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Published on 06/05/1995 All articles from this issue

Veggie venture makes ecological sense

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By Cori Barrett / Town Crier Staff Writer

Our Farm combines presticide-free produce with 'community spirit'

It's a vegetable lover's dream.

A large blue cooler sits with the lid closed, filled to the brim with healthy, fresh and crisp produce. It's never certain what types of vegetables will be inside, but one thing is assured: it has been picked and planted by two men who know a treasure of information about organic farming.

David Blume and Los Altos resident Reynie Lave are full-time farmers for Our Farm, a community-supported agriculture (CSA) project that serves more than 200 people in the Bay Area quality vegetables and fruits.

Our Farm is a collaboration between the farmers and their customers. Produce is raised for these limited number of consumers (sharers) rather than for the general market.

The main farm is located in Woodside, but there is an orchard tract in Los Altos Hills on Christophers Lane near Interstate 280.

Our Farm's share of fresh produce for 1995 consists of a wide variety of in-season produce for 37 weeks between April and December. Sharers will usually receive between 7-12 pounds of fresh vegetables, fruits, mushrooms and herbs each week.

Sharers are encouraged to help pick and plant if they want to. "We share as a community would share," Lave said. "We have parties, recipe tradings, hoe-downs."

Both Lave and Blume agree that this "community spirit" is the best part about Our Farm. Volunteers come each day to help harvest and plant, and sharers frequently come to farm-sponsored cookouts with suggestions of new ways to prepare the vegetables.

"We are looking for people who are excited to learn our style of farming, and to cook different things," Blume said.

Both the Woodside and Los Altos farms were overgrown with weeds before they were made into farmland.

"There was a bunch of open space being wasted," Blume said. "It is extremely fertile, magic soil."

The soil is so magical in fact, last Thursday three bathtubs full of perfect-looking spinach were washed and carefully put into environmentally safe plastic bags. Besides the spinach, Our Farm shareholders took home bunches of garlic greens, beets, cilantro, turnips, cress and mushrooms last week.

"The crops get better every year," Blume said. "The theory is, you feed the soil instead of the plants."

Both Blume and Lave have had years of experience working in sustainable agriculture and organic farming.

Blume is the former executive director of Hidden Villa farm in Los Altos Hills and instituted a similar type of CSA for Hidden Villa in 1993. "My grandfather farmed in this area," he said. "In a way, we are doing the same thing he did by offering homegrown food to folks."

Lave, who grew up in Los Altos, is a graduate of University of California at Santa Cruz's agroecology program, the United States' pioneer sustainable agriculture program. "I remember growing up surrounded by the orchards," he said. "I used to pick apricots."

Our Farm uses no pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, additives or hormones to make the produce grow. The produce remains fresh because it is generally delivered the same or next day after picking.

"We want to bring the culture back into agriculture," Lave said.

For more information, call 365-2993.