All you need is the email sent to you when it was originally issued.
Tip: search "CSA Card" in your email
Don't see it?
We can resend it to you. Reach out to meghan@vibrant.farm!
Once you open the email, click to view the card.
Your active CSA Balance will be listed beneath the card image.
Questions? Reach out!
meghan@vibrant.farm
You heard it right... Vibrant Farm is currently hiring for the 2022 season! While we will have more positions opening in the rapidly approaching summer months, we currently have 3 positions opening in the spring of 2022. The listings are below:
About Us:
We are a young business growing our motivated and inspiring crew. Our team is coming off a successful first season and have created great momentum for our four-season, year-round vegetable farm. Customers include neighbors & local families, restaurants, grocery stores, and other local food businesses. This position is anticipated to be a long term addition to our hardworking crew.
This position will fit into our weekly rhythm. We start our days with harvest when produce is at its prime. Generally all hands are on deck to complete the daily harvest. After harvest, produce is documented and processed prior to storage. Orders placed throughout the week are packed on specific fulmitment days for delivery, pickup, or market.
Some aspects of this job will be in a group setting while others may be solo. Additionally, this is physical and focused work. Having said that, the fun of a sunrise pea patch harvest and blabberfest with the other farmers is hard to beat!
Job Title:
Harvest, Wash, & Pack Crew
Job Summary:
Starting 3 days/week (Tues, Wed, & Friday preferred)
Flexible hours available
Increased hours & days/week available during April-November
Potential for year-round employment
Responsibilities & Duties:
Be on time
Assist harvest crew picking and cutting diverse produce
Receive, process, & package fresh produce as it comes from the fields & greenhouses
Help pack produce for markets, deliveries, & online orders
This is hands-on work in a quick environment
Qualifications:
Good with numbers, weights, conversions, documentation
Ability to receive and understand training and procedures
No agricultural experience necessary
Previous hands-on work experience is helpful
Pay & Benefits:
Starting $16/hr
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INTERESTED?
PLEASE FILL OUT THIS SURVEY (https://us17.list-manage.com/survey?u=bf89878ff02ceef74cc87bd95&id=a34bf9d61f&attribution=false) AND CONTACT [Email hidden] WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND YOUR RESUME AND/OR LETTER OF INTEREST IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN WORKING WITH US.
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Job Title:
Sales Crew
Job Summary:
Part Time work
Tues, Wed & Thursday preferred
Increased hours & days per week in April-November
Responsibilities & Duties:
Communicate produce availability & pricing on a weekly basis with customers at the Litchfield Farmers Market
Assist in the set up & tear down of the market booth
Qualifications:
Good with communication and math
No agricultural experience necessary
Previous experience in sales preferred
Enthusiastic, positive, consistent
Pay & Benefits:
Starting $16/hr
Share in Farmer Gleanings
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Combine water, vinegar, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Stir until salt and sugar have dissolved.
Place carrots and daikon in a sterile jar. Pour vinegar mixture on top until vegetables are completely covered. Seal jar and refrigerate for at least 1 day, ideally 3 days.
Leave a comment below!
Share it with us on our social media
Email meghan@vibrant.farm
Note: Recipe and photo borrowed from allrecipes.com
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Step 1: Visit www.vibrant.farm
Step 2: Add products to your cart. When finished, proceed to review your cart.
Step 3: Select your desired Pickup Location and Date. Click Checkout.
Step 4: If needed, type your name into the First and Last Name fields under the "Pickup Location Information". The autofilled information in that section tells us when and where you will be picking up.
Step 5: In the top right, enter CSA Card Number. Find your card number on the back of your card, or in the email you received when it was originally issued. Click Apply, scroll down, click continue.
Step 6: Verify info, scroll down. Click Pay Now.
Step 7: Receive Confirmation Email.
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This is our favorite salad to make quickly for our farmer lunch. Colorful and bright, this salad packs a punch in flavor and appearance. The vinegar and mustard compliment the bitter greens, and the kohlrabi and fennel add a wonderful texture. Start with whisking the vinaigrette in the bottom of the salad bowl and then build the salad on top of it.
Whisk together vinegar, Dijon mustard, and honey in bottom of large bowl.
Using mandoline, thinly slice fennel bulb crosswise, beginning at base, into the bowl with the dressing. Using mandoline, thinly slice kohlrabi into bowl. Chop radicchio and frisée.
