Producer

Mitch and Michelle just wrapped their fifth growing season—proud, later-in-life, first-generation farmers who traded long careers in other fields for 28 acres in Thurston County.

Mitch and Michelle want people in Southwest Washington to understand how challenging this climate makes small-scale farming: the costs, the risks, the thin margins that come with selling at a farmers market or through direct sales. What keeps them going isn't the math. It's a real commitment to growing healthy, local, community-based food.

Most customers never see how long the road really is. A tomato or pepper starts indoors in mid-February and spends months growing from seed, being transplanted, and weathering the seasons before it's finally picked and packed for market, hopefully by late July or August.

Working with the Food Hub gives Mitch and Michelle visibility into what to grow months in advance, and the confidence that they can sell at volume without waste. When they fill an order for dozens of heads of garlic, they get to hand-pick the best of the thousand they've grown, knowing every Harvest Box customer will know exactly where it came from.

Summit Farms sits at the intersection of conservation, hospitality, and agriculture, working alongside local, county, state, federal, and private partners to support the surrounding Thurston County community. And as they like to say, "pepper people are our people" — sweet-to-hot specialty peppers are the farm's calling card, alongside heirloom tomatoes, garlic, and other small-batch produce.