Kitsap agriculture, backyard gardening seeing a surge during coronavirus pandemic

As many shoppers rush to stores, filling their carts to the brim with packaged products and name-brand groceries, others are turning to local agriculture to fill their pantries and refrigerators.

Community-supported agriculture (CSA) has become increasingly popular as a means of obtaining food during the outbreak of COVID-19. Backyard chicken farmers are being inundated with orders for eggs. Local farm stands are seeing lines of cars.

Washington State University Extension has put together a resource list for people in Clallam, Jefferson and Kitsap counties to find local food, as well as COVID-19 related updates on how these farmers are selling their products. The list is also linked directly in Google Docs here.

“The more we support local food and farmers the stronger our local food system will become,” said Jess Sappington, food systems program coordinator for WSU Kitsap Extension. “The stronger our local food system, the more access our community will have to fresh, nutritionally dense products.”

Many local farmers donate what they grow to local food banks through the Farm to Food Bank program run by the Kitsap County Conservation District and funded by the Washington State Department of Agriculture. This makes locally grown food accessible to those of all incomes. The Kitsap Harvest Gleaning Program offers locally grown food to low-income individuals and focuses on senior citizens.

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Farmers markets staying the course

Farmers markets also provide food for lower-income communities. SNAP customers can use their benefits to purchase EBT-eligible foods at local markets, Sappington said, and are even incentivized to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables through the SNAP Market Match, formerly known as Fresh Bucks. The Kitsap Community Food Co-op also accepts EBT and sells a variety of both natural packaged products and local produce.

Farmers markets will run this spring and summer, though some have delayed the opening date. Bremerton Farmers Market is slated to open May 7, just three days after Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order is set to expire. If the order ends that day, the market will go on as usual. These markets will follow local health district guidelines and guidance from the Washington State Farmers Market Association.

“A market is in an open-air setting, allowing spacing of the booths and individual contact to be much farther apart,” Sappington said. “They have less touchpoints for the products, with the farm picking the food and being the only contact that food has until the customer purchases it at market.”

Local produce is picked at its peak, ensuring full nutritional value, Sappington said. Fruits and vegetables at grocery stores were picked days or weeks prior, and much nutritional value, taste, and freshness are lost.

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Eggs that come from a farm in Port Orchard take a lot fewer resources to get in the hands of a customer than eggs shipped from another state. Many local farmers are also more invested in the health of their land and environmental practices used, Sappington said.

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Buying local food also means the dollars stay local and are put back into the Kitsap economy, she said.

Online farmers markets like Kitsap Fresh and Fresh Food Revolution may provide an option to get local food with even less interaction with others.

Fresh Food Revolution is a co-op owned by farmers and food producers, with about 18 farmers who contribute. Shoppers can go on the website from Saturday at 9 p.m. through Monday at 10 p.m. to select items, then they can be picked up on Wednesdays at Blackjack Valley Farms in Port Orchard or KP Civic Center in Vaughn.

The demand for the co-op has been great, said Karen Olsen, owner of Blackjack Valley Farms and market manager for Fresh Food Revolution.

“People drive by farm stands all the time, but when the grocery stores run out of food, you wouldn’t believe the cars lining up at local farms,” Olsen said. She said people were in a panic and would take anything the farms had to offer.

“I think it’s been an eye-opener for a lot of people,” she said. “You can’t always depend on the grocery store, but we’re always here, the farmers are always here.”

Orders have skyrocketed, she said. 

It’s been the same for Kitsap Fresh. About 40 farmers produce food for Kitsap Fresh. The previous record for orders was 130; last week Kitsap Fresh had 190, said Erin Smith, owner of the Smithshyre and manager of Kitsap Fresh. People have also been calling Smith asking for baby chicks or any animals available for sale to start their own food production at home.

“The local food system is critical for situations like this, but also in general from the environmental perspective,” he said.

Olsen and Smith agree that food from local farms hasn’t been handled nearly as much as produce at grocery stores. People don’t walk by piles of fruits, potentially coughing on or touching the food with contaminated hands. The chain the food goes through is much shorter — from farmer to customer, rather than farmer to packager to shipping worker to grocery store staff to customer. Olsen said it’s a safer option for people with compromised immune systems.

Both Kitsap Fresh and Food Fresh Revolution have tweaked the way they get food to people to reduce the contact. Customers previously would pick their food out of a cooler on pick-up days. Now food is put in individual bags for each customer, squashing the possibility of others touching food while digging through the cooler for theirs. Now customers can drive up, and an attendant will put food in their car through the passenger window.

