Belated Happy 2021, folks!

As the fields rest for the Winter, our little off-season team has been busy behind the scenes. The new year has definitely kicked off in a sprint for us! We wanted to send a quick post to share a bit of what we’ve been up to, along with a few ways you can plug into our work these days.

This time of year means lots of “computer farming” — financial planning, crop planning, supply orders, etc. Most people don’t think of spreadsheets when thinking about what farmers do, but it’s actually a huge part of what allows everything else to happen. Our 325 line crop plan, and 1.5 million large seed order, is no joke!

We’ve also been having lots of planning sessions with our community partners and organizers, integrating holistic lessons from the past year and planting seeds for our work in the seasons ahead. (Still a month before our first actual seeds get sowed.)

We’re also working hard to build the foundation for more public education and programming, which feels like an exciting expansion full of possibility and inspiration for us. For those of you who have been following us for a while, you know we used to have a full scale flower operation on our farm, and made the call to transition out of flowers about a year ago. That was a bittersweet decision, and still is — but at the same time, we feel focused and grateful to have made the choice to put all of our energy towards feeding our community and working to create justice in the food system. The programs we hope to offer will be an extension of this work, helping us to live into our mission more and more.

This season we’ll be piloting several workshops and the initial phase of our future apprenticeship program for beginner queer and trans farmers. To kick things off, if you are a farmer interested in our food access model, check out our upcoming event on February 11th, below!

We also wanted to share that our end of year fundraising campaign was a big success, thanks to so many of you who generously donated and shared our work! THANK YOU, again! So far, we are able to guarantee 90 households will receive no-cost vegetables through our Solidarity Share program next season. It’s not too late to chip in!

Lastly, this year’s CSA is open for registration and currently just over 30% full. Welcome to all our new and returning members! If you’re interested in joining, learn more here and grab your spot before it sells out this Spring. Don’t forget we had a 200 person waitlist last season!

We hope you’re staying healthy and taking good care. Thanks as always for reading and connecting with us!

— Maggie Cheney, co-owner & veg farmer
Rock Steady Farm