Where’s Bascom Farm in 2024? Right in your neighborhood!
In the beginning…..
When I started this vegetable operation, my aspiration was that I’d be serving up these vegetables to my friends and neighbors. Bascom Farm would be a fun gathering place for folks to share a meal or take a workshop on food preservation and gardening topics, or spend time volunteering in the gardens. I wanted to keep it truly “local” and attainable for everybody’s pocket book. – But what does that mean? How do you do this?
Farming is difficult in the best of times; throw in a crazy weather summer like 2023 and it’s a white-knuckle endeavor. Small-scale farming adds another layer of difficulty, where we have to rely on “direct to consumer sales” rather than wholesale markets to make the numbers work to stay in business. When you’re getting started, chasing that retail dollar becomes the holy grail of cash flow – so….it was off to the “nearest” farmers markets in 2020. Come to find out, there weren’t really ANY in our neighborhood that could support the amount of produce I needed to sell. So I found myself driving 40 minutes to the Farmers Market of Keene. Every Saturday at 5:00am I loaded up my truck with beautiful produce, never knowing if I’d sell out, or be bringing a lot back home, and trying to make myself stand out among all the competition.
We do very well at this market and the quality of our produce does stand out. Some shoppers just stop and admire my stand, exclaiming “You have the most beautiful vegetable display here!” And I love all my wonderful customers there. Occasionally I’d see some of you from our neighborhood at the Keene market and I’d think, "You shouldn’t have to drive 40 minutes for high quality vegetables!” By the end of this past season, the effort to prepare, set up, and sell at the market, with all its uncertainty and competitiveness had sapped my energy. The slog was beginning to rob me of my original motivation to stay local and feed my community. Something had to change.
The Epiphany!
So here we are in 2024, and we’re making a commitment to stay local FIRST! We’re inviting 30 families to join us this growing season (28 weeks) and let us be your neighborhood vegetable grower. Called Community Supported Agriculture or CSA, basically you sign on to buy a “share” of everything we grow, and we keep you supplied with super fresh, pesticide-free, local vegetables from May 1st to November 26th. Or try a spring, summer and fall share only if you want.
Maybe you’re saying to yourself, “yeah, that’s great, but I can’t afford organic vegetables”. Bascom Farm has made sure that our vegetables are affordable for everyone. We’ve all been shopping in the “won’t-be-mentioned” chain grocer in our area. Not only is the produce of unreliable quality but it’s pretty expensive already and forget about their organic produce corner (mostly shipped in from California like all the rest)! A Bascom Farm season share gets you 20-25% savings right from the start on organic prices. That puts our produce on par with shopping at the “won’t-be-mentioned” grocer but with 10x the quality and taste. If you’re using SNAP/EBT benefits, we offer drastically reduced savings (50-75 %!) through Granite State Market Match. If you’re on a limited income for whatever reason, we’ve partnered with NOFA-NH Farm Share program that gets you 75% off a full season share!! (a large share valued at $1155 cost you only $288 for 28 weeks!) You can read all about our CSA share options, how it works, and our farm in general here on this website. Feel free to call or email me with any questions.
The Cold River Watershed - that’s OUR neighborhood
The Cold River Watershed
Bascom Farm is on a ridge in the Cold River Watershed along the Langdon-Charlestown line. There’s so much hype around “local food” since it’s been co-opted by mega-corporate food purveyors - just like “organic”, “sustainable”, - and remember “all natural”? I think of my neighborhood as the southern corner of Sullivan County that spills into the northern tip of Cheshire County, and across the river to Springfield and Rockingham. Simply put, think about 10 to 25 minutes driving distance max from our farm to you. Local is the landscape and places where you and your family live everyday life. (Mind you, even if this isn’t your neighborhood you’re still welcome!)
Our neighborhood is kind of mysteriously hidden away from our more urban dwellers to our north and south. We have to be a little more self-sufficient. When COVID hit, do you remember all the empty shelves in stores? When weather disasters strike here or far away where most of grocery store food comes from, shipping is stalled, prices go up from destroyed, - or maybe you can’t even get to that grocer due to washed-out roads. Bascom Farm will be here though, because we want to be your farm, the farm that’s got your back. Thanks for reading and check out these links below.
