What is Community Supported Agriculture?
Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, connects farm
with people who want to eat the freshest, local produce in
season. It works like a cooperative—you buy a share of the
season’s produce and get a variety of vegetables ever
the summer. Joining a CSA lets you reconnect with the
roots of the food you eat; you know exactly how your
food is tended. You might even help to plant or harvest
some of your food. Since Groundswell Community Farm uses organic methods, you are protecting the local environment.
This environment includes the Black River, a tributary of Lake Macatawa, which flows less than 20 feet from the farm. We
welcome you to visit the farm, whether you are helping in the harvesting or just enjoying the scenery.

Eating with the Seasons
By sharing in the abundance of the farm, you are also sharing in the risk. The weather always favors some crops even as others suffer. For example, there may be a bumper crop of something you hate in the same year that your favorite crop fails. Expect the unexpected.

You will soon learn the nuances of seasonal flavor. The menu in early June is heavy on greens, while September offers a bounty of tomatoes.

Meet Our Farmers

  Katie
 

Beauty and Ecology are central to my ideas in farming. It may be the breath-taking visual beauty of dewy spider webs as the sunrise burns golden into the fog. Beauty is also found in the wonders of a soil ecosystem, fully dependant on mindful farming, but invisible to our eyes. And people working daylight long to grow nutritious food have these earthen hands and a particular glowing laughter in the fields. Each of these “small” beauties interact to form a truly healthy ecosystem. As farmers, we merely help to orchestrate this full symphony of living things.

While I was in college, I became very interested in sustainable agriculture and took a semester off to work at a farm on a mountainside in Tennessee.  Enjoying the outdoor work, I found a job at a small organic dairy farm in southern Michigan when I returned.  I took one summer off of farming and realized how strong is the pull to the land, so the following summer I contacted dozens of farms seeking a place that lived lightly on the land.  Little mechanization, great diversity and old-fashioned techniques could all be found at Green Eagle Farm south of Lansing.  I still love the beauty and diversity of "my Lansing Farm," but tired from trying to hand-weed acres of vegetables in a heavy clay soil, the next summer I found a new farm with a tractor and 25 years of experience growing veggies, Turtle Island Farm near Grant.  Again, I camped out in a tent in the woods and absorbed all that I could in preparation for starting a farm.  The next winter I found a job at the West Michigan Environmental Action Council, teaching how to prevent groundwater pollution from fertilizers and pesticides.  I volunteered Friday's at Turtle Island the first summer and my second summer at WMEAC I worked Fridays at Trillium Haven Farm, a CSA in Jenison.  When my job at WMEAC ended, I was so ready to dig and harvest that I put in long hours joyfully at Trillium Haven.  That winter and the next summer when I returned to Trillium I was seeking land and a farm of my own.  The farmer I worked for gave me a triangle of lumber scrap with an address of a couple that owned 7 acres of muck by Zeeland.  We worked out a lease, Anna decided to join as a business partner and Groundswell Community Farm was begun . .
 

  Anna

My desire to farm in a way that does not negatively impact the earth comes from my higher education on environmental issues, as well as, my travels to Central America.   In Honduras and El Salvador I lived with families and met people who suffered from economic disparity and violence.  There, every day is a struggle. I had to ask myself, what can I do and how can I live in a way that will not continue to negatively impact my friends in Central America.  Growing food for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) was the answer I found for myself. CSA offers many local and global solutions to innumerable societal problems in a simple way- we grow healthy, chemical free food for friends and community members who live no more than 20 miles from our land.  Personally, getting my hands dirty and learning by doing is a way for me to heal and grow as a person.  Farming works!