Spotlight on Springdale Farm

Springdale provides a good amount of produce to our program - potatoes, squash, onions, occasionally greens, beets, parsnips, rutabagas. Not only is the produce consistently excellent, there’s just nobody quite like Peter (the founder of Springdale farm) on this earth. We’ve been friends with Peter and been farming alongside him for literally 30 years. He’s truly one of the hardest working and genuine folks we know.

Springdale farm has been around since 1988, when Peter and his wife Bernadette first started their farm with an 8-month old baby, a couple hundred bucks and 45 CSA subscribers. 35 years and 700 members later, the Springdale Farm operation has become a beloved name in our home and likely yours, too.

Peter and his family at the farm

We’ve learned a lot about what best farming practices means from Peter - his dedication to ensuring the long-term preservation and natural fertility of the soil allows them to totally avoid the use of chemical inputs that most farms have come to rely on.

Whether it’s cover cropping, inter-seeding, mulching, crop rotating and adding compost, or minerals and microbial inoculants, Peter is consistently conducting on-farm trials and experiments, research that conventional agribusiness and government agencies neglect in favor of research in biotechnology and chemical inputs, to ensure that his plants are healthy, nutrient-dense, and eco-system friendly.

Big plus that Peter also runs a CSA program, so he’s always on the hunt for good local goodies to share with us all. Whether it’s the hookup on sustainably grown citrus, Fries von Kiehl butters, or some of the very best root crops we’ve ever had, we’re very grateful for Springdale Farm!