Full Circle Farm: A New Level of Community

Wonderful concept and wonderful story!

Full Circle Farm....such a wonderful name. great article thanks

Yay for farms!!!!!

Great read:)

Such a pleasure to see how societies are still active participants of the food they are eating, hope I can live like that ... one day.

Wonderful story, thanks for sharing.

Loved this! Eat local!

Great read - so relevant...

thank you SO MUCH for this article :::-) go vegan!

Such a great read!!!

Great project, hope there'll be a lot more full circle farms. We'll need it!!

Great story Thank you for sharing !!

So great seeing a feature on the local farm. i grew up on one, i can relate to how much work it is, yet it is so fulfilling. i love going to the local growers/crafters market. such a community experience, and knowing that the food is fresh and grown with love

Awe-inspiring, such an uplifting story, thanks for sharing!!

Love this!

Oh, I would love to have that many growing days. Wonderful article! I am so glad so many permaculutre / CSA / community farms are popping up everywhere. Let's run GMO outa town. :-)

FABULOUS!! so inspiring!

Nice story! We enjoy our CSA :)

Yay! I love my local CSA!

I love spring and summer - solely for the reason of CSAs and farmer's markets! We joined an organic CSA in our area and it was amazing. I had absolutely no idea what fresh, local fruit and veggies would taste like - the difference between those and the produce you buy in a grocery store have NO COMPARISON! I didn't know what I was missing! Besides supporting local farmers, it also allowed me and my family to try what was ripe and in season. Things we had never even tried before (mustard greens, kale, turnips) became the creative center of our meals. It was fun and inspiring to be able to try all sorts of new things! I would recommend it to anyone. Or even picking up something you've never tried at the farmer's market. Bring on the spring and summer!!!

great story!

Love it!

<3 !

I love it! I'd love to live somewhere sunny where all of your crops turn out picture perfect and the growing season is long. Jealous!

Great story !

that sounds like a version of farm cooperatives and food cooperatives in minnesota that have been around for five decades or more, though they are self-sustaining for profits and don't receive any kind of grants or government support. i know which brands to buy to support local farmers and which coops to support. farm labor is expensive. industrial farms that sell to national supermarket chains pay up to $30 an hour for harvesters, many of them making the dangerous trek across the mexican border into the southwestern states to fill those positions. labor is always in short supply so i'm not sure how a small farm w/ diversified produce would manage. they "laborers" are quick and amazing. it's unreal seeing how majestic harvesting can be. imagine harvesting 15lb watermelons in 110 degree heat 7 days a week and not dropping or splitting any of them after a 10 hour day.

Great! We have a veg garden, loved it.

How cool....I love love love LOVE farms and farmers markets....such a great way to not only support your community but get healthy produce and other things! Great post! www.bloomingintechnicolor.blogspot.com

Ooops.....didn't mean to post that URL after my comment. Sorry! :)

We're blessed to be live in an area where there are quite a few organic growers that incorporate CSA into their farms. It's a great way to support farmers who are responsible stewards of the land and feed your families wholesome food. Terrific article!

Projects like this one are inspiring & I hope truly valued by the urban communities they serve.

I love this story! It's such a wonderful model system for how a community can work together to make things happen. That's amazing productivity too! I wonder if there's something like this around here...

Great story!

This is really cool

that salad spinner is brilliant!

Wonderful article! We just joined a CSA and it is such a good feeling to help out our local farmers and community. My girls and I get so excited when it's Tuesday, the day to pick up our share. This week we got strawberries, potatoes, snap beans, asparagus, leaf lettuce, and tomatoes. Did someone say YUM! I encourage everyone to check out your local CSA!

I love our CSA (google it for one in your area, there are plenty of them out there) and organic local produce. Healthy food creates a healthy body and mind as well as supporting the local economy and sustainability for the future. Supporting local CSA farms and organic methods (as well as growing our own and fueling with local waste veggie oil) for 10 years. It's what my little handmade home based business supports. Looking forward to going solar in the future, yay! Eat well all!

