Green Bow Farm is happy to announce that we will have a Grass-fed Meat CSA for Winter/Spring 2016 For the first time ever we will have Pasture raised pork available and we will have 2 different size shares to choose … Continue reading
We are really excited to announce that we are working with Discovery Lab a local STEAM based school to have mini farm school workshops at Green Bow Farm. Our sons started attending Discovery Lab this Fall. They love it and … Continue reading
We are currently signing up members for our Winter Grass-fed Meat CSA 2015. The CSA is three months long, February-April, and includes a box of grass-fed meat (approx. 6-8 lb. per box) per month for pickup at drop off locations the third Saturday of the month. The drop sites include one in Ballard, one in West Seattle, and in Ellensburg on the farm. We are reserving the last of our pasture raised chickens for our Winter CSA members and our members will also have priority when we have more available this summer, our chickens are rotationally grazed on our pastures with our sheep and cattle and fed a locally grown, whole grain feed, that is soy and gmo free. Most of what will make up the csa boxes will be our 100% grass-fed lamb and beef. The three month CSA membership is $225 and you will receive approximately $80 of food per box so you will get a 6% savings from our farmers market prices. For a registration form please e-mail us info@greenbowfarm.com
Besides being an easy way to stock your freezer with tasty grass-fed meat being a CSA member means you are also making an investment in our farm. You are helping us get our 2015 started helping buy equipment, chicks, seeds, and in turn you are repaid with delicious food. We enjoyed the CSA we started last fall so much that we want to work towards having it be a year round membership with seasonal installments. Besides having members that are really excited about what we are doing on the farm we also liked connecting with them about food. So many are like us and choosing to have backyard chickens, ferment veggies, making cheese, or just really wanting to know where their food is coming from.
Some of the plans we have for the new year include expanding the CSA but also having some CSA memberships specifically for Eggs starting in the spring and one for Pastured Raised Chickens in the summer. We are also looking at expanding what we grow on the farm and selling at farmers markets. The past two seasons we have grown vegetables mostly for our family and we grew heirloom tomatoes to sell at the markets. This year we will do both of those things again and in addition we will grow fresh herbs for the market and also to turn into added value products like dry rubs and marinades that will work well with our grass-fed meats. We are both passionate about cooking so this is one area we are really excited about growing in and also sharing more recipes and tips for easy fuss free family meals!
We will also have way more pasture raised eggs available this year compared to last. This is one area we saw lots of demand in last year and started planning ahead raising a new group of laying hens in the late fall. Our eggs are in great demand which is huge for a small farm like ours but it also means with that many more chickens we have so much more of that nitrogen rich chicken manure to fertilize our pastures with. Healthy soils make healthy animals, and in turn healthy people!
Thank you for your support! Without our members and regular farmers market customers we wouldn’t be able to do what we do. We also wouldn’t be able to keep expanding the food we produce on the farm and see a bright future on the farm one that also includes financial sustainability.
Farmer Christina wrote a guest essay for The Female Farmer Project discussing Farm Mentors. She had a great discussion with Shelley Pasco-Verdi of Whistling Train Farm in Kent, Washington, Blair Prenoveau of Madstone farm in Northern California, and Whitney Johnson … Continue reading
In today’s industrial food system, chicken is raised by farmers who don’t own the birds, only the infrastructure used to raise them. Or at least they own the debt as the agro industrial poultry corporations require farmers to build facilities to their specifications on their own dime, carry the debt of hundred’s of thousands of dollars while the corporation has the right to cancel their grower’s contract with a thirty day written notice, leaving them with expensive empty buildings to pay for. The feed that is used is heavily made up of subsidized corn and soy grown in depleted soil propped up with synthetic petroleum nutrients and sprayed with herbicides all of which end up in the food chain. The subsidized grains mean that the taxpayer is footing the bill for these less than nutritionally valuable food products and the corporations are able to buy them for less than it costs to produce them. The finished birds are then rounded up and shipped to processing plants where underpaid workers are hired to process them. The parts are then shipped out to the domestic and global market. If all this wasn’t enough, the chicken is then often plumped up with saline injections to repair moisture and flavor compromises during growing and increase market weight.
Last month I spoke at the International Food Bloggers Conference in Seattle with a great group of women all dedicated to local food. Audra Gaines Mulkern, the creator of The Female Farmer Project and the Oxbow box project, Greta Hardin, … Continue reading
We are very excited to announce our first ever Meat CSA for Fall 2014. What is a CSA? Community Supported Agriculture is what it stands for but it is much more than that. They can be structured different ways but the basic idea is that you are supporting your farmers directly by buying a share in their farm and farm food. This is huge for a small farms like ours where costs just to run the farm can be daunting and it gives us the support we need to plan for our next season and gives us the capital to do things like build new chicken tractors. In return you get a monthly bounty of grass-fed meat that is less expensive than if you bought it retail. You can think of it similarly to buying a whole or half of an animal directly from a farm but instead of investing in a large chest freezer we will be bringing the meat to you in monthly installments that are less overwhelming and instead of having hundreds of pounds of just beef or just pork you will have a mix of chicken, pork, lamb, and beef over the course of four months. We feel its a enriching experience for both the farm and the members, giving us a greater connection to the community we are raising food for and giving you a better understanding of where your food comes from. So I will go into detail about all the different kinds of meats that will be included in the CSA and other member perks (yes! member only perks!!!) If you want to skip to registration click here. Please fill out the form and mail it to us with a check. No credit cards will be taken for CSA memberships unless you are okay with the extra 3% bank charge added onto your total amount. There is already a discount on this membership and we can’t afford the bank fees on top of the discount. Now onto the exciting part!
