Q and A With Such & Such Farm

Here at Mac’s Local Buys, we are rolling into the 6th season of our Grocery Bag Food Subscription.  We sat down with Dave & Autumn Blum of Such & Such Farm to chat about their farm, what we can expect and why their farm isn’t like most others….

1. We at Mac’s Local Buys are super stoked to be partnering with your farm for our local food subscription, the Grocery Bag. You’ll be providing all the produce – what item/s do you feel customers will be most excited about taking home this season?

We’re growing some of our “tried and true” favorites that customers will enjoy– like shishito peppers, pickling cucumbers and San Marzano sauce tomatoes. But we’re also growing some things especially with the Grocery Bag customers in mind– like ground cherries, vine peach and edamame!

2. The weather this season has been somewhat unpredictable already. What kind of an effect has this had on your crops?

It’s been hard for our spring greens for sure! When the weather changed from cold to heat/humidity, our greens didn’t want to keep growing or went to bolt (flowering). Unfortunately we won’t get multiple harvests out of some of our greens, so we’ll have to wait until Fall to try again. We had to switch gears and get a plan B together and rush to get in more of our Summer crops earlier than we had anticipated.

3. What is something exciting that happens at your farm you’d like to share that maybe doesn’t happen on all farms?

I’m pretty sure most other farms aren’t covered in graffiti/wall murals. We have Victorian portraits of our goats on our barn, Star Wars characters on our metal shop and a Mexican wrestling pig on our walk-in cooler just to name a few! We also try to make our farm a “one stop shop” and offer produce, eggs, milk, pork, cooking/smoking wood, foraged items and farm made value added products such as lard soap and goat’s milk soap– just about everything you need to fill your pantry and home!

4. What are your dreams for the farm? What is your vision for Such and Such?

We’re constantly working on new ideas, construction plans and ventures for the farm. Right now, we’re building a terraced garden for perennial plants! Specifically, we’d like to open up the farm to more events and classes, offer E-Books about farming/homesteading, improving our shops so we can build more interesting things (furniture/equipment/cooking apparatuses) and plan an orchard.

5. What is the one thing you most want your customers to understand about local food and farming?

Our biggest ally and biggest enemy is Mother Nature. Sometimes she saves us, other times she screws us. But we’ve learned to work alongside her with mutual respect. Farming and local food means having a connection to the land and gaining a better understanding of the larger world around us.