We partner with other farmers and artisan producers to bring more local food to market and to provide more variety in our CSA boxes.

To read about others, click on highlighted Partners from list to the right.

Bluebird Grain Farms

The Methow Valley, renowned for its pristine miles of cross-country skiing and year-round outdoor recreation, is also home to the organic heirloom grains of Sam and Brooke Lucy's Bluebird Grain Farms. Full Circle's Green Grocer program offers a number of their organically farmed products including Emmer Farro Cracked Hot Cereal.

While nutritious hot cereal is a good choice for chilly spring mornings, the grain itself and the Lucy's connection is a slice of ancient history. Emmer, a delicate long grain with an exceptional full-bodied taste is a cereal that once fed Roman soldiers; and in fact, was cultivated throughout the Stone and Bronze ages. Although emmer came to the United States in the 1800's, the Lucy's were the first to introduce it to the Methow Valley.

As it turns out, one of the Lucy's favorite dishes involves emmer says Brooke Lucy. "We love good food - we cook the Emmer Farro in beef broth then pour off the excess broth and sauté the emmer in olive oil with morel mushrooms, garlic, and fresh herbs."

Starting in 2005, the Lucy's strive to keep their 180 acres of soil balanced, in order to reap the most highly nutritious grains. "We integrate green manures within a crop rotation of grains, red clover, flax, peas and buckwheat and time our tillage strategies and field planting for optimum seed germination and reduced weed competition. It is our belief that these combined practices are the cornerstones of "organic farming;" because living soil best propagates life."

Asked to "paint of picture" of the landscape that surrounds the farm, Brooke's vivid description makes one ready to pack up and head for the hills. "We're surrounded by high mountain pine forests that slowly turn to upland sage lands to desert shrub steppe. Our fields, which are irrigated with mountain water from the Pasayten Wilderness, are lined with pine, Douglas fir and Aspen trees."

Sam, who Brooke describes as a "writer and poet at heart," grew up in bucolic North Conway, New Hampshire on a classic New England farm (which has been in his family since the 1800s). He just published his first book and someday, says Brooke, hopes to return to writing full time.

Brooke, who grew up in a "cherry orchard" outside of Wenatchee, spent most of her time as an educator as well as developing and directing an independent school called the Methow Valley Community School. When not working, the Lucy's enjoy Nordic skiing, spending time with their two daughters and community of family and friends.

While their heritage grains are on the menus the area's best eateries (including The Herbfarm, Lark and Stumbling Goat Bistro), the relationship with Full Circle is one that Brooke believes to share a collective consciousness about the health of systems, from soil and local economies to personal health and well-being.

"We feel that there is a direct relationship between all of these systems, each supporting the other. Full Circle Farm is a great avenue for us to get our product out to consumers who care about eating pure healthy foods and supports our value system- empowering family farms, growing organically, and selling direct to the consumer. We are so grateful for this and how the local and regional community has really rallied behind promoting our farm."

Visit their Web site for more info about Bluebird Grain Farms.