*The Summer CSA has begun, but if you haven’t signed up yet, never fear! We are prorating our shares again this year, so if you are interested in joining our CSA program, please go to our registration page a week before you want to sign up and register for a prorated share. Please login to your account on CSAware to double check your pick up location/schedule. If you have any questions, just let us know.
**The Immune Booster Box has been replaced by our Tantre Produce Box which offers the Summer and Fall CSA selection on a weekly basis.
Our three year old blueberry plants are pretty young, so they have slowed down considerably and have a limited amount of berries left, and raspberries are not very productive this year. Due to these changes, we will be open 1 day a week on Saturdays ONLY from 8 AM-12:00 PM due to the limited berries. On the other hand we also will have a fully stocked produce stand on these days with tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, new potatoes, etc. and now HONEY and EGGS on Saturdays. Please check back on our website for updates. We look forward to seeing you!
HISTORY
Tantré Farm started its very first crops of formerly certified organic potatoes, winter squash, and garlic in 1993 on a 40-acre parcel. Since then our farm has grown to include about 80 to 100 varieties of vegetables, mushrooms, and a small variety of herbs and flowers. Our fruit crops include strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, pears, melons, and more depending on the fruit weather. In addition to that, we have a dog, some cats, a small flock of egg-laying chickens and ducks, a few pigs, and a small herd of cows. Now our farmland has grown to about 115 acres of wetland, woods, and sand-loam fields in the area.
We’ve been using exclusively ecological production methods since we started the farm in 1993. In addition, we use holistic and ecological principles to guide our decisions and our relationship with our land, water, and soil including crop rotations, only organic approved pesticides and fertilizers such as kelp meal or manure, and constant observations of soil health, herbivore damage, water quality, etc. Although we had been certified organic for almost 20 years, we have found the organic certification process has grown to be expensive and extremely cumbersome. At this point we have decided to use our energies to improve our farm in other ways, trusting that our members and customers can reach out to us for information on our practices. At this point we are promoting our produce as “ecologically grown”. We believe in sustainability and keeping our crops, our workers, our land, our water, and our community healthy. We will never change our views on keeping up our organic practices.
We sell our ecologically-grown produce through CSA shares, at various local stores, restaurants, and also at the Ann Arbor and Chelsea Farmers Markets.
Richard and Deb, along with other farm crew who like to live intentionally, live on-site year round. Seasonal workers or interns join them for various parts of the year, living and working together.