Meet Your Farmer
I’m Melissa, your Hidden Penny Farmer! I love everything about farming. I love the physicality of the work and the feeling after a long day of labor. I love meeting people at the farmers market and seeing new and old customers. I love nurturing seeds into fruits and vegetables. I love the inspiration of fresh ingredients and cooking with them. I love the continued learning and the fascinating elements of soil biology. I love the sense of responsibility I feel to our land, our community, and our earth. And when it comes time for me to leave this world, I hope I still have my boots on.
Not only do I love the work of farming, I believe deeply in our human connection to food. As Alice Water’s says “…the power of food can change people’s lives… Food can enhance our communities, humanize our institutions, and help heal and replenish the besieged environment.” I believe that food has the power to unite communities and that the way we grow food has the power to heal ecosystems.
Ultimately, I believe in food as a living experience. Memories live on through recipes, bonds are created over shared meals, and we feel a deep sense of commitment and responsibility to the earth when we steward her soils.
Growing Practices
Hidden Penny Farm was born in 2020. Our farm grows a diverse range of produce that enriches the body, using methods that enrich the land. We strive to follow the natural patterns of nature in order to grow food that is nutritionally dense, vibrant, and delicious. We find great joy spending our days in the field, tending the soil, and learning the many lessons that the land has to teach.
Because of our deep reverence for the land that feeds us and gives us a home, we choose growing practices that are ecological and sustainable.
We use regenerative methods, such as cover cropping, diverse plant species, and responsible animal grazing, to grow abundant food that also enriches the land.
We do not till our soil in order to support a thriving soil food web; this allows the real heroes: the macro and microogranisms to live in a harmonious ecosystem with plant life, storing carbon and growing the most nutritious food.
We are also the first, and so far, the only farm on the Olympic Peninsula to be Certified Naturally Grown. Similar to organic, this means that we adhere to responsible growing practices free from pesticides and herbicides.
Chickens
We raise truly delicious chicken at Hidden Penny Farm! On our honeymoon in 2021, Melissa found a book simply titled "Chicken Tractors." She read the whole book in just a few days! From this inspiration she built the first three mobile chicken coops to rotate around the farm. They fit 18 chickens each and were designed to move around the rows on the farm; the chickens enriched the soil with their manure and ate pesky garden pests.
Five years later, we are raising 100 chickens a month in Suskovich model chicken tractors, and we have a loyal following of customers who can get enough of our chicken! Rotational grazing is a pillar of how we farm. Our chickens are free to scratch and peck, they receive only organic feed in addition to what they forage, and their manure continues to nourish our farm fields and pasture.
We slaughter on the second Tuesday of every month. All chicken is preordered. You can find out more and order here!
Shrubs
In the fall of 2023 Hidden Penny Farm discovered vinegar making. While we were pressing apples for cider, Melissa thought, how can we make use of all these apple scraps? What followed was our adventure into fermenting apples into vinegar, resulting in a sweet, acidic, and probiotic rich apple cider vinegar that we love.
Our homemade vinegar is the base of our shrubs and oxymels. Shrubs and oxymels are traditional ways of preserving fruit. Fresh fruit is blended, the addition of vinegar preserves the juice, and the addition of sugar or honey sweetens it. Herbal and aromatic additions add complexity and flavor. The numerous health benefits of apple cider vinegar plus the incredible seasonal flavor blends make our shrubs the perfect base to mocktails, cocktail, salad dressings, marinades, and more! Hidden Penny Farm
You've also got to try our famous fire cider. You can find our fire cider and shrubs at our booth at the farmers market, as well as on the shelves at The Pine and Eight and Lincoln Park Grocery.