We have a small backyard kitchen garden, but to supplement we're also members of a CSA here in Virginia. The farm we're at is amazing. They have barn parties and tractor rides regularly. We love our weekly pick-up days at the farm. It's awesome to go to the farm, right where the produce was grown, talk with the people who's hands planted the seed, pulled the weeds, squashed the bugs, and eventually harvested our food. My kids NEED to know this is how food is brought to the table.

Great post! I was lucky enough to spend my whole summer on a CSA farm in Michigan last year. It's always great to see how different farms do things - there is always a lot of creativity around when things are done by hand!

great post ~ other countries have been doing for years with little effort.

Interesting article! Great post!

This is such a good idea, and I think its ideas should be incorporated into other aspects of life. dass ist sehr gut. :]

♥!

Community Supported Agriculture is a wonderful concept. There really is nothing as satisfying as eating what you have grown. Most home gardeners like myself only have little gardens with limited yields. But that make each fruit and vegetable that we reap so much more magical and yes, even tastier. Personally, the garden is one of the few things that can drag me away from my Etsy shop. I know I'm not alone.

Great idea I'm gonna search for one in my area

Great story! Thanks! :)

Absolutely Awesome.

I've worked on two community gardens...it takes commitment and patience! I can appreciate the work involved! But the rewards, ripen vegetables just taste better!

Great read, it reminds me to check into our local 'urban farm' operating in our small city.

Bravo Danielle, another fantastic read.

eat healthy:)

Wonderful article Danielle, so appreciated! What a testament to the power of relationships and team work. Great job, thank you! Aloha!

the Santa Clara valley was all farms for a long long time, and then was paved over for houses....my family settled in that valley to work in the canneries after arriving from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Utah and Idaho, after coming from Britain and France. After a while a lot of my family moved to San Francisco and the Napa Valley...and um, then there was me (ha).....................So, yes Full Circle...once the Native Americans and the Mexicans were displaced , in move the farmers and the factories to serve them....and then the Silicon, and now....farms again. I'm so happy to see the dream of the hippies and the back-to-the-land movement has become mainstream...The we can all eat real food again!

We have a CSA here in Santa Fe, and I used to work for them :)

Awesome!

Sounds wonderful!!

How cool. I love growing food.

Interesting post!

great story to inspire a new season. plant it and they will come. best of luck full circle on the upcoming season.

Great story, very inspiring! We have a Farmer's market in our little town that's only a few years old, but it has grown in size really fast. There are also a couple of farms here that are CSAs. I have a small plot to grow spring & summer veggies & greens. The season here is short, but with the constant sun and the high altitude, my veggies grow really fast.

it's so important to know where your food comes from. It effects your personal health, the community's health and the well being of the earth. Great article, thanks for the inspiration!

Great to hear -- and just 5 acres.

Ooo close to home! I want to go get yummy food!

I wished I live close to a farm so I can join CSAs where I pick up the produce at the farmstand, but for now, going to farmers market has worked really well, not only am I spending less than the processed things you find at Whole Foods, but the food from the farmers market is so much tastier and fresher!

Wonderful visionary farm piece! I am in the middle of planting our garden. We have 24 hens, apple, peach, pear, fig, and nut trees. I plant a 1/4 acre of raised beds. Tomorrow I deliver my first orders of greens I sell to local customers. The strawberries will be ready in a week. I have one part time helper who is paid in food. We teach local school aged classrooms how to grow food. I love it, even though it's hard hard work. Feeding my neighborhood is so rewarding!

I'm not sure I know of any community farming projects in the UK but our lifestyle is filled with allotments where groups of people band together to typically grow food for their kitchen tables. I think its a great idea, you can't guarantee freshness unless you've just pulled it out the ground!

