Flocktown Farm is officially Certified Organic! All of the fruits, veggies and herbs we grow at our farm and provide to CSA members are 100% organic. We've been an organic farm since day one and have only ever worked on organic farms, so what this means for us is that it's official and we can more easily communicate what our practices are with our customers. The USDA regulates the word organic which means it can't be used unless you're certified. That said, nothing is different about how we grow our crops but we're now able to say that we're organic! This is a big milestone for us – we've been wanting to provide this level of assurance to our customers but we had to wait three years to become certified. It's been a long time coming and makes us feel proud to be validated in the integrity of what we do by the government.
Being certified organic makes understanding our growing practices even easier. We go above and beyond sustainable growing practices that are more than the minimum requirement, such as: crop rotation, cover cropping, companion planting and regenerative practices.
Despite the fact that we're allowed to spray certified organic pesticides, it's our personal practice that we only use them in the most extreme circumstances. We don't rely on them heavily because we feel that it's ineffective against pests but highly effective against beneficial insects (we use it as little as possible). In our online store we cary add-on items and we value transparency very highly so we only stock items that align with our own growing practices.
Being a CSA member is about being local as well. Home delivery cuts down on the amount of emissions that our customers would be releasing by taking their own individual trips to the grocery store or to the farm. Delivering CSA shares to our members' homes is a much more efficient and sustainable way to distribute & receive fresh produce, so it's a win-win for us and the environment!