Our Practices
We are living and growing food on the unceded land of the Mohican people. We support movements for the rematriation of land to Indigenous communities in the Berkshires and beyond.
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We grow without the use of animal products such as manure and bone meal. We use all organic practices and absolutely no chemical fertilizers or pesticides. We make all our own compost.
We farm in this way to embrace the principle of ecoefficiency and as a practice of nonviolence.
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Tilling releases methane and compacts soil, making it harder for plants’ roots to access water and nutrients. Leaving roots in the ground supports diverse subterranean ecosystems and eliminates the need for irrigation or fossil fuel use by tractors for rototilling.
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Our soil amendments consist of resources from the surrounding grasslands and forest ecosystems. Each fall, we collect leaves from our neighborhood and create all our own compost so we can ensure it has only organic inputs and has not been transported using fossil fuels.
We source our inputs as locally as possible and want our beans to be eaten locally. We have a commitment to growing the culinary diversity of Berkshire County’s local food culture.
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We function as a non-hierarchical worker-owned cooperative and believe in a new economy which sustains livelihoods and does not exploit people or planet.
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We work at a human scale, meaning that we use hand tools and bicycle-powered technology rather than fossil fuel-powered tractors for cultivation.