My version of Community Supported Agriculture is all about spreading the word enthusiastically and through example that it is crucial to respect and love the earth!.....just getting to the place where many more people are on board with this concept is an ambitious and desperately needed first step!....so many have the most marginal relationship with the importance and beauty of growing things to eat and just gaze at...... Besides my own garden and helping to supply friends, family and neighbors, i do a great deal of rehab gardening in South Providence, RI., where the soil and most of what it brings forth is treated like a trash can....it is very hard work 'reclaiming the earth', but also wildly rewarding to see transformations begin and bloom.

I love this story! I wish we had one in our town. We try to buy local produce whenever possible and it would be even better to be able to help grow it ourselves. We do have an urban garden school which is a great step in the right direction! There is something about growing your own food that makes it taste so much better!

I love this story!! Thanks so much for sharing.

Wonderful story...thanks for sharing!

I love this place - this was part of my old high school Peterson High :) hope to be able to get back home soon so I can share in the goodness they grow

Love this! Reminds me of the community garden I participated in up in Palo Alto years ago. My Mom was on a health food kick, and that experience changed me for the better. I grew up not far from Sunnyvale, it heartens me to see a thriving community garden there. Would love to see this become a strong movement in all communities.

Great post! Our local outdoor farmers market begins this weekend..can't wait! I like to get together with a neighbor after market and combine goodies to make a sweet little picnic.

We're starting our 21st season as a CSA in Colorado and love to see other farms taking off across the country. Good for Full Circle Farm! Growing for community is essential for the agriculture of the future!

Great concept! Love to hear how community garden programs are taking off!

I really wish we had CSA farms here in the UK, it sounds like a great idea, esp in these times of economic hardship. I`d love to join one and I know my children would love it.

Thats awesome! lets make it local!

Wonderful concept! Great story! Nothing beats eating local and getting to know your local farmers. One of the highlights of my weekends is going to the farmers' market. :)

I love farmers markets. I remember going every Tuesday morning with my mom and sister in the summers. Great Story!

Farmers markets are wonderful. Thanks for this story

(Not trying to sound corny), but I like farmer market way better than Kroger's, Wal-Mart. Farmer market has the best selection when it come to organic food. However, HEB seem to have a lot of fresh organic food as well.

Awesome!! I live in Santa Cruz and am familiar with this farm....Great article, photos, all of it :) Great work~

Long live the farmers' markets!

Right in my hood! Wonderful, I'm going to go visit, thanks for letting me know about something I din't know was right here!

Growning up on a farm my husband's family set aside ten acres to plant nothing but tomatoes to take to the farmer's market in Richmond, Virginia. There was only him, his mother and father and an older man to pick all those acres. They didn't pick the whole field in a day, but staggered different areas. I don't know how they did it but it must have been profitable since they did it for several years. That was back in the 1970's.

LOVE hearing how other business and individuals are chipping in to help when and where they can! Way to go! Thanks for the great post!

Stories like this are so motivating and inspirational! It is so nice to hear of people doing positive things that make a great deal of difference in many lives. I see more and more of these sustainable changes and ideas all the time happening in many places. Wonderful!

My husband and I had a plan to sell at farmers market last year. We had challenges, one after another that made it difficult to sell at market. We were farming on a quarter acre. After intense labor and lots of frustration, I gave up on market and and concentrated on food for ourselves and storing what we could for the winter months. There are no regrets because I learned quite a bit and this has helped me plan for our family garden for this summer. We may still do market in the future, but now we know the time commitment that it requires. I don't think it is possible to grasp unless you do it. For the scale that Rose and the other two are doing - my hats off to them. They truly are amazing little work horses that have a passion and commitment to something good. I feel their aches and pains. Weeding, watering, washing - that is so time consuming and I am sure they have learned many efficient ways to get through the day. Well deserved feature!

Wonderful idea!

awww California.

Wonderful. I always try to buy from farmer's markets. It makes such a difference in our health and community!

What a great idea and delightful story!

As someone who grew up on a farm, I love this idea. We all had gardens in the summer and traded vegetables with neighbors as a way to not waste anything we had too much of. I miss this as now I'm in a city that lacks a CSA.