Toss greens in well with vinaigrette, fennel, & kohlrabi. Season to taste, if necessary, with salt and pepper. Top with your favorite seeds!
Leave a comment below!
Share it with us on our social media
Email meghan@vibrant.farm
Note: Recipe from Curtis and Meghan, photo borrowed from epicurious.com
As a vegetable farmer, I often find myself the fortune of having a lot of greens in my fridge. Whenever I'm looking for a quick hot meal that dips into the seemingly endless stash of greens, this is my go-to.
In this recipe, the slightly bitter flavor of the leafy greens is offset with the sweetness of the coconut oil and the maple syrup in the Golden Turmeric Sauce. Garlic and ginger warm up the dish and boost its nutrition and flavor, which is so much better than a plate of plain steamed greens. The Golden Turmeric Sauce is a medley of creamy, earthy, tahini with hints of lemon, the subtle bite of garlic, and the heat of ginger that will make any vegetable taste truly delightful.
Pro tips
1. This Golden Turmeric Sauce is great for more than just greens!
2. Definitely make some rice to go along with this dish (or a grain of your choice).
3. Top dish with your favorite seeds for an extra boost. I love to use pepitas, sunflowers, and/or hemp seeds!
Ingredients: Greens from Vibrant Farm, onion, garlic, lemon ginger, rice, olive oil, tahini, maple syrup, turmeric, salt, pepper.
The making of the turmeric sauce
Blended into its golden glory!
Get those onions translucent and those greens bright green before putting the sauce in the pan.
Mix sauce with greens and cook together until fragrant. Plate with your favorite grain.
~Flavor bonus~ simmer greens in organic chicken broth, bone broth, or veg broth for extra flavor!
Comment below!
Share it with us on our social media
Email meghan@vibrant.farm
Disclaimer: This is an altered recipe from Farmers Meghan's current favorite cookbook, The Living Kitchen.
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1 harvest, wash, pack
Harvest, Wash, Pack: Assist in the harvest, washing and packing processes of field crops and microgreens for our various markets and customers. Part time with opportunities for more hours. Flexible days & hours - ideally one day Mon or Tues, and one or two days Wed-Fri to start.
Punctual, considerate, enthusiastic, positive, consistent, mindful
Preferred experience / connection with natural world, work with hands & mind
$15-$20/hr based on experience and/or productivity
Share in Farmer Gleanings
Participate in a team dedicated to craft farming and our community
Catered experience with support based on your needs and goals
Thank you!
]]>This recipe is one of our all time favorites. In fact, I always double this recipe because it's so good and actually has me craving salads. Yes, craving salads! It's a salad dressing that is much like a caesar, with the garlic and capers bringing out the spice and aromas, and the sunflower seeds bringing the earthy nutty flavors.
We eat a lot of microgreens! This dressing is perfect for a microgreen salad featuring a base of Power Shoots (there's that sunflower again!) and sprinkled with amaranth and broccoli micros. De-lish!
1. Blend all ingredients except the water in a food processor or with an immersion blender until creamy and smooth.
2. If you want the dressing a little thinner, gradually add water until the dressing reaches the consistency you like.
3. Keep it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.
1. Coarsely chop Power Shoots and plate up
2. Add a dollop of Sunny Caesar
3. Sprinkle Amaranth and Broccoli micros to your preference
Sunny Caesar Dressing adapted from Farmer Meghan's favorite cookbook: The Living Kitchen
This is the fourth and final of a four-part series describing the manner in which we farm.
We’ve been gardeners for as long as we remember. Safe to say, we’ve never not been tending plants. Whether you're farming 6-acres or tending a few potted plants, we've found several unifying principles that help guide the ambitious towards fruitful abundance!
Good gardening starts with mindfulness; think about what you are doing and do it with intention. Gardening helps when you need calm and can soothe anxiety, it can also be a workout and physical challenge. Understand your limitations, expectations, and desired outcomes. Manifest positivity and your desired outcomes in a garden and you will be rewarded!
