Episode 55: Marykate Glenn and Lindsey Melling on cooperative farming, sliding-scale CSAs, handcrafted herbal products and more

Farmers Marykate Glenn and Lindsey Melling join Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good to talk cooperative farming, sliding-scale CSAs, handcrafted herbal products and more.

Hear about Marykate’s and Lindsey’s individual backgrounds, how they each became farmers, and how they came together for collaborative farming under the Mustard Seed Farm CSA umbrella. Learn how they farm individual pieces of rented land and share equipment, distribution systems, support and knowledge. Lindsey and Marykate talk about how they found three pieces of land they’re renting for their operation—pay attention if you’re working on your own access to land! 

Have your sliding-scale CSA questions answered with Marykate’s explanation of Mustard Seed Farm’s program—from whether customers intentionally pay a lower price to how the sliding-scale math works out—and what she’s learned with 10 years of working with sliding-scale models. 

Lindsey closes out the conversation telling us about how her Effloresce Herbals business began using a healing salve she started making with chickweed she weeded from her garden beds. Listen to the end to get Lindsey’s recipes for a violet simple syrup and a soothing plantain skin salve.

LINKS:

• Mustard Seed Farm website
• Mustard Seed Farm on Instagram
• Mustard Seed Farm on Facebook
• Effloresce Herbals website
• Efloresce Herbals on Instagram
• Lindsey Melling on Instagram