About Us

Hi, We Marianne & Mike and grow vegetables, grains, fruit & herbs utilizing organic practices and clean stewardship of the land. We have approximately a quarter of an acre in production. One of my favorite questions is “Why” I like to be adventurous and think like a circle. This year we created the “Salad Bar” growing leaf lettuces is a back breaking job so I went up in the air 4 feet.
WOW 2011 is around the corner for us. What a great year 2010 was for gaining & spreading knowledge, food, laughter and love.

Ingredients We Use

Baking - The use of local organic ingredients & locally grown is our main choice when baking.

Dry Spice Mixes- we purchase our Organic spices from Spices Inc. in small quantities and then blend the mix after you place your order. This is to insure that your spice mixes are as fresh as possible.

Our Practices

Gardening: We use the things God has given us- birds, bats, beneficial insects, sunshine, rain and our hands to grow beautiful vegetables. 2009 we had a stellar year in having a low insect infestation of any type. I am attributing that to the fact we have been growing our soil over the last few years. We mulch with our own cut grass, use soaker hoses on our rows for water.
Our bodies don’t like chemicals so we put nothing on our soil or vegetables. The items we do use are cold composting, green grass clippings to hold in the moisture, drip irrigation, bone meal, blood meal, alfalfa meal, soybean meal, green sand, kelp, cottonseed meal, all organic, birds & bats to help eat insects.

Highlights

January 2011 INFORMATION: The Produce subscription is ready for your purchases this year. We are offering a huge discount to our Porch customers- a $100 discount off of the price. Along with the ability to pay $75 per month for 4 months to make it easier on your budgets. If you decide to purchase a share paying the full price then you will get Oatmeal cookies (6) every week during distribution as a thank you. See ya @ the Porch!! We are working with MSU- Product Center to bring the Organic Oatmeal Cookies to local stores for 2011. Niles, MI has leased a “commercial Kitchen” that will help us achieve this goal. We could/would never have gotten to where we are without the continued support of our PPC customers. THANK YOU!!

Robyn Van En was one of the forefathers of CSA in the United States. (It originated in Japan.) She defined it as “…a relationship of mutual support and commitment between local farmers and community members who pay the farmer an annual membership fee to cover the production costs of the farm. In turn, members receive a weekly share of the harvest during the local growing season. The arrangement guarantees the farmer financial support and enables many small- to moderate-scale organic and/or bio-intensive family farms to remain in business. Ultimately, CSA programs create ‘agriculture-supported communities’ where members receive a wide variety of foods harvested at their peak of freshness, ripeness, flavor, vitamin and mineral content.”

Misc.

Our Philosophy on Ingredients

IF I can’t pronounce it YOU won’t eat it.

1.) Locally grown – a. Produce – Christy’s Produce (me) b. Fruits, Apples- Springhope Farms, Galien, MI c. Eggs, Pumpkins- Family Farms Coop / Vandalia, MI d. Dried Fruit- Traverse City, MI e. Honey – Laney Honey, North Liberty, IN f. Flour – Greenfield Mills, Howe IN

2.) Locally purchased – a. Garden Patch Store- Mishawaka, IN i. Organic Unbleached White Flour ii. Organic Rolled Oats iii. Vegan Chocolate Chip iv. Organic Evaporated Cane Juice v. Organic Thompson Raisins vi. Baking Soda vii. Baking Powder (no aluminum) viii. Organic Nuts (a variety) ix. Real Salt b. Meijer’s – Mishawaka, IN i. Organic Butter ii. Organic Peanut Butter

3.) Internet Purchases - a. The Spice House – Organic Spices & Organic Herbs b. Spices, Inc. – Organic Spices & Organic Herbs

Baked goods: Product is home produced and processed. The product area has not been inspected by the Indiana State Dept of Health.

View our products