To enjoy time off and away from the office I will be compiling short stories from the past years of Folks Farm. It has been a journey and like many small businesses we face new challenges whether in markets, growing, finance, labor, you name it. My intention is to illustrate where we have come from and provide context guiding where we are headed.
Folks Farm and Seed was founded in 2019. The name comes from the farm’s first location, my parent’s backyard. We took an acre of south facing bunchgrass and turned the soil over for the first growing season. The focus of that first year was growing vegetables for market and primo seeds. We allowed about every crop to bloom, mature, and finish as seed. Nearly 60 varieties of crops in total.
The seeds came from a mentor and friend Rich Pecoraro, now running the non profit MASA Seeds in Boulder, CO. Much of this germplasm was being stored in a shipping container, waiting to be grown again, and we took efforts to revitalize the gene pool. Those seeds contained 30 years of specialized adaptation to high desert growing conditions, paving the way for the vigorous varieties we have continued to steward.
We were irrigating the farm from a single city water tap on new ground. This paved the way for tough environmental conditions like drought, low fertility soil, and extreme Colorado sunshine.
An important aspect of seed growing is the selection process. Instead of harvesting broad swaths of seed we eliminate plants not up to muster. Half a bed of cilantro bolts, those plants are removed to genetically propagate bolt-resistance from the remaining population. The act of selection over thousands of years and across millions of indigenous stewards created the food crops we recognize today. The environmental pressure placed that year made room for a robust grow of seed crops, some of which we are still sowing today.
The highlight of the 2019 season was the farm dinner. Mary’s brother, Jacob Mouser, and their high school friend Chad Greybill (now a general manager of a Michelin honor restaurant) guided the team to produce a multiple course farm-centric dinner. Our home kitchen was packed for the week leading up to the event preparing the dishes. It was incredible to witness the gathering of so many initial supporters of the farm. The people that attended the event remain instrumental in the success of the business and dear personal friends.
None of this work happens in a vacuum. Our lives are built on the foundations of our ancestors and carried by the people who surround us. Seeds come from the mother plants and are passed through generations to propagate and adapt. Community and family centered around land stewardship has remained a core tenet of Folks Farm and Seed.
Intentional effort is set now to grow this value into the new year and beyond. With so much distraction, fear mongering, doomsday predictions, and lack of trust in the macro community it is more important than ever to invest our energy locally.
The next evolution of businesses will build sovereignty and return the means of production to our locality. We must realize we are more than financially transactional beings. That we can build a profitable community based on voluntary exchange not just of money but time, kindness, and love. This is the type of disruption needed to fundamentally change the food system and provide sustenance for entire communities.
It is time to ask ourselves what can we give or create from local ingredients? Folks Farm has been in the business of using local soil, water, and sunshine to grow regionally adapted seeds into food and community. The mission remains and continues to be refined as we enter our 6th growing season.