Archive for the ‘The Food That Feeds Us’ Category

Posted on January 6, 2010 - by Lisa Madison

The Food That Feeds Us: Fresh Flours

Note from the FRESH Team: “This is one of many posts from farmers and food producers around the US who are working hard to change our food system.  We want to share their stories with the FRESH community in hopes of connecting us all a little more and strengthening our collective voice.  This is NOT meant to be an exhaustive resource.  We welcome you to send us your story to share with the FRESH community as well.  Please email Lisa Madison at Lisa@FRESHthemovie.com for more information.”

Name: Fresh Flours
Location: Winchester, VA
Specialty: Baked Goods, Soups, Seasonal Dishes
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Winchester-VA/Fresh-Flours/137434417644
Buy Local Virginia: http://www.buylocalvirginia.org/search/anx-search-detail.cfm?id=1278
Eat Well Guide: http://www.eatwellguide.org/listing/detail/44992
How to buy our food: Front Royal Farmers Market, www.FarmerGirls.net, Facebook, Blue Ridge Meats of Front Royal, or email freshflours@comcast.net
Contact: Carrie England freshflours@comcast.net

I have my grandmother to thank for my passion for gardening and cooking, which always went hand-n-hand. Every time I pick a vine ripened tomato I think of her teaching me about companion planting. “This plant brings in the good bugs” pointing at the marigold flower. Then picking as if it was a prize unto its own, so I could smell it. In her garden you could always find praying mantis and lady bugs. She never used any pesticides and composting was just what she was taught.
Vu Manh Thang – I Am Superman

So as a child the love started on a humid Tennessee spring morning, picking fresh strawberries at an Aunt’s farm. Then it would come time to turn these delicious red ripe sweet berries into anything strawberry. Be it cakes, hand churned ice cream or homemade jam. Throughout that year I would spend time at family farms in Kentucky & Tennessee sharing laughter has we labored in the fields. Gardening had become rooted in my soul (it might have been that it tasted sooo good that the final product had a bit to do with it too).

Using simple sustainable practices taught to me by grandmother is one of the ways I honor the earth, my grandmother and the next generation at the same time.

It was only natural that I combine these two passions to start Fresh Flours. Not being able to produce all the fruits and vegetables to be used in the business, I rely on local farms and producers whose conservation practices lessen our impact on the environment and provide me with quality products. It only makes since to use the freshest, local ingredients and know whom I’m getting them from and the way they have been grown.

Carrie England

Posted on January 6, 2010 - by Lisa Madison

The Food That Feeds Us: Seasons Eatings Farm

Note from the FRESH Team: “This is the first of many posts from farmers and food producers around the US who are working hard to change our food system.  We want to share their stories with the FRESH community in hopes of connecting us all a little more and strengthening our collective voice.  This is NOT meant to be an exhaustive resource.  We welcome you to send us your story to share with the FRESH community as well.  Please email Lisa Madison at Lisa@FRESHthemovie.com for more information.”


Farm Name: Seasons Eatings Farm
Location: Talmadge, ME 04492
Specialty: Four season growing, cold weather greens
Website: http://seasonseatingsfarm.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Maine-ME/Seasons-Eatings-Farm/216695871520
How to buy our food: Direct from the farm, area restaurants
Contact: Robin Follette farm@seasonseatingsfarm.com


Seasons Eatings is a four season vegetable farm located in northeastern Maine. We are strong believers in community, small business, local economy, sustainable agriculture and fresh, healthy, locally produced food. Get to know your farmer! Ask questions and learn about the food that nourishes you.

I didn’t always want to be a farmer. I used to get up in the morning, shower, dress in heels and suits, drop Kristin off at day care or school and head to the office. I worked all day then picked Kristin up at day care. We’d either stop at the store for supper from a box or meet Steve at a restaurant. We’d take Kristin home, give her a bath and put her to bed. Repeat five times a week. When Kristin was six Steve was offered a job as a forester for a company 100 miles away. I was ready to escape but could we live without my very nice salary? We ran the numbers. Clothes, gas, take out lunch, poor supper habits, day care…. I’d been working for a net pay of $50 a week. Surely I could earn $50 a week staying home. We packed up and moved to rural Washington county. We had a garden and small greenhouse. My mother taught me how to put food up when I was a kid. I was saving almost $50 a week on the grocery bill.

Taylor was born when Kristin was nine. I wanted to work at home instead of finding a sitter for two kids. Steve’s dad gave Kristin a pony for Christmas when she was ten. We had only two-thirds of an acre of land so we boarded him for a year. When we took in a rescued quarter horse we knew we needed to move. Boarding two horses was expensive. I bought six barred rock chicks and we started looking for land. My life as a farmer was beginning.

We bought a small farmhouse on 45 acres of land when we were in our early 30‘s. I’d traded heels and suits for jeans and boots and loved it! Growing fresh, healthy food for my community and area restaurants is my passion. We’ve raised pigs, cattle, goats, laying and meat chickens, broad breasted white and bronze and Bourbon Red turkeys, and ducks. Almost all have been rare or heritage breeds. I enjoyed the animals but my heart is in the garden. We phased out livestock, kept some of the poultry and made room and time for me to be in the garden.

My market garden varies between one and two acres depending on what I want to do each year. My growing season starts in January when onions and leeks are seeded into flats and continues through seedling sales in the spring, the usual vegetables from spring to fall, and ends in mid December when the sun is too low and the days too cold for growth in the high tunnels. I harvest greens in the high tunnels all winter. Kristin’s 25 now, Taylor’s 16 and Steve’s still a forester. And here I am, a grown woman playing in the soil for a living. Life’s good!

Robin Follette