I just wrote the last Veggie Box News for the foreseeable future. I am ending my partnership with Pacific Star Gardens. There are a great number of reasons why it just didn't/wasn't going to work, I'll cover a few here that I feel will help us grow as people to understand our relationship to farms, farmers, and our food.
Perhaps the most significant reason I decided to walk away was financial. The average small, organic farmer makes $3-5 per hour. I actually lost money this year; I worked for (-$1) per hour roughly. This is mostly because overhead is so high, margins are low, waste is enormous, crops fail because of disease and bugs and people flake on purchases all the time. There is no secret discount store where we buy hoes, shovels and the like we get them at the same pricey hardware stores you all do, seeds are really expensive, the amount of labor is enormous, and everyone wants a discount or donation. I also commuted to work, 52 miles a day which by the IRS' deduction of 56 cents is over $7,000. I have only brought in $5,000 to date, and have little hope of more coming in. I'm not trying to break your heart, or whine, but instead tell it like it is: Farming is really, really rough and the people who do it should be treated like local heroes. So, please, don't haggle at the markets, DO shop at the farmer's market- giving your money right to the farmer so they don't lose money wholesaling so you can get it at the supermarket, tip them even (even if it's just them keeping the change), buy your favorite farmer a gift, or bring back food you've made with their product. Just remember to thank them in person or writing, I know I always loved when I felt people really understood what I was trying to do and really thanked me for it.
Related to finances, Tarra and I are hoping to start a family. As two ladies, that's really expensive. We are lucky enough to have gotten a known donor, otherwise the sperm bank would be $700 a try, if we tried twice a month...that's more than our rent! We're using a midwife, and while she's world's cheaper than the fertility center, it's still not cheap. We're looking at spending $10,000 to have a baby, roughly double what it would cost for a hetero couple. We finally realized that I couldn't make less than no money and have a baby. And commuting while pregnant sounded awful. We're also hoping to buy a home soon to house the kind of family we want (we're hoping to adopt/foster more in the future after having one or two of our own) and another car so we don't have to share. While it seems obvious now saying this, I was so hopeful I could make farming and raising a family work, I maybe let it go on longer than I maybe should have. This just seems the wrong time to try to make farming work, at this place, in this time in my life.
I'd like to farm again in the future but it'd have to be close to home so commuting isn't as expensive and exhausting, and it would have to be more balanced with value added items like jams, pickles, bread, and dried products that have a better shelf life and are less prone to wrascaly wabbits, ground squirrels, aphids, tiny birds, and all the other adorable crop ruiners that plague a veggie farm. It would have to be very different next time for it all to work. That's the kind of work I really enjoyed anyway. Growing veggies is easy and tempting to new farmers, but unless you've got some brilliant idea or really great "in", it's also a really great way to work really hard and not make very much money, especially if you're driving really far to do it! Lesson here, try to buy those value added things from farmers. Olive oil, jam, dried fruits, breads, pasta, soup mixes, soaps, salves and things are where they make their money and sustain their farms. The moral of all of this is please don't let my closing end your dedication to farms.
I have cherished the relationship we have all shared over these short two and a half years, and am grateful for those of you who have been with me since the beginning, four years ago. I took great joy in planning, seeding, weeding, transplanting, harvesting, packaging and delivering your food. I was so thrilled when you would share your creations online or with me. I am so proud to have been your farmer and to hear that I have helped you all grow to love new veggies, learn to meal plan and push yourselves to cook, and taken an interest in agriculture and your health where you wouldn't have before. That was my goal in starting on this journey, and I know I'll look back on this someday with great accomplishment, though right now it all feels a bit raw. I feel a lot like I've lost a love one: something I labored to grow.
I have a few ideas of how I'd like to carry on this kind of work: working with agriculture, bringing you food, helping us all learn to cook and love veggies, and building a community around all of that. For now though, I think this is where we'll close this chapter of Tender Heart Farms.