Curtis preparing to plant giant pumpkins with compost and bioinoculants, 2020
Some of us are just here for fresh tomatoes, so practically speaking, how do we get more from our gardens or containers? (even if more means yield or personal satisfaction)
We believe healthy plants only achieve greatness when they live in diversity. By this we mean a diverse soil microbiome, a diverse plant microbiome (like the gut of the plant!), a diverse canopy, and other compatible plants. Nature is not as “dog eat dog” as we’re taught; Nature is absolutely full of diversity and cooperations. Diversity and cooperation within the soil and plant sphere creates synergy and levels of vitality, yield, adaptability, and resilience that can’t be replicated with conventional (what you see advertised at garden centers) gardening practices.
So how do we achieve diversity?
The simplest thing is always to stop doing things that do not support the abundance of life. Stop regularly tilling your garden, it’s genocide to soil life. Stop planting in blocks, learn what grows well together, experiment! Stop using synthetic chemicals, synthetic or organic pesticides or fungicides, and broad based fertilizers. Stop leaving the soil bare, you can do better: grow plants or mulch it!
These points all add up to suggest: be gentle with the soil, sow diversity, and nurture Nature!
Beds topdressed with compost after being tarped for several weeks, 2019
Most people can wrap their head around no synthetic chemicals with their food, but why no organic pesticides, fungicides?
Pests and disease are Nature's way of telling us what we’re doing wrong; they are teachers and harbingers of information. While the instinct may be to spray & destroy, this doesn’t get to the root of things. Instead, ask yourself: Why are larvae eating these leaves, why does this crop get moldy, what’s this fuzzy or oozing stuff?
Mineralogical imbalance, lack of natural competitors (due to pesticide use or lack of beneficial host plants?), water or temperature related stress, site selection; there are so many factors at play. We can control many aspects of these conditions which suggests that it is our responsibility to learn from pests and disease to improve our techniques instead of bowing down to the pesticide or chemical industry.
So just how do we achieve a balance between mineralogy, soil biology, plant biology, our growing conditions, and our skill sets?
Let's start with soil and growing conditions. Soil comprises mineralogical components, air, water, and an incomprehensibly diverse community of living organisms. As gardeners, we can amend the mineralogical components, alter the structure of the soil with tools or added materials, and we can affect the microbiome through feeding, inoculation, and the practices we partake. These elements all work in balance, but simply put, we want our soils to act like they do in Nature. We want to promote strong soil microbiota.
Soil microbiome as depicted from Nature.com
The soil microbiome is about the most complex and diverse ecosystems I’ve personally tried to comprehend. The savannah and woodland forests aboveground are all fairly observable. We see deer and trees, grasses and grazers. However, below every ecosystem is an extraordinary world of diverse species that support the aboveground plants and animals that we identify more readily with.
The relationship between the soil microbiome with plants and animals aboveground is integral, cooperative, and synergistic - they exist together. Plants rely on the soil microbiome to access nutrients and water and exchange gasses, enzymes, and other complex environmental components. The soil microbiome relies on plants to pump the energy they gain from sunlight into the soil. This cooperation is perpetual.
Using Nature as our guide, how do we garden better?
This is the third of a four-part series describing the manner in which we farm.
Every cultural practice (cultivation, trellising, protected culture, fertilization, etc.) affects the Mineral Balance, Soil Biology, and Plant Biome. These are three areas where we as growers must focus our management to produce crops at their fullest genetic potential. Read about our practices in more detail!
]]>This is the third of a four-part series describing the manner in which we farm.
Every cultural practice (cultivation, trellising, protected culture, fertilization, etc.) affects the Mineral Balance, Soil Biology, and Plant Biome. These are three areas where we as growers must focus our management to produce crops at their fullest genetic potential.
Mineral Balance
Based on soil testing and guidelines, we can directly alter mineral or chemical makeup of soil. In solid or liquified form, we can apply mined & crushed materials or organic products. Ideally, common mineral components come from local waste streams like calcium from egg or oyster shells. While the latest mined materials or Chilean bat gauno may have a good pitch, the sustainability and supply chain of these products is suspect. We can find most major mineral components necessary for life within local waste streams.
When crushed basalt or lime are in their "raw" form, they are inaccessible to the plant. "Raw" materials for use in soil mineral balancing must first become bio- or plant-available to be of use. This requires the conversion of the mineral into another form like proteins through biological processes. Alchemy? We think so. As soil stewards, our goal is to balance the bio-availability of minerals to ensure our crops and soil biology have an unrestricted yet balanced amount of the mineral components necessary to life.
