meeting in the fields at Peacework Organic Farm in upstate New York.

We dig into the nitty gritty of their member-oriented CSA program, and the changes its undergone in the last couple of years as Rebecca and Tom have looked to change the farm’s economic basis and their quality of life. Tom and Rebecca share how they’ve changed their sign-up process and work requirement as their CSA goes through transitions.

We also take a hard look at their fermented foods production and how that fits in with their vision for the farm and the CSA model, as well as the efforts they’ve made to reduce the overall ecological footprint of the farm with a solar greenhouse, an electric tractor, and a vigorous cover crop and soil building effort.

Sponsors

Vermont Compost Company: Founded by organic crop growing professionals committed to meeting the need for high-quality composts and compost-based, living soil mixes for certified organic plant production.

Local Food Marketplace: Providing an integrated, scalable solution for farms and food hubs to process customer orders – including online ordering, harvesting, packing, delivery, invoicing and payment processing. Manage multiple product and price lists with ease. Maximize your sales by selling multiple product pack sizes out of the same inventory. Local Food Markeplace will help you reach more customers and save time in fulfilling your customer’s orders.

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Quotes from the Show

[Tom] Our soils are very workable, but it's nice to have a little bit of cushion on the farm finances to also have some value added products coming out of our farm as well, so that we're not just relying on one revenue stream to provide for us going into the future.

Show Links

Tom mentioned Fair Share’s webpage about carbon sequestration on the farm.

Transcript

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169: Nate Fingerle of River Ridge Farm on Four Seasons of Fresh Vegetables in Rural Indiana

7/12/2018

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Nate Fingerle has been farming with his family at River Ridge Farm in north-central Indiana for ten years. With one-and-a-half acres of production and ten thousand square feet of high tunnels, River Ridge provides vegetables to its customers year-round.

River Ridge has found success in a rural agricultural community with a combination of farmers markets, an on-farm retail store, and restaurant sales. We dig into how Nate and his family make this all work, and some of the details of how a lot of hustle has helped to cobble together a successful business in an unlikely marketplace.

Nate also shares his straightforward production techniques, including field work, fertility planning, transplant production, irrigation, weed control, and how he make season extension really pay in the high tunnels and out.

Sponsors

High Mowing Organic Seeds: The first independently owned, farm-based seed company proudly serving organic growers with a full line of 100% certified organic and Non-GMO Project verified vegetable, herb, flower and cover crop seeds. Professional quality seeds grown by organic farmers, for organic farmers. Purchase your seeds early and receive a 10% discount through our Community Supported Seeds program – visit highmowingseeds.com/save.

BCS America: BCS two-wheel tractors are versatile, maneuverable in tight spaces, light-weight for less compaction, and easy to maintain and repair on farm. Gear-driven and built to last for decades of dependable service on your farm or market garden.

Vermont Compost Company: Founded by organic crop growing professionals committed to meeting the need for high-quality composts and compost-based, living soil mixes for certified organic plant production.

Quotes from the Show

It was just really cool that whole community that begins to build around the fact that we have a store that provides a service and customers love it

And that's the neat thing about the small farm world today, there's so many minds, bright minds, that are thinking about these things that there is just a wealth of information a wealth of tools out there that's available.

If you're getting into farming, do not start with open soil, put up a high tunnel and then go outside if you have to.

Show Links

Nate makes use of the Ideal Soils Handbook from Acres USA.

Eliot Coleman’s Winter Harvest Handbook was Nate’s initial inspiration for four-season production.

Nate relies on the Johnny’s bed roller-dibbler instead of the paper pot transplanter.

Transcript

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168: Karen Washington of Rise and Root Farm on Self-Care, Managing Relationships, and Addressing Social Justice and Food Issues on a For-Profit Farm

7/5/2018

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Karen Washington owns and operates Rise and Root Farm with Lorrie Clevenger, Jane Hodge, and Michaela Hayes. Located in Chester, New York, just a little over an hour from New York City, Karen and her partners raise an acre of produce to serve two New York City Farmers Markets.

Karen shares the story of finding land for farming in rural New York state, and how she and her fellow growers have made the transition from backyard urban gardening to commercial production. Karen digs into the nuts and bolts of how they address the social justice issues that are so important them while still tending to the needs of their for-profit farming operation.

We also discuss the challenges of and some strategies for communication and managing farm relationships with love and healing – and how that’s not always the easiest thing to do.

Sponsors

Farmers Web: Making it simple for family farms and farm cooperatives to streamline working with their buyers. By lessening the administrative load and increasing efficiency, FarmersWeb helps producers save time, manage their business, and work with more buyers overall.

Vermont Compost Company: Founded by organic crop growing professionals committed to meeting the need for high-quality composts and compost-based, living soil mixes for certified organic plant production.

BCS America: BCS two-wheel tractors are versatile, maneuverable in tight spaces, light-weight for less compaction, and easy to maintain and repair on farm. Gear-driven and built to last for decades of dependable service on your farm or market garden.

Quotes from the Show

Advice for any new farmer to be is don't keep your hopes and dreams inside. Shout it out because there might be someone out there that is out there to hear it and willing to help you.

I think any farmer that says that they are an expert, I tend to disagree with that because I feel that the only expert is Mother Nature. Mother Nature will tell you right from the start who's the boss.

The work of farming is labor intensive, but also you have to put into your farming attitude the realm of self-care, because if you don't have self-care, you're going to burn out.

The farmer is white male, so when Lorrie and I would go to markets, people would assume that we were the help. That we weren't the farmers.

It takes a lot of education, but people want to be able to pay for something that is healthy, and knowing that that money that they're paying for helps us to stay in business.

Growing food gives you power.