|
C.R. Roberts; The Tacoma News Tribune
Spring onions, summer squash, raspberries, cabbage,
broccoli, kohlrabi and carrots wait with peas, various lettuces and other
freshly picked produce inside the huge shed at Terry's Berries outside
Tacoma.
It's pickup day for CSA customers – those people who
paid $490 in the spring for a 20-week share of the farm's summer harvest
of vegetables and fruit.
"It's an organic farm. I'm very supportive of organic
farms," said Jill Claus of Covington. "I was right there when
I heard about it." "I might be spending more on vegetables over
the 20 weeks, but I'm eating more vegetables. I'm eating more healthy,"
said Kathy Swanson of Edgewood.
Terry Carkner (Terrann@nwrain.com),
owner of the farm, estimates that CSA customers account for 60 percent
of her business over the year, while retail customers fill the rest. She
and her employees farm 17 acres of rich bottom land along River Road East.
Farms in Transition
Where once the entire farm was given to berries, 12 acres now have been
dedicated to other produce: six varieties of tomatoes, 15 of lettuce,
10 herbs, the flowers and all the rest. She began the day's harvest at
6 a.m.
She began planning the harvest last winter, working
with spreadsheets, deciding what, where, when and how much to plant.
Hers is an organic farm, which means she uses no pesticides.
This was not always so. "We used to farm with chemicals," she
said. "But it just sort of bothers you to see your husband in a moon
suit, and all the bottles say 'Poison.' And that's safe to eat?"
Community Supported Agriculture
She heard of the CSA – Community Supported Agriculture – movement a decade
ago. "I knew it wouldn't work here in Pierce County. People just
weren't interested in eating good vegetables," she said. "Times
changed. Grandma was right after all."
The CSA subscribers – she had 25 in 1998, and has 150
this summer – box their own produce from cartons and stacks in the shed.
Thus Terry saves paying employees to do the work, and this way, she said,
clients enjoy an element of choice.
And instead of driving up and taking a bag, they linger.
They choose, and they chat. Children play with nearby toys. Three farm
cats – two named Kitty and one called Useless – nuzzle for attention.
Terry's Berries offers three sets of CSA programs throughout
the year. The summer is the largest. The "winter share" will
offer potatoes, squash, apples, carrots and such. Another will provide
spring greens.
"It's a good way for a small farmer to start farming,"
Carkner said.
"It feels like you're connected with people who
really care about the soil, the earth and the food we eat," said
client Meg Penalver of Puyallup. "It teaches you to eat seasonally."
Beyond that, she said, her family is "eating things we wouldn't eat
otherwise."
This is Toni Loundagin's first summer as a CSA client
at Terry's. "It's been much more than I expected," she said.
"Lots of food. Great variety. Reasonable cost. It's fun trying new
foods."
The Tacoma mother said, "I look forward to coming
out here every week. It's wonderful. It's wonderful." "We bought
the farm so we could raise our kids here," Carkner said. She is now
a grandmother of four. "My goal is to make the farm profitable enough
so my children will want to farm."
She gestures toward the fields beyond, some green, some
newly turned and recently seeded. "The most important thing here
is my love for the soil," she said. "And sharing all of this."
|