Soil Biology
Soil biology at this time in our industry is not as easily summed up as our soil tests are. The diversity of soil biology and their effect on soil mineral or chemical makeup is simply tremendous. Soil biology drives pH/EH, disease suppressive or enhancing nature of soil, nutrient cycling, and coordinates life with plants. Wow! Without plants, soil biology is missing its primary food source: carbon! Plants supply soil biology with carbon; the soil biology supplies plants with nutrients, but only if they are present in the soil in the first place!
As growers, we can affect soil biology makeup based on the use or absence of "-cides", you know: pest-, insect-, mold-, fung-, rodent-cides, etc. These synthetic or natural "-cides" are suppressive actions that generally don't promote life and diversity. Instead, we work to directly support diversity and abundance of disease suppressive organisms. We can enhance soil biology by always having something green growing; this keeps the carbon food source to biology active. We can promote soil biology through inoculants, cultural practices, and the amendments we use.
Plant Biome
Our crops are (obviously!) plants, which makes them synergists of soil biology as described above. While it may make sense for us to focus on the soil conditions, beyond annual mineral balancing, our focus is on the health and biome of every plant through careful observation. Similar to our own bodies, plants are made up of a diverse range of microbiota that by cell count rival the actual plant cells. Nature is cooperative in this way. These microbiota live both on the outside and inside of plant leaves, stems, fruits, roots.
As growers, our goal is to promote an abundance and diversity of healthy, disease suppressive microbiota on our plant surfaces above and below ground. Foliar sprays of natural materials, soil drenches, and other management/cultural practices all work to suppress or enhance disease that is inherent in our environment.
We hope to expand upon this section as we develop our system to meet the scale and context of the farm property. Here is a sneak peek of systems we use:
truck bed full of farm tools and nursery plants ready to plant
There is a TON of waste in conventional and organic vegetable farming systems. Drip tape, plastic mulch, polystyrene nursery trays, and product packaging all rely on single-use plastics. We’re working towards addressing these concerns and finding alternative products, methods, and systems to reduce waste around the farm.
Reusable, long-lasting, trays and pots
Post-consumer waste where possible, recyclable types of plastics only
We use:
No single-use plastic mulch, drip tape, or row cover
We use:
Reusable bins and containers from harvest until delivery
Combined orders with online shopping vs. individually packaged for market
Customers bring their own bags & boxes to transfer out of our farm containers
We've got lots more to come on this topic, but this should get us started. What do you think? Have any questions? We'd love to hear from you, comment below!
Our blog series on our farming practices continues with:
Part 4: Good Gardening Practices
Or, if you missed it:
Part 1: The Brief
Part 2: Organic or Other?
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We believe CNG:
Confirms our commitment to growing practices that farm in synergy with natural systems
Provides our farm with networking and relationship opportunities with the regional farming community through peer-review process
CNG is less cumbersome, giving us room to focus on our business start-up
This is the second of a four-part series describing the manner in which we farm.
One of the most challenging decisions for our business was to be certified organic, or not, or something else entirely. To be clear, we’re not suggesting that we were considering conventional practices vs. organic vs. other - our practices are grounded in principle, tradition, and connections.
Our goal as producers is to support natural systems using natural materials and ingenuity. The term organic has become institutionalized through the USDA, although “organic” is thrown around, claimed, implied, and everything between by farms everywhere.
When we looked at our business context and all the factors we’re working with (land access, business age, sales strategy, customer preferences, among others) we found several reasons against being certified organic:
We’ve chosen to pursue Certified Naturally Grown (CNG) to confirm our commitment to transparency and meaningful production practices. CNG is a grassroots, peer-reviewed certification process that uses standards based on the highest ideals of the organic movement. We suspect many of our customers are unfamiliar with CNG, but we are excited to share our certification process and the other benefits of this certification.
We believe CNG:
Confirms our commitment to growing practices that farm in synergy with natural systems
Provides our farm with networking and relationship opportunities with the regional farming community through peer-review process
CNG is less cumbersome, giving us room to focus on our business start-up
CNG is a great fit for Vibrant, but in the future, we believe we can do more. Beyond our production practices, we are exploring options to certify our commitment to worker fulfillment, empowerment, and fairness. Food Justice Certification and Certified B Corp are both distinctions that align well with the type of business we are aiming to create. With the support of our customers and community, we hope we can swiftly achieve the business milestones necessary for us to tackle these important certifications. Until then, we will be working hard to create a fair business and earn the trust of you and our employees to the best of our abilities.
