"using sustainable techniques"

Sustainable is a tricky word. It means different things to different people. 

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Firstly, it means that we never ever use chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides on our farm.

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To us, sustainable means that we are striving to create systems that continue to renew themselves to equal or better baselines every year. This applies to our soil health, our financial health, our mental health, our physical health, and our communal health. We try to make decisions, every day and every year, that help to balance all of these important values. These decisions include participating in our local economy, setting prices that are fair for our customers and ourselves, and developing ever-better growing practices that improve the ecosystem in which we live. 

 

In terms of what that means for our actual growing practices:

 

We garden with our hands, with quiet tools, and with our senses. We pay attention to our plants, which is often the very best preventive and active medicine.

 

We seek to every year add fertility to our soils, not to feed the plants that we happen to be growing. Our inputs include manures, both homemade and purchased compost, cover crops, and certified organic soil amendments. Our potting soils and seeds (when possible; there are a few varities we cannot get organically yet) are also certified organic. 

 

We are NOT certified organic by the USDA.  We believe that, while there is a place in our food system for such labels, at our scale it is an unnecessary burden. If you want to know how our food is grown, read this page. If you have further questions, ask! We are real people living right here in Sandpoint, and we take pride in our work. We would be more than happy to make sure that you feel comfortable eating the food we produce. Which brings us to....

 

"to grow healthy food"

We grow food that we eat, daily, raw from the garden. Unwashed. That mean, again,  that we do NOT use chemical fertilizers, insecticides of any kind, or fungicides on our plants. We do utilize fish and seaweed based fertilizers for our heavy feeders, but we (being very particular about flavor) tend to use these only in early stages of development or else at the roots of plants to keep our actual product clean and tasty. 

 

We take great care to keep our farm sanitary and strive to offer products that are as clean, fresh, and unaltered as possible.

 

We are also deeply connected with the fact that our soils feed our produce, and our produce feeds US. This means that the more nutrients in our soil, the higher nutritional value will be present in our (and your) food. Additionally, all of our products are sold right here in Sandpoint, so our produce is FRESH, which means it is much more nutrient rich than products that have sat in distribution warehouses for days upon weeks before getting here. 

 

"for our community"

Sandpoint is our home. We love the people who live here, the people who visit, the people who pass through. We love the fish in the lake, the elk in our field (so long as they're not IN our field), and the worms in our gardens. We love working here, playing here, struggling here, overcoming here. We love leaving here to explore the world, and we really truly love returning here. 

 

We are full of gratitude for the huge gifts that our community members offer to us and to each other. We could not do this without the amazing dedication and support of this wonderful community. This is our gift to you, because it's what we love to do.