East of Eden as Participatory Agricultural Community

The Full Story

Hi Friends. A little background...

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After six years of striving to hit the sweet spot of "sustainability" (where you think to yourself more often than not "we got this, it's worth doing, it's making the world a better place, and despite the challenges we want to keep going!") we reluctantly came to the conclusion that our business model needed to shift away from well, the business of farming. 

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This evolution has been rather existentially challenging for us! We absolutely love our niche of hyper local market farm + cottage kitchen, and we love the work itself. The challenge is that it was too much and not enough, all at the same time. We could never quite catch our breath. We were spread thin on too many fronts. We tried to grow as much produce as the community demanded and keep the store stocked with high-quality products from across Whatcom county. We tried to host regular community events and gatherings, and sometimes sell wholesale and sometimes sell at farmers markets, and everything in between, all the while still wanting time to be whole people and play with our kids.  

Sure, we could try it all again with renewed vigor after our year off and probably make things more efficient and coax more food out of the ground and bread out of the oven and everything else. But the reality we keep running into is simply that the farm (as it was) doesn't mesh with the new form of our family and the differing directions our lives have taken, no matter how hard we try (of course forcing it doesn't work either). There remains a tension around this letting go of what was, yet there is also the knowledge that whenever there is an ending, there is also the beginning of a new phase...​

​The new phase is what came about during our fallow year. We began a cooperative food growing project that looked a lot like farming, except entirely reprioritized toward the collaborative, grow-what-will model. With a small dedicated crew of "co-growers," a pile of leftover seed, and really nothing to lose, we let the season evolve, rather organically. Not without effort of course, but with noticeably less anxiety. The real power of the new model lay in the connection to each other, the shared work, the learning, the decision-making processes, and the natural development of roles and responsibilities.

Six solid women, along with their kids (and occasional male helpers) came out to the farm at least once a week all season long and worked to cultivate, plant, grow and harvest together. Costs were kept to a minimum, and everything was split equally amongst the participants. The garden produced far more than what six families could eat, so we preserved plenty for the winter months and donated to local food projects. At the end of the season, everyone who participated was already talking about next season. Turns out you can grow plenty of food with a small crew of excited volunteers who all really enjoy working together!

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Conversely, as with new beginnings, something old must also come to an end. In this case, our beloved farm store is closing and the whole concept of the farm as business is changing. The most sustainable and sustaining aspect of our vision has always been community. Thus we are doubling down on this core element. In reopening the doors of East of Eden for its 2026 season, we aim to operate in a way that allows the core community element to grow alongside abundant produce, while also allowing for the evolution of our family system. ​ So here’s the basic what we've came up with...

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-Instead of having a farm store, we will now have a *HUB* for local food and community. The Hub will be a space for everybody, and especially for the members of the farm collective, aka the co-growers. The Hub will be open 3-4 days per week to stop by and see what’s fresh, hang out, share ideas, and pick up some produce. (Days and times TBS with soft opening anticipated around mid May 2026) Friends, neighbors, would be friends, literally anyone who wants to participate in the collaborative process of growing food together is welcome. 

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-The Hub will also be the space where we offer up and make available to the community all of the surplus food that we co-growers grow together, but don't have room for in our own pantries. Whenever these harvests happen, we will send out a surplus alert to everyone on our email list and on Instagram for pickup at the farm. While we are no longer a market farm, our goal remains to grow good food and make it super accessible to our local community. Even more so by growing it together. ​

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We envision doing this through a "Community Participatory Agriculture" model, or Co-Grow for short. We have been inspired by the work and vision of the folks at Orcas Community Participatory Agriculture network. Their model helped inform what we are trying to evolve into here at East of Eden. During our 2025 "fallow" season, Liza studied their work then convened a core group of volunteers to try this vision on for size. ​

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-We plan to expand on this basic concept for the 2026 growing season and open up the co-grow model to more folks, ideally as many as are interested and committed. The basic premise is that there will be regularly scheduled work days run by a core member of the EoE team. Those who sign up will commit to one of those days a week. It doesn’t have to be the same day each week, and there will be some flexibility to allow for travel etc. Towards the end of a work day, two volunteers will do a harvest for volunteers to take home. Excess produce will go into The Hub and an email will be sent out to the wider community. Suggested prices will include a pay-what-you-can option, since the goal is just to cover costs, not make a profit. We will also put out one-off volunteer opportunity emails to the broader community for those who want to participate but can’t commit to a regular schedule.

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-The basic time commitment for the co-grow membership is four hours per week. If you go away for a week, or four, that's ok, just put it on the schedule and let folks know. The most important piece is your presence when you're present and your desire to work together with fellow humans upon this beautiful earth... Our schedule for the 2026 co-grow season is Tuesday and Friday afternoons. Bring the kids, bring the elders, bring some work gloves, and maybe a chair for relaxing. We open the invitation to those of all abilities and levels of experience. There are many tasks, and the goal is for connection through growing, not the productivity model we are all so acculturated to. We are hopeful this invitation to presence will facilitate some unwinding into more full ways of being in community with one another through the cycle of growing. 

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To learn more and sign up, check out the co-grow page. 

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Last note about the new East of Eden farm and community Hub (the building formerly known as the farm store :) We recognize that people came for the salad mix and stayed for everything else (the meat and cheese and eggs and fish and bread and sauces and soaps and sweatshirts and POPSICLES!) We loved that people could make an entire dinner plus desert from a single trip to the store and people seemed to love that too. We are sincerely bummed that we have to let that concept go. But we're not letting it go entirely... If by June things are going well and the Hub is consitently stocked with our surplus veggies and everyone is generally happy with the co-grow program, we'll start trying to source local eggs and we may try to bring in some frozen meat from our local farmer and fishermen friends.  And if things are going really really well, we (Sam) may try to crank out some sourdough loaves, occasional pestos and the like. We'll just have to wait and see. All of these value adds, from procurement to baking blending and packing, take huge amounts of time. And since we're moving distinctly away from the monetary motive, we just have to be really cautious about not getting drawn back into an un-sustainable situation.  If we do stock the Hub with outside produce, like local eggs or frozen meats from our farmer and fisher friends, we would keep prices as close to wholesale as possible. We know folks love these products and we love procuring/preparing them. ​​​​​​

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Well, that's the long and short of it for now. Stay tuned for more updates and if you're not on our email list, please hop on it here. 

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With love and in community,

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Liza, Sam, Blaise, and Ocean