Our blog series on our farming practices continues with:
Part 3: The Details
Part 4: Good Gardening Practices
Or, if you missed it, Part 1: The Brief
Part 1: The Brief, an intro and an overview.
"As farmers, we support living forces into the creation of products that sustain life through our connections and interactions. The gravity of this synergistic purpose can be grounded through exuding positivity into the work that we do."
We farm with people. Their comfort, safety, training, and motivation hinge on a positive workplace culture that prioritizes these ideas. We believe a healthy and safe workplace is the foundation to producing food with vitality and vibrance. Further, the purpose of all farms should be to produce food of the highest quality at scale that generates enough returns to sustainably support the farm stakeholders - namely the farmers, the customers, the community, and the land.
Business savvy is certainly important to success in farming, but we believe economic viability is actually inherent in an operation that measures its success in the quality of its produce. We also believe quality in production is only possible with a workplace and workforce that is similarly supported, nurtured, fair, and diverse. Obviously our production principles play a key role in the quality of our output, but it is our people that implement our practices.
Every step of our process is critical if we are to have every seed we plant turn into produce. We have found that mindfulness uniformly affects every process we partake in. As farmers, we support living forces into the creation of products that sustain life through our connections and interactions. The gravity of this synergistic purpose can be grounded through exuding positivity into the work that we do.
Through mindful connection with each seed we sow, deliberate intent in each pass of our weeding hoe, and thankful harvesting thoughts, we as farmers attempt to put more positive energy into the food we grow.
Practically speaking, mindfulness plays itself out on the farm in many ways:
What we are practicing are the “soft” skills of empathy, compassion, and kindness that allow us as farmers to be mindful about what we are doing. Food and farming in America are disconnected. We recognize that we don’t need to keep using the same, inherently extractive systems. We feel spurred to trial systems and methods that go against this current and offer an alternate solution.
To wrap things up, we offer these take aways:
You may have expected us to discuss tillage practices, what we spray or don't spray, etc. Check out our other blogs for more of the production operations.
Part 2: Organic or Other?
Part 3: The Details
Part 4: Good Gardening Practices
These blog posts will go December 22, 23, 24, 2020. Stay Tuned!
]]>You could say my first day on the job as a full time farmer was a jump off the high dive...
I was a livestock apprentice at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, an institution designed to train and develop young farmers. I dove headfirst as my assistant manager led the way as we slaughtered and butchered a pig together; an inevitable process that I had never observed before, let alone took part.
Throughout the course of my first season farming, I learned to care deeply for a diverse group of livestock raised for meat, eggs, and fiber, with a cohort of talented and motivated individuals. Most importantly, I discovered and deepened my appreciation for food and its vital role in sustaining connections.
I grew up eating meat, but I had no connection to the animals nor the industrial mechanisms producing the meat far away from my childhood home in New Hampshire. There was a period in my teens when I declared myself a vegetarian. I had read about the conventional meat industry in America and with naivety I boycotted the entire industry. However, over the course of about a year, my health suffered with an unbalanced diet.
As I stepped back into the carnivorous world, I re-educated myself about meat and my alternatives. I visited farmers markets and butcher shops and learned the language of meat. As this habit developed in the meat department, so did my curiosity about all my food.
Meghan as a child, playing at a local farm during an apple picking field trip!
It has taken me a long time to become comfortable with myself and food. I am not proud to announce that I grew up as a picky eater. I grew up as a chubby girl with that narrow vision that comes with a picky eater, and later struggled with eating disorder habits. It has only been through adulthood that I have found a deep appreciation for food and its power. As a farmer, I've been able to connect with the processes of livestock production, harvesting vegetables, and transforming these products into wholesome food for sharing with others. In the kitchen, learning to cook and to think about food from seed (or embryo!) to plate to health has opened my world.
