Local First: Visiting Two Whatcom County Farms

Snap! Crunch! Each bite of a snow pea from the vines of Spring Time Farm is sweet, loud, and crisp. The Community Food Co-op produce teams smile widely as they enjoy the fresh produce and hear the crunching of their teammates. They say there is nothing like enjoying food straight from the earth.

Spring Time Farm’s seasonal, organic produce travels less than 20 miles to our stores. Our produce teams were lucky enough to tour their farm in Everson this past month. We tasted their fresh produce, discussed their growing practices, and saw our favorite lettuce sprout before our eyes.

Spring Time is owned by husband and wife, Sarah and Nick, who began this farm in 2013. While Sarah and Nick were new to owning a farm, Nick’s family wasn’t! The original Spring Time Farm was started almost a century ago by Nick’s grandparents. 

Sarah and Nick believe in nurturing the land and wildlife along with their crops and the consumer. They use organic practices to avoid harsh chemicals that harm the soil, pollinators, and more.

The Certified Organic farm has 15 acres of flowers and vegetables. We are grateful to sell their products at the Community Food Co-op and have had a relationship with their farm since their beginning.

This summer you can find greens and lettuce from Spring Time Farm in our produce bulk sections. They are of the highest quality and you can rest assured the local produce was grown with care. 

After seeing the sunshine and large lands of Spring Time Farm, we took a short ride to a farm of indoor crops — mushrooms. 

The smell of compost and sawdust fills your nostrils at Cascadia Mushrooms’ small facility, the perfect smell for quality mushrooms. The air is moist in the grow rooms. The real showstoppers are the floor-to-ceiling rows of mushrooms growing on blocks.

Cascadia Mushrooms began in 2005, growing both gourmet and medicinal mushrooms. Alex Winstead founded Cascadia Mushrooms by putting his mycology degree to work, growing mushrooms in his basement and selling at the farmer’s market. In 2010, he established Cascadia’s permanent farm in Bellingham.

Cascadia Mushrooms is less than five miles away from our stores — talk about local!

They use Certified Organic growing practices on their mushroom grow kits. Each grow kit is a block of mycelium and food for the mycelium, such as sawdust, grain, and water. The ingredients of the grow kit determine the type of mushroom that will grow. Each type of mushroom requires unique conditions.

For example, their shiitake grow room needs to be between 55 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit, damp, and on a natural day to night light cycle. In just a week or two, shiitake mushrooms begin to sprout from the block of sawdust, grain, and water.

Each block produces mushrooms for about four weeks and is then composted to be used in personal gardens. 

You can find their mushroom medleys and singular varieties in our produce departments and their tinctures in our health and beauty aisles. Their mushroom tinctures support digestive health, liver function, the immune system, and more. 

In Whatcom County we are lucky to live by an abundance of local, organic produce. The relationships we have with our growers are unmatched and keep the Co-op the local-first space we know and love. Thank you to Spring Time Farm and Cascadia Mushrooms for hosting our produce teams!