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Persephone Farm

Sustainably Grown Vegetables & Flowers – Indianola, Washington

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News: Farming Info

Joel Salatin Visits Persephone Farm!

October 1, 2015 By Persephone

Joel Salatin speaks at Persephone Farm

Hope everyone got a glimpse of the awesome super blood moon eclipse on Sunday! On that auspicious day, Sept. 27, the Kitsap Community and Agricultural Alliance brought farmer, food system revolutionary and agri-provocateur Joel Salatin to Kitsap to participate in a series of events, including a brunch discussion and the annual KCAA Harvest Dinner, all open to the public.

As part of its outreach mission, KCAA also invited Salatin to our very own Persephone Farm to speak to a group of young and/or beginning farmers and farm interns about issues specifically important to them. Salatin is an engaging speaker and a well-informed and experienced farmer, and had many wise words for the young/ish farmers in the crowd. Among the crowd pleasers: “what makes something a farm?” to be answered, after many guesses from the audience, with the obvious “a farmer!”

Salatin also discussed approaches to overcoming one of the biggest hurdles to starting a farm: the cost of land. His advice included the “three Ms”—make your farm Mobile (to pick up and move if it becomes necessary, just as Persephone once had to do); Modular — build small and add on as you grow; and Management-intensive — that is, rely on human labor over short cuts that are often expensive, petroleum-dependent, and degrading to the environment. Why use a leaf-blower when you can rake? Why use herbicide when you can weed? These are some of the principles Persephone Farm has followed for years. It was a fun and inspiring morning.

— Apprentice Rachel (excerpted from our weekly CSA subscriber email)

Filed Under: Farming Info, News

Cornucopia…

September 4, 2015 By Persephone

Persephone Farm Corn

CORN in everyone’s CSA boxes this week—the variety is known as “bodacious”! Some of you may wonder, why does locally grown corn cost more? You’ve probably seen it—this time of year the market is flooded with cheap corn. Much of it comes from large, far-away farms, raised on cheap land with subsidized water and transportation costs. The production of this corn relies on heavy inputs of artificial nitrogen fertilizer, much of which ends up in streams and rivers. In some cases, these large farms contaminate aquifers with nitrate pollution. Large tractors cause erosion and compaction to produce those 10/$1 ears in the supermarket. There is a loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitat associated with hundred- and thousand-acre commercial corn production. We are just beginning to understand the real cost of industrialized corn.

Of all the crops we grow, corn is by far the heaviest nutrient feeder, really taking a toll on our fragile soil. It requires many loads of compost before and after planting. The sheer square footage required to grow sweet corn, which only produces two ears per plant (with only one of them full-sized and marketable) takes up a sizable portion of our limited irrigation water.

All this said, we love fresh corn as much as you do! We even love to grow it. Walking through the leafy rows, squeezing each ear for fullness, is one of the pleasures of farming. The miracle of pollination is nowhere more evident than in each individual corn silk attached to a single kernel, which, in order to swell and sweeten, must be touched by pollen grains falling from the pointed tassels above. Incredible! And the taste of a just-picked mouthful of golden sweet corn… we all know that joy. CORN. It’s what’s for dinner.

— Apprentice Rachel (excerpted from our weekly CSA subscriber email)

Photo: Leslie Newman

Filed Under: CSA, Farming Info Tagged With: corn

Our High Tunnel Greenhouse is Up!

November 10, 2013 By Persephone

All female greenhouse builders
The Persephone crew, proud builders of the new greenhouse

In just a few short weeks with these smart and powerful women we were able to build this new greenhouse. Incredibly good ideas, dedication, an eye for straight and plumb, and a lot of muscle from our awesome interns helped us finish in time. Can you say awesome?!

Under construction — the bows are up!
Under construction — the bows are up!

Learn a bit high tunnel greenhouses. See more photos on Persephone Farm’s Facebook page.

 

Filed Under: Farming Info, News Tagged With: greenhouse, high tunnel, Interns

Tomato Starts

May 3, 2011 By Leslie

Check out the article Bill posted at The Season last May. Tomato Starts–A Farmer’s Guide

Every year, our starts seem to outperform those big, bushy plants you find at commercial outlets like nurseries, Big Box stores and supermarkets. Sometimes ours don’t look as robust as theirs do on the shelf, but as the season progresses their plants’ vigor often wains, and by harvest time a lot have died or are duds, while ours are bearing nicely.

How do we do it? Persephone’s Farmer-in-chief, Rebecca, explains in this guest post on starting your tomatoes.

Read the full post Tomato Starts–A Farmer’s Guide.

Filed Under: Farming Info

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@persephonefarmer

This Sunday! Come help us celebrate another summer This Sunday! Come help us celebrate another summer come and gone with games, friends, and flowers. And of course music by @thepurpleshadowsdanceband and Tide Flat Four!
🥶 Yesterday morning we opened the fridge to fin 🥶 Yesterday morning we opened the fridge to find that it had decided it would rather be a freezer. This affected not only our CSA harvest, but our restaurant, Kitsap Fresh, and food bank orders as well. This amounts to a lot of food and labor hours in the compost. We tried to salvage or replace what we could, but of course, if you received something damaged that we missed, please reach out!

We are so grateful to our subscribers and community members for being so understanding in the face of a hard situation. And of course, we are grateful for each other- our amazing team was able to still have a pretty successful day in the face of it all. #walkinblues #farmlife #earlyfrost
It’s a wedding weekend for sure! It’s so fun a It’s a wedding weekend for sure! It’s so fun and gratifying to see these diy buckets drive away 🥲 can’t wait to see what y’all make with them! #rainbowwedding ! We have some bucket slots available for next weekend if you’re feeling creative 💐🌻🌼 #diywedding #diyweddingflowers #farmerflorist #slowflowers #localflowers #localwedding #washington #pnwwedding
Come see us at the market today! It’s important Come see us at the market today! It’s important to us to keep our food affordable, accessible, and long-lasting. Washington has a few options to make the market worth your while, and we take donations all year long to get our produce to local food banks. Good, local food is for everyone! #farmtofoodbank #eatlocal #farmersmarket #washington #pnw #slowfood #foodforall
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