Last updated on December 7, 2016 by Liza Hawkins
Those of you that have been reading my blog for a while may remember last year when I asked young farmers, Josie and Shawn, to guest post about their experiences starting a small farm. Their focus was on fresh food grown with no pesticides, herbicides or synthetic fertilizers. Basically, they started a small organic farm – without the expensive and labor intensive certified organic stamp.
In addition to food, Truffula Seed Produce grew a small, devoted and equally local following that spanned a couple of counties in Maryland. They had a successful CSA program that managed to weather the drought this past summer, despite only having manual irrigation systems, as well as a popular farmers’ market produce stand. Perseverance, my friends, it makes a difference!
And now? Truffula Seed Produce is shutting down their operation.
Not because they’re failing, or because the produce was sub-par.
Quite the opposite, actually.
Maryland private school, Sandy Spring Friends School, has asked alums Josie and Shawn to come on board to start a farm housed at the school. They’ll be living there, right on campus. The goal is for the acre (or two) to provide all the produce for the school, which serves three meals a day, seven days a week, and does include boarded students that live there year-round. And perhaps down the road, start a small market stand at the school to provide fresh produce to the community that surrounds it.
They’ll also provide learning opportunities for the kids in the form of classroom lessons, as well as hands-on “in the field” work too. It takes a village, right?
Want to know more about Josie and Shawn’s transition? Read their latest blog entry here.
Wishing them tremendous luck and lots of yummy veggies!
