It all started with cucumbers.

I believe we started selling lettuce and parsley and things like that.

I think it was baby kale was how we got our foot in the door. We sold them just a handful of bags a week. And now we're selling a whole lot of lettuce mix every week and all kinds of crops. And we've been able to rely on those sales year over year. The co-op has been a major player in our business and the growing of our farm.

In a sense, the growth of the co-op and the growth of the farm, those tracks have been parallel. You know, you're coming in twice, if not more times a week to deliver your product. And so you make connections with lots of people who work here. And there is a big difference. Right from the end of one season to the next, that whole winter, the discussion doesn't stop. You finish your season knowing that you will be connecting over the winter and making a plan that you can count on.

We are the envy of all of my peers around the state in terms of having a relationship with a store that is so committed and they're not going to back out on a contract because somebody else has a better deal somewhere.

It does feel like the way the co-op approaches things really leaves room for all of us to do well as opposed to putting us in competition with each other. It feels like we're able to each find our own little niches and all grow together, which is great.

They're always looking at, like, I'm only going to buy half of what I need from this grower. I'm going to get the other half from the other grower because that's what we said we were going to do. It's inconvenient to buy from all these different growers. It would be a lot easier just to get it from one person. I've rarely ever had to ask for a price increase. I do say, you know, our costs are going up. We need to increase prices somewhere. But they've been really good at always pushing the prices to where they need to be for us to survive.

You know, it's just, they do such an important job and it's connecting consumers with the people who are growing their food.

It is really special to get texts from whoever being like, oh, I just saw your beautiful kale at the co-op or whatever it is. Those things really do mean a lot.

We used to grow this lettuce, a beautiful red Boston lettuce. And we had people write us notes and saying that they carried it down the aisle when they got married.

It's powerful for our kids to walk in and be like, oh, look, our apples are on sale this week. Or my son to go over to the produce area and be like, hey, mom, I picked those keepsake apples.

You're eating food, but you're also feeding this relationship, this reciprocal, magical thing between producers and consumers. And suddenly then you're looking at these onions on the shelf and they're not just onions.

They have a story. You know who grew them. You know how hard it was to produce those. And I think when you know these parts of a farmer's story that don't fit neatly on a label, it makes you more inclined to want to support them and what they do. And the food kind of feeds you twice.