Introducing Full Belly Farm of San Juan Island, WA
We are Full Belly Farm of San Juan Island, Washington! We are a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to increasing access to organically raised vegetables, fruits, and flowers; providing educational outreach to inform our community about its food consumption decisions and the effects that they can have on the local and regional ecosystems and economies; and we intend to research alternative methods of organic agriculture, including edible forest gardening, raw milk application as a soil amendment in organic vegetable crop production, etc.
Our organization has an amazing and dedicated Board of Directors helping us to make the best decisions that we can as our farm grows. Lance Long, Vatnak Vat-Ho, Leigh Trucks, and Mark Lutenski all have a diverse skill set and have already contributed greatly in many ways.
The farm is currently managed and operated by Jamie Grifo, his wife Christina, and Jamie’s brother Chris. Jamie and Christina’s 20-month-old son, Oliver, is also proving to be an expert at worm, weed, and beetle management. This tight-knit family looks forward to working well together in order to provide other families with the highest quality produce and flowers possible.
The decision to start a farm as a non-profit was because the Grifos were convinced that there had to be another way to ensure that all people–regardless of their income or access to resources–should be able to experience and benefit from having high-quality, nutrient dense, organic vegetables and fresh cut flowers every day. High quality organic vegetables should not be prohibitively expensive and we are working hard to find a way to grow as much food as possible for as many families in our community as we can. The organization is currently leasing land from the highly-regarded Heritage Farm on San Juan Island and will be participating in the weekly Saturday Farmer’s Markets on San Juan Island in Friday Harbor from early April through the end October.
We’ll be running a CSA in 2013 and will have a lottery style drawing to determine the 10 – 12 families or individuals that will get a free year-long CSA for 2013. We are asking that only those families and individuals who have trouble meeting their food costs enter into the drawing. Our 2012 market and farm-stand sales will go directly to our non-profit, and charitable donations will help to ensure that we can provide these families with great produce and flowers for the 2013 growing season.
We have seedlings emerging in the greenhouse, 40 layer hens on the way, millions of weeds to pull, lots of grass to mow, and plenty of beds to prep for planting. But we’re getting there! We are committed to farming sustainably and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, which is why we only use hand tools for nearly all of our agricultural production. While we may not ever be able to produce tons and tons of food, we are committed to raising as much food as three and a half people with hand tools can.
We think that non-profit farms might be a short-term solution to a larger political question that constantly is avoided every time that the farm bill is re-written. Instead of relying on our government and its agricultural subsidies, we are hopeful that we can run an organization that generates enough capital to pay its workers a living wage, feeds at least 10 – 12 families for free in 2013, and can expand as the years pass by. Thanks to those individuals in our community who are dedicated to increasing access to high-quality produce and flowers, Full Belly Farm hopes to become a meaningful part of this island community that we’ve already grown to love.
Happy planting!
Jamie, Christina, Chris, and Oliver
Full Belly Farm
Introducing Becky Warner and City Grown Seattle
Hi, I’m Becky.
For the past three years, I have been moving away from my former life as a software developer into the whole new world of organic vegetable growing. I love food… Growing food, cooking food, eating food, and sharing these experiences with others! In 2010 I did my first full-season apprenticeship, where I lived and worked on two small (5-8 acre) farms on Bainbridge Island, WA. What started out as a tentative experiment that year blossomed into a consuming passion, leading me to do a second apprenticeship at a larger (25 acre) vegetable farm in 2011.
- Clearing land at the January work party
I learned a ton during both of my apprenticeships, and I am grateful to have had amazing mentor farmers who I can still turn to with questions. But within the first few weeks of my second season, I could already feel an urge for my own farm. I wanted to continue doing this work, and I wanted to do it myself. Throughout 2011, it kept popping into my mind — what if I were making the decisions and doing the planning myself, in addition to doing the daily physical work? Would I be able to make a farm go if I were in charge and not just following directions? I loved and needed the second season of apprenticeship, but I am incredibly excited that the opportunity to start my own farm fell into place easily for my next step.
For the 2012 growing season, I have joined up with my good friends Noe and Scott, and we are starting our own farm, City Grown Seattle.
City Grown is an urban farming project in the Seattle neighborhoods of Ballard and Wallingford. “Urban Farming” is very hip and trendy right now. But for me, the basic scenario is:
1. I want to continue farming.
2. I can’t afford to, don’t know how to, and don’t see a need to start up a new “traditional” vegetable farm.
3. I see a niche to fill in the city and, based on my two different apprenticeship experiences, can envision pieces that could come together to fill it.
4. I have friends who had already started this project and have a solid footing but need a person with time, energy, and knowledge to really kick it into gear.
It’s an obvious next step. Also it’s really exciting because I feel like I’ve never *really* earned my own living in the way that I hope to do now. Earning a salary doing software obviously has its perks, but owning my own business seems more fulfilling even with all the risks. Noe, Scott and I spent time this winter forming and registering an LLC, mapping out which crops and how much of each we will grow this season, and having work parties to clear our new-found city farmland. The decisions about what to do and when were made by the three of us together. It has been exciting and challenging to jump into this with only a small amount of prior experience. We are learning as we go.
The basic idea of City Grown is that we will grow vegetables in our Seattle neighborhood, and sell them to our neighbors. We will grow on land that people in the area make available for us to use in exchange for a share of the produce. So far this land has been homeowners’ yards, plus one side yard at a Community Center that will be our biggest space for the 2012 season. We have a quarter-acre (10,000 square feet) to work with in 2012. We plan to grow a full market variety of produce, choosing specific crops and varieties to maximize space and extend the season to the full limits of our maritime climate. We will sell the food through a farmstand at our own house — basically a grownup version of a 5-cent-a-cup lemonade stand! — and maybe our neighborhood farmers market as well. We will use our own spin on “CSA” to nail down a regular clientele.
- Volunteers helping us prep ground at a City Grown work party, Jan 2012. Left to right: Fulvio, Remington, Soyoung, Becky, Noe, Scott, Ryan, and Mikhaila
It’s a farm – we are growing vegetables to sell commercially. We are not doing people’s garden or landscaping for them. It’s a very small scale farm but has the potential to expand.
I am nervous and excited. We have big dreams for this project — we want to get our community involved in helping and learning and benefiting from great ultra-local food. We want to eventually earn our livings doing this thing that we love. We want to change the food paradigm. But in reality, for now, we just want to take baby steps – till up some lawn, add some nutrients to the soil, plant some vegetables, see what happens.
We know that we won’t be able to make this happen without the support of our friends and community — and indeed we don’t want to do this in isolation. We hope to be able to produce some really great food. But we don’t just want to put it out there for people to take home. We want people to become part of this vegetable farm that the city of Seattle could be. Whether folks have growing space, time, money, expertise, tools to lend, storage space, strong arms, used coffee grounds, or an idea for a better irrigation system, everyone could contribute to this lovely system of growing food here to eat here. We want people to come and see and experience the food in a new way, and we feel that with the farm plots being right down the street instead of out in the countryside, we’ll be able to get people out and excited about buying their vegetables where they’re being grown.
City Grown Website: http://www.citygrownseattle.com
City Grown Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/City-Grown-Seattle/110144245698971
My personal blog: http://www.rwarner2.wordpress.com
Matt and Jen Schwab, WA
Matt and Jen Schwab own and operate Inspiration Plantation in Ridgefield, WA. Inspiration Plantation is a 24 acre diversified family farm that specializes in pasture raised animals. 
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