Growing and Learning with First Cut Farm
The path for two suburban kids becoming Skagit farmers is lined with supportive family, mentors, and community. Linda Fenstermaker and Sam Bowhay know they are fortunate to have arrived here.
They met in 2017 and started farming together on First Cut Farm in 2019. That first year, they grew two acres, three-quarters of it in potatoes and the rest in green beans. This season, the 25 acres they farm produced not only potatoes and beans (green, purple, wax, and more) but also baby bok choy, onions, shallots, and cucumbers. Next year, they’ll add more to their certified organic operation.
For them, farming and growing good food aligns with their values. It is hard work, but they love it. Getting here, however, has not been a straight path.
Sam grew up in the Chicago suburbs and attended Grinnell College in Iowa, studying political science. Linda grew up in a Seattle suburb but attended Hampshire College in Massachusetts, focusing on film. When they graduated, they both wanted to go WWOOFing. That is, they wanted to travel and work on farms through Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, a program that exchanges farm labor and experience for some room and board. Their experiences were mixed, and both Linda and Sam saw this mainly as a means to travel, not a way to become farmers. Still, WWOOFing kept them thinking about farming.
Sam, for instance, had wanted to work in fancy restaurants, but, he says, “I got hooked on farming instead.”
Both ended up working on farms in the Snoqualmie Valley, learning a lot along the way, especially about direct marketing. Sam got a job at Ralph’s Greenhouse and transplanted to Skagit in 2016. Linda moved up in 2018. You don’t become a farmer by just moving to Skagit, though.
“Ray [deVries] at Ralph’s Greenhouse has been super supportive and really has helped us with land access and with equipment and all these things that starting out are high capital,” Linda explains. “So we were able to start out kind of incubating at Ralph’s Greenhouse.”
Having that support, along with extended family backing, has been essential to starting and expanding First Cut Farm.
“If you don’t come from a farm family,” Sam says, “you need an incubator.”
Compared to the Snoqualmie Valley where they first started learning, Sam and Linda found Skagit a great place to farm, not only because of its excellent soil but because it is full of resources, including the supportive community of farmers and the infrastructure that supports Skagit agriculture.
Given their modest size, it can feel a bit like they are “in our own little organic bubble,” Linda jokes, but having so many big farms around means there are more resources and equipment they have access to. “I think there’s a place for everyone,” she says.
Sam agrees: “I try to learn as much as I can from watching those farms.” Not everything applies, but observing other farms has sparked all sorts of ideas. This community network helps make farming here great and offers many places for them to sell their vegetables.
When launching First Cut Farm, Linda and Sam decided to work mostly with wholesale markets instead of with direct marketing that they had known. They sell their vegetables to PCC Community Markets in Seattle and added Whole Foods this year, as well as the Skagit Valley Co-op. The Puget Sound Food Hub has been important, especially through COVID when it tapped into hunger relief efforts. Sam currently is the vice president on its board. The PSFH hub can distribute their food in places like Seattle and the San Juan Islands in a way they could not on their own. First Cut Farm also helps supply farms that offer CSAs. As an expanding wholesale operation, the farm is reaching many regional customers.
“Farming is a risky thing,” says Linda. Sam joins her in a nervous laugh. As they seek to grow and sink their roots further in the Skagit soil, Sam and Linda know have a lot to learn, but they love doing that. The lifelong learning that farm requires stimulates them while they follow their curiosity and information.
“Farming keeps on leaving a trail of breadcrumbs of information that you pursue,” says Sam. “You get a little bit better. Farming humbles you one year. You try to learn from it. It just keeps going.”
They work together, aiming to sustain their farm’s natural biological activity, thinking carefully about crop rotation, composting, and all the rest of the fundamentals. Not to mention unexpected disruptions like COVID or the challenges of banks. As hard as it is, they would not do anything else.
“It’s not for the faint of heart,” says Linda. “But we both love it. I worked in offices on and off between farm jobs and just never really felt the drive and the excitement. So I’m definitely really glad to be farming.”
That is a feeling many Skagitonians understand.
Story and photos by Adam M. Sowards: info@skagitonians.org