Now that's a supportive community!

Since we ran out of brochures at the CSA fair this afternoon, here are details on our "market share" membership, as promised.

what we're offering: In April and May we’ll have veggie and flower transplants to give your garden a jump-start; soap made using TGF lard, herbs, and blossoms; fresh eggs from our pastured hens; and cut flowers. As the season progresses, we'll also have Thai and Italian basil, three types of green beans, striped Chioggia beets, berries in all shades, broccoli, chard, claytonia, sweet corn, cucumbers, Thai and Italian eggplant, edamame, fava beans, German red and white garlic and scapes, two kinds of kale, King Sieg leeks, lettuce, lemongrass, licorice, mache, sweet and storage onions, sugarsnap peas, hot peppers; Mirabelle, prune, and Damson plums, six varieties of potatoes, radishes, rhubarb, spinach, acorn, butternut, and spaghetti squash, six varieties of paste and heirloom tomatoes, zucchini, and more.

how it works: Pay $100 for a $110 credit at our market stand in front of Felicia's Atomic Lounge. From May through October, we'll be there every Friday afternoon, from 5–7pm. Members get a weekly e-alert detailing what we'll have at market. You choose from among each week's offerings; skip a week and the credit simply awaits your return. We do all the math, so all you have to do is bring a bag and your appetite. If you use all of your credit before the season ends, you can extend your membership at any time. To sign up, e-mail us at treegatefarm [at] gmail [dot] com.

And a big shout-out to the folks at Cooperative Extension who organized today's fair. What a crowd! More than 200 people came out this afternoon to talk to farmers and learn more about the many ways they can support local agriculture with their food budgets. TGF's roving photographer, Mom, caught a few scenes on camera:

To Market, To Market!

My paternal grandfather worked at IBM, so my earliest memory of the concept of shared risk and reward was in TV news broadcasts of the ’70s and ’80s, noting the rise and fall of the Southern Tier's tech behemoth. It wasn't until I moved to Ithaca in the early ’90s that I learned about Community Supported Agriculture, a business model that brings a taste of Wall Street to the kitchen table. Customers pay ahead for a season's produce; as members in the farm enterprise, they assume both the risks and rewards of the growing season. Back in the early days, there was an extraordinary volume of kale involved. At Tree Gate Farm, the 2012 season promises cut flowers, green beans, beets, berries, broccoli, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, garlic, ginger, herbs, horseradish, leeks, lettuce, lemongrass, licorice, onions, peas, peppers, plums, potatoes in shades of the rainbow, rhubarb, spinach, tomatoes, tomatilloes -- and kale.

Across town, CSA offerings across town have expanded to include meat, bread, arranged and u-pick flowers, fruit, and produce. They come as shares for a single person or a large household; include spring, winter, and summer options; even prepared foods -- known as Community Supported Kitchens, an idea we think is just brilliant. There are so many options in this area that for the last few years, Cornell Cooperative Extension has organized a late winter CSA fair to bring together prospective customers and CSA farmers all in one place (mark your calendar: this Saturday, March 3 at Boynton Middle School).

Like everything else at Tree Gate, we're modifying the standard approach with our own special twist. With most CSAs, the farmer sets the parameters, filling a box with the week's harvest or detailing choices available to members. We've decided to offer something we're calling "on-demand." Other farmers call it a "market share." Members pay $100 for a $110 credit for the season. In addition to insider scoops on what we're harvesting and special discount offers, they can choose from among our Friday afternoon happy hour offerings at Felicia's Atomic Lounge. The model works best for folks who are as quirky as we are -- they want a lot of tomatoes, or no kale, or just a bouquet of flowers every few weeks, or they know that between out-of-town travel and house guests, their needs ebb and flow through the season, making a weekly distribution tough to handle. We'll also offer $25 gift cards good for the Friday afternoon market -- the perfect birthday present or hostess gift -- and we'll be selling shares in our pastured pork.

As beginning farmers, we learn a new set of skills every year -- OK, every day. It looks like 2012 will be the year for getting serious about marketing, customer outreach, and . . . maybe even weed management.

TGF FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions about Tree Gate Farm:

What do you grow? Do you have any animals? Have you thought about selling "x"?

Oh boy, here goes: We grow a pretty diverse range of plants, chickens, pigs, and soon to be mushrooms. One of our farm's main goals is to raise healthy plants and animals in as much of a balanced polyculture system as possible. There was already a small apple orchard planted by our friends Kate and Jeff, before they sold us "the land." We currently have several varieties of dwarf and semi-dwarf apple trees, a few cherry trees, plum trees, and lots of hybrid hazel nut shrubs. There are also some delicious, prolific black raspberries, blackberries, and elderberries well established in several of the hedgerows. We are encouraging and propagating them to increase our "wild harvested" berries. There was also a great household garden-gone-wild in the backyard of the farmhouse. If there is such a term, we have more "feral garlic" than we know what to do with. We're continually amazed by the variety of plants that keep popping up among the "weedy" house garden that are edibles, medicinals, or just have some great flowers. Thanks to the previous owners for unleashing all these wonderful plants.

We now have a large collection of herbs, new raspberries, blueberries, hardy kiwi, and two new varieties of elderberries (impulse purchase). We've experimented with two varieties of Jerusalem artichokes, and we test planted a number of cover crops last season. We'll have to determine which ones to use next year, as we continue to evaluate how they perform at out-competing the many weeds we have in our pasture-turned-forest farm.

Dean has begun propagating additional fruit, berries, and nut trees including from some of our existing mature shagbark hickories. For these first few years, we will be interplanting these long-term crops with annuals and perennial herbs and ground covers that we can sell in the meantime. As we add more posts about our farm plan, you'll understand that "What do you grow?" is a question that is certain to get you a long and rambling answer.

Where do you sell your produce?

That's another good question. We're still working on that and suspect it will be an evolving answer. The local foods movement in Ithaca is changing at a rapid pace, and we aim to integrate our social justice goals with trying to make a living from farming. We'll post more details as the year(s) goes on.

2012 Update: We're selling produce from sometime in April till late Fall at Felicia's Atomic Lounge on Friday's

Do you have a CSA?

Sorry, we're not currently running a CSA (community supported agriculture). We decided that with our evolving plans, it was too rushed to sell shares in this year's uncertain harvest --particularly when we have little, or no history, on which to base our yields. If you're interested in helping support Tree Gate Farm through a CSA, please send us a note, and we'll add you to the list of potential members. In the meantime, there are some great CSAs in the Ithaca area. PLEASE go out and support one of your local farms if a CSA relationship works for you (See the resource page for local CSA operations and area farm).

We sell shares of our pork (by the 1/2) and we have a $100 CSA share that buys you a $100 dollars in credit that you can pick up on Fridays at our stand at Felicia's Atomic Lounge.

PS Thanks to all the family and friends who've offered to support us through a CSA!

Are you organic?

I think most people want to know if we are USDA Organic Certified. Currently we are NOT certified, nor will we be applying this year. We will sign the "farmer's pledge," administered by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York. We have not, to the best of our knowledge, violated any of the conditions that would prohibit us from pursuing certification ... but given the amount of paperwork required, it's a project we won't tackle til next year, at the earliest. If you want to know how we farm, read the blog, come visit during one of our farm tours, or ask questions when you see us at market. We're happy to share our philosophy on farming, and hope to be transparent in our practices.

Why would you leave a cushy desk job to become a farmer?

If you could see the smile on my face whenever I describe working on the forest farm... ya gotta do what you love. 'nuf said.