I certainly was not raised as a farmer; I was taught to work with my head, not my hands. I graduated from Union College with a Bachelors in Geology and pursued a career with the Army Corps of Engineers as a Field Geologist. While this made myself and my family proud, the lifestyle continued my disengagement with my food. On the road, I lived in hotels for weeks on end and ate hotel food and convenience food all too often. My mental and physical health suffered from the lack of connection with my food and my people.
When I returned from work on the road to my home base in Savannah, GA, I gathered with my roommates and friends over much-appreciated home cooked feasts and delightful meals out at restaurants. I found such joy in sharing food experiences with others; this stark contrast motivated me to pursue a lifestyle and career that would nurture my connection food and my health.
I came to farming seeking a connection with food and health, and since I have found motivation through the work and the rewards. Every step of my journey thus far, from my apprenticeship at Stone Barns to my co-management of Grape Hollow Farm in Holmes, NY has connected me to my own food and to the people I serve.
left: Meghan preparing the Grape Hollow farmers market booth in Pawling, NY in 2019. right: Meghan with Gladys the rooster at Grape Hollow Farm in 2019.
Although not all of us need to farm, but we all need to nurture ourselves with food and therefore we all inherently have a relationship with food and how it is raised. I find inspiration in this. Further, I am proud to be a part of the surge of young farmers in the industry, a group who is here to stay.
Meghan with a 22lb heritage breed turkey she raised from poult to harvest for Thanksgiving in 2017
My fiance, (and Vibrant Farm co-owner!) Curtis and I moved to Litchfield, CT in January 2020. Together with the farmers previously operating the land that we now lease, Curtis and I experienced the initial wave of the Coronavirus with the Litchfield County community. We felt the community look to, and lean upon, their local farms.
As a response, we led and implemented strategies for customers to continue to access their local fresh food. We helped the farmers accept credit payments, created an online ordering platform, and implemented a contactless drive-thru pickup.
The community response to our system was overwhelming, and their support was encouraging. We saw other local businesses find ways to address concerns of their customers during the early stages of COVID-19. Online, we saw farmers innovating rapidly to implement strategies to keep markets open, deliver produce, and keep momentum moving forward.
Meghan and Curtis growing baby greens in 2020.
I, too, feel thankful for farmers. I look up to and lean upon those who have farmed before me and this very succession of stewardship. I believe that to keep us moving forward we must consider what affects our decisions today will have on tomorrow. In doing so, I hope to honor and respect the land and the many people who have come before. I hope to continue to grow wholesome food, keep the soil covered, grow and raise nutritious food without the use of synthetic chemicals, create a more diverse and supportive workplace, and source materials locally as much as possible.
Vibrant Farm is the next rendition to my farming chapter. Let us come together for local food and farms, health, community connections, and hope!
It wasn’t always called the Victory Garden, but for as long as I can remember, there has been a garden in my life. At my grandparents there were flowers, at our house there were veggies, in the clear cuts there were endless canes of berries.
Curtis' childhood home and family garden
I named our family veggie garden the Victory Garden during a summer break while studying geology at Union College. I don’t recall where, but I had learned about the “coming together over gardening” movements at-home and abroad during wartime - dubbed Victory Gardens. Combined with my readings on permaculture and organic farming, college life and classwork, it was part of my first understanding on the power of food and farming.
During the initial phase of the COVID-19 outbreak, the concept of Victory Gardens came to light immediately as seed companies quickly became overwhelmed with orders and home gardeners skipped their cut flowers in favor of vegetables. Even my parents were invigorated to take to the family garden and plant rows of beans, carrots, tomatoes, and sunflowers.
In the garden, fears of the pandemic slip away and new memories are made. I hope to see my family, and all the other folks who took to their gardens in 2020, continue their pursuits and strengthen their connection to food in years to come. Spurred not by fear of the unknown, but in support of a more resilient and healthy home.
Farming was never a career I thought of as a child. Gardening and fondness for the natural world has always been there, but I never considered farming as a path. Thanks to Hard Hat Harry, I have always been fascinated with big equipment and systems that shape our world.
I come from a family of builders and small business owners in a sleepy, rural, Adirondack town. Growing up on a jobsite, I was free to express creativity and the material & natural world were my entertainment. Probably part hassle and part entertainment, I remember playing in the scrap piles, sweeping up jobs, and endless trips to supply stores. Heck, I thought they named me Curtis after Curtis Lumber, our local lumber yard!
Curtis with sister Caitlyn, both covered in wild blackberries!