The nuts and bolts– There will be once a month drop offs on the 3rd Saturday of each month, September-December 2014. One in West Seattle (Location TBA), One in Capitol Hill at Nube Green, and one in Ellensburg (Location TBA). The cost is $600 and you will be receiving approximately 12-16 pounds of meat each month depending on the price of the cuts and it will be a mix of 2-3 different kinds of meats (chicken, pork, lamb, beef) each month. You will be receiving approximately $170 worth of meat but the cost to you will be $150 a month (so slightly more than a 10% discount). The CSA member perks will include but not be limited to priority on our waiting list for Thanksgiving Heritage Turkeys, Member only discounts at Farmers Markets, special farm made gifts that we don’t sell at markets, and other things like honey when we harvest them. The gifts will be things that we think compliment our meats or may work with the recipes we include with each box. These recipes will be ones we have written ourselves or tested ourselves and think they work well with grass-fed meats. We are very dedicated to teaching people how to cook things they are unfamiliar with so we will be more than happy to talk people through things like cooking a whole chicken or how to part up a whole chicken. Register here! Mail back the form and check for your spot in the Fall Meat CSA.
Green Bow Farm Pastures- Are never sprayed with chemicals of any kind and we fertilize them by practicing multi-species rotational grazing in addition to using on the farm made fertilizers like compost and compost tea. We believe the animals when rotated around on pastures the right way will give back to the land and make the soil richer, this soil in turn will grow the animals healthier grasses to forage for. It’s a beautiful symbiotic relationship that goes far beyond any man made fertilizers. If you treat animals right they will reward you and heal the land in ways you can’t possibly imagine.
Pasture Raised Chicken- We raise our chickens on pasture with all of our sheep and cattle which is beneficial to the animals and beneficial to the soil. The chickens clean up what the ruminants leave behind and in this way they help fertilize the pastures and the chickens in turn are getting more nutrition from eating bugs and grass which give them a higher amount of Omega-3 fatty acids in their diet. In addition we feed them a locally grown whole grain feed that is soy and gmo free. There have been recent studies showing that chickens fed a soy free diet have an even higher amount of Omega-3’s compared to pasture raised chickens that have soy in their diet. The chickens are processed at a humane certified WSDA facility that our neighbor runs just up the road from us. We are very lucky to have neighbors that are as dedicated to sustainable agriculture as we are because in Washington State you are not allowed to sell chicken at farmers markets or to CSA’s unless they are processed at a WSDA facility.
Grass-fed Lamb– We breed Icelandic Sheep at Green Bow Farm for both Wool and Meat. They are a very hardy breed that works well with our cold winters not to mention they have excellent maternal instincts and birth very easily. We raise them on pasture with our cattle and chickens letting them nurse as long as the ewes will let them. We breed them for a spring arrival and harvest in October so they are on green grass almost the entire time and 100% grass-fed which we find makes a huge difference in the quality of the meat.We have also found that their meat is slightly milder in flavor compared to the lamb that most people are used to eating and even people who swear they don’t like lamb have been converted when they try ours. Our lamb and our beef are both processed at a humane certified USDA facility that is run by a cooperative of farmers and ranchers.
Grass-fed Beef We breed Scottish Highland Cattle for many of the same reasons we do the Icelandic Sheep. They are hardy and in addition to grazing on pasture they also browse which means they are less picky about forage and it helps create healthier pastures that are less water intensive. If you’ve seen this handsome breed you’ve seen their red and sometimes black thick coat that insulates them so much so that they end up with less fat then traditional Angus beef. Our Cattle are also 100% grass-fed which means the meat has a much darker red color compared to the beef you are used to seeing in the grocery store.
Also fun fact: the British Royal Family breed Scottish Highlands and I have read it is their beef of choice. If it’s good enough for the King and Queen of England it’s good enough for our CSA members 🙂
Pastured Pork– When we started talking to people about a Meat CSA one thing that was requested was pasture raised pork which at this time we have only raised for ourselves. So in collaboration with our neighbors at Windy ‘n’ Ranch we will be including pastured pork with the CSA membership. Here are some details about how they raise their pigs-
“Our Pastured Pigs are sired by Berkshires which are a wonderfully flavorful Heritage Breed and bred to Yorkshire/Landrace sows known for their meat quality and maternal characteristics. It might seem odd but by purchasing Heritage Breeds you are supporting the effort to bring back breeds which have virtually vanished but were at one time common in early America because of their superior taste. Originally from Britain and known as Britain’s oldest breed, Berkshires are the most popular of the Heritage Breeds. Known as “Kurobuta” in Japan as their most prized pork and is looked at like Kobe Beef. Berks have become a favorite with chefs because of its intramuscular marbling. The breed yields a brighter pork than most, and features a thick, delicious fat cap. Something which make us VERY unusual in the industry is our feeding of Fodder which is Organic Barley Sprouts fed to our slaughter animals in the winter when fresh grass is not available.” From their website. Windy ‘n’ also does not spray their pastures with chemicals of any kind.
Now go and register here! There is a limited amount of spots available based on how much we can fit on our truck so if you are interested send back your registration and check as soon as possible.
Now that I have your attention lets talk about what eating local food is all about, tasty meals you share with your friends and family. These meals may not change your life overnight but just standing next to them telling … Continue reading
Spring is here and that means we have chicken again! There is also lots of spring goodies that are only around for a very short time in the farmers markets like garlic scapes, flowering pea sprouts, just about anything flower … Continue reading
The season is in full swing and we have more animals on the farm then we have ever had before. So many chicks, turkey poults, ducklings, and lambs its hard to keep count. We are also without help again and … Continue reading
future farmers live here 