Producer profile
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Andrew Stout, owner of Full Circle Farm in Carnation, WA. PCC's connection with local farmers like Stout complete the circle of sustainablility.
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Full Circle Farm
Carnation, Washington
The first of local spring produce
by Alicia Lundquist Guy
(Sound Consumer, May 2002) — On an overcast chilly spring day in March, I donned my muddy boots for a visit to Full Circle Farm in Carnation. Full Circle's owner, Andrew Stout — young, huddled in flannel, and slightly windblown — clearly had a touch of spring fever as we walked around the 80-acre farm, stepping over an expansive network of hot-chocolate-colored mud puddles.
The cool weather, gray clouds and consistent drizzle, for which the Puget Sound area is unjustly castigated, were the only things delaying the start of another growing season. "We're just waiting for the weather," he said, "We've put in half an acre of spinach and are rushing between the rain to get things planted."
One thousand trays of salad greens, each with 200 little starts, were biding their time in the greenhouse, along with flower starts and other newly emerging vegetables.
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Full Circle Farm in Carnation, Washington. Preparing the soil -- the farm grows organic salad mix, braising mix, spinach, kale and chard.
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All of this waiting, and anticipating the first viable moment for planting, is now to great advantage for PCC shoppers. Full Circle offers the earliest of local, organically grown produce. In this merry month of May, look for baby spinach, salad mix, bunch greens, herbs and radishes. The end of the month may even bring salad onions, scallions, green mustard, turnips and beets.
Over the course of the year, Full Circle provides more than 75 varieties of vegetables and herbs — including 15 varieties of baby greens that make up its famous salad mix — to retail markets, restaurants and subscribers in its Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.
Full Circle Organics has become not just a farm, but also a small-scale distributor of sorts, teaming up with some other local growers to provide companion crops. Full Circle supplements many of its cool season crops with warm season crops from El Rez Farm in Eastern Washington. "The benefit is that we get a complete crop mix without having to grow absolutely everything," says Stout. "I really feel like we're playing into our strengths more and more."
One of Full Circle's greatest strengths is efficiency. Duplicates of older tractor equipment ensure that a replacement part is readily available if something breaks. Staff are cross-trained and most now have mud-speckled cell phones for communication from the seat of a tractor — a sure sign that farming has come into the 21st century. Suction-powered seeding equipment holds one seed in place for each cell of a seedling tray, vastly reducing seed waste. Last year, they planted 1.5 million transplants.
"You want to become the best farmer you can become," Stout says. "Some of this is tools, and some is observation." One of his best observations is in anticipating what local consumers want. "Consistency is key!" he declares. That's how Full Circle has built a reputation among many local chefs and produce lovers as the best source for locally grown organic salad greens, vegetables and fine herbs.
Stout hopes this will be another good year of growth at Full Circle Organics. This year they will be expanding their repertoire with fruit, planting 10,000 strawberry plants, 500 blueberry bushes, an acre of raspberries and even some lingonberries. (Any farmer with a touch of Swedish ancestry feels compelled to dabble in lingonberries.)
Stout has been leasing this 80 acres of farmland for four years and had leased a patchwork of smaller parcels for several years prior to that. Now Stout has a keen interest in 50 acres of fertile farmland for sale just over the fence. As he looks out over the fields, you can see that the wheels are already turning with plans for the future. Says Stout of ever-expanding projects, "We're always looking to grow more food. That's our biggest mission. The market for organic produce is strong and it makes that all possible."
See Full Circle Farm for more information
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