Before I was old enough to legally work, my father had me help him mix cement, carry stones, and “help” on his job. I probably wasn’t a ton of help, prompting my father to suggest that if I didn’t like mixing cement, I could get a job when I was old enough. Further, if I didn’t like having a manual job, I’d need to get an education. While farming is as full of manual labor as my family's work, at 12 or 13 my dad’s message was loud and clear.
With endless bags of cement mixing awaiting my fate, I got a job my first summer of age for a small tourism business that operated a cave attraction and rock shop. For seven summers, I grew a toolbox of personal and business skills, and fell hard for geology, our planet, and mother nature. Beyond the practical handy trades work and critical thinking skills I gained, I learned the basics of customer interaction, sales, product promotion, and the many people skills it takes to run a business.
There was a strong entrepreneurial atmosphere at the Caves, from the owners’ spirit and positive, open-heartedness, to the actual work of sales and customer service. I remember well the wide range of functions and tasks that needed to happen and be in order for things to run smoothly. They relied on well traubed Great service, cleanliness, well-stocked shelves, smiles, and zero cigarette butts! were just a few of many keys for success at the Caves!
I’m forever grateful for the honesty, empathy, and fun that I experienced those years. My love for the rocks, minerals, and geology that surrounded me rubbed off enough to send me to college to pursue these passions.
Union College is a private liberal arts college steeped in tradition with strong academics, programs, and campus activities. Like many, college was a period of personal growth, expansion of opportunity, and social development. I became a member of the Alpha of New York, Sigma Phi Society, where my understanding of the world brightened. Beyond the historical connections, Sigma Phi gave me a vocabulary, social perspective, and a toolkit beyond anything taught in classrooms. I discovered and developed cooperation, connection, trust, respect, wit, commitment, and many other positive attributes during this period.
Beyond social life, a benefit of Union was the pursuit of liberal arts. To fulfill my non-major coursework, I pursued my interests in entrepreneurship and visual art through several classes and practicums. These other disciplines temporarily itched my very needy creative side. The diversity of the education and the student body taught me that inclusivity, open-mindedness, and hard-work act in synergy.
Most importantly of all, Union was where I found my dear love, Meghan. We unknowingly sowed the seeds of this journey way back then while abroad in Australia. Our talk of food connection has led us to create Vibrant Farm to meet the needs of ourselves, our employees, and our community.
Meghan and I are excited to continue sharing our journey to becoming agricultural entrepreneurs, land stewards, and lovers!
Curtis and Meghan in the Victory Garden at Curtis' family home in the Adirondacks.
Subscribe ]]>
We knew from the beginning that the farm name itself would be an important decision, and frankly we dreaded the process. We wanted our name to exemplify the mission and qualitative aspects of the farm. We needed the name to be simple yet revealing and represent the mission of the farm. It would also be wrong to appropriate cultural or local identifiers in a region we are newcomers to.
We finally cracked the code on a potential farm name on a car ride back to Litchfield from a visit to Curtis’ family in the Adirondacks. Curtis had been tossing around ideas about the qualitative aspects that make really great food, really great. Vitality was an intriguing idea, but vibrancy felt even closer to what we envisioned.
I don't recall who first put it together with Farm, but upon uttering Vibrant Farm, we both exploded. We childishly joked that we should "sit on it", but still we giggled and bubbled with excitement that we were at least really close! Each mile we drove, we played with the idea, chanted it, and identified all the things that Vibrant meant to us and embodied.
As you’ll read in "Lets get caught up...", we spent the summer of 2020 developing a farm model that meets the needs of customers today (and beyond!) with a convenient shopping experience and that serves its local community with wholesome, mindfully grown farm goods.
On Thanksgiving, 2020, we opened our digital doors for CSA Member Balance. As soon as we move onto the property in January, we will fire up the greenhouses and begin microgreen production in the indoor micro nursery. We will start off with an offering of microgreens, herbs, cut greens, and roots available for online ordering and pickup at the Litchfield Farm Fresh Market and pickup on-farm this winter.
Not from Litchfield County, but want to support our start-up? We are accepting start-up donations to seed our future.
We are sincerely excited to get started with the Vibrant journey with you all. Thank you for being here!
Cheers!
Your Farmers,
Meghan & Curtis