With these online farmers markets, customers can buy just about any type of food item, depending on the season. Offerings include microgreens, mushrooms, cheese, cookies, bread, eggs, meat, seafood, easily prepared soups, condiments, yogurt, and fruits and vegetables.

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The online farmers markets are getting many new customers, many who didn’t even know they existed before the pandemic, Olsen said.

“If more people had already been supporting local food, we would have greater bandwidth and infrastructure now,” Smith said. He hopes people continue to buy local even after COVID-19 has passed.

CSA programs launching

Those who don’t want to travel to a farmers market can get fresh local food delivered or pick up a CSA package.

Hitchcock Restaurant Group has launched its own CSA program, with a box that changes weekly and follows the season. The weekly or bi-weekly subscription cost is $100 per box and must be paid for in advance. The boxes will be available for pickup on Sundays at Bar Hitchcock on Bainbridge Island.

Chef and owner Brendan McGill said he’s wanted to create a CSA program for a long time. This is a way to feed the community without putting people in danger, he said.

“I’ve spent the last 10-plus years cultivating a relationship with farmers, fishermen, foragers, flower growers, and making pasta, pickles, preserves, sauces, fermented vegetables, and all sorts of cool stuff that I’m excited to share with the community,” McGill said.

Individual farms around Kitsap also offer CSA packages and subscriptions. Dana Steege-Jackson, owner of Around the Table Farm, said if farmers markets don’t open, that will cause a challenge for her business. Many restaurants the farm provided food for have also slowed down orders. However, if people buy directly from farmers, it can help make up some of the loss.

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Around the Table Farm grows all types of vegetables and greens, strawberries and raspberries and some tree fruit. These items are available in the farm’s CSA boxes, with options to add eggs or flowers. The CSA boxes are priced at a sliding scale — $10 to $30 per week for small shares, or $20-$40 for large shares.

She said she’s had an increased interest in CSA’s and also more business at the farm stand.

“It really helps farmers to have that sort of core group of committed people who want to support the farm,” she said. Her farm’s CSA program runs June through December, though she’s considering starting earlier this year.

Turning to backyard gardening

Some are turning to their own backyards to grow food for themselves this year.

Many nurseries and greenhouses are able to remain open because they sell items necessary for farmers and food production. However, many are operating differently than usual.

At Brother’s Greenhouses in Port Orchard, hours have changed. The store is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and curbside services operate in the mornings and afternoons when the store is closed.

People can call and tell an employee what they need, staff picks out the items, the customer pays with a credit card in the parking lot without having to get out of their car, and the items are given to them.

Marilyn Davis, a manager who has worked at Brother’s for 30 years, said planting a garden can help people’s psyche — giving them something to concentrate on instead of the virus or having plans canceled.

She said sales are down, but people still come in wanting gardening supplies and vegetable plants. She said they have “a million requests for tomato plants” but those aren’t usually planted until the end of April.

“We don’t have them yet but people are wanting to plant something,” Davis said.

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For plants to continue to grow, greenhouse workers must continue to work.

“We’re completely impacted like everyone else,” David said. “We can’t go home, we have to keep everything alive. It has to be watered and tended to every day.”

Some crew members are staying home to avoid contact with people, but protocols are in place to keep the store clean and promote social-distancing.

“We don’t take it lightly that we are open and other people are closed,” she said. “Anybody in this business, we’re all very concerned. We’re not gleeful we’re the only ones open.”

At Olmsted’s Nursery, hours haven’t been extended for the season like usual. Tape lines the floor to encourage social-distancing, doors remain open to encourage airflow, and plexiglass was just installed at check-out to protect staff.

Sean Olmsted, owner, said business has been good. The store also sells produce, Amish foods, pickles and pasta with its grocery license.

He said vegetable starts are being sold just as fast as they’re coming in.

“People are just going nuts gardening out there,” he said.

He’s been on the phone with seed companies, and many are sold out everywhere. Vendors are telling him potatoes will be in high demand. The organic compost Olmsted’s Nursery sells is also flying off the shelves.

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“I think a lot of people are worried about a produce shortage,” he said.

A few weeks back the store implemented “FaceTime shopping” where customers can video-chat with staff, tell them what plants they want, and those items are picked up or delivered. Olmsted said the store lowered the cost on delivery and brought in an extra driver.

Olmsted said about half of the money the business makes is from April through June. He said if they’re told to close or can’t open completely in these months, it will be a huge burden on the industry.

This story was updated to correct the spelling of Olmsted.