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Bass Root Farm Our Mission
We aim to nourish our local community by producing nutrient dense food while striving to be good stewards of the land using sustainable and regenerative farming methods. We want our farm to be a site for learning, sharing, and cultivating wellness, an ideal place that provides a rich quality of life for all living things.
Michael and Sarah Palmer
Our Story
In 2019, prior to the tumult that would become the COVID pandemic, we were seeking a new adventure in life. After careers in music education (Michael) and fundraising (Sarah), we felt the urge to “return to the land” to learn how to grow our own food and to raise our family to appreciate the wonders of Mother Nature. At that time, we enjoyed participating in the Mission Garden at College Avenue United Methodist Church (Muncie, IN), which provided food to local food pantries and soup kitchens. We also maintained a small home garden and marveled at the taste of food known as “farm to table.” How could we combine these interests in our future endeavors?
It wasn’t long before we were reading Jean-Martin Fortier’s The Market Gardener and Eliot Coleman’s The New Organic Grower while dreaming of starting our own farm! In Spring 2020, we found 10 acre horse farm in Fenton, Michigan that had excellent pastures for growing organic vegetables.
Bass Root Farm From Horse Pastures To Vegetable Fields…
We began plowing up the ground with our BCS walking tractor in May 2020, creating our first plot (4,000 square feet).
This experimental garden included many different types of vegetables and flowers, giving us the opportunity to practice our farming skills prior to launching our business. There is nothing more exciting than observing the life cycle of a garden, from seed to sprout to fruit. The bounty we harvested far exceeded our expectations, resulting in nutrient-rich food for our neighbors, family, and the local food bank. In 2021, we began selling our produce to the public.
Since that time, we have added another field plot (2021), two caterpillar tunnels (2021), and a high tunnel (2022), amounting to just over 1/3 of an acre of cultivated land.
Our Name Bass Root Farm?
Bass Root Farm – what does it mean? You have heard of a taproot, right? It’s the primary root extending deep into the soil from which additional roots emerge. This fundamental root (think carrot) stores essential nutrients and provides the sustenance to the plant growing above ground. In music, the “fundamental” or “root” refers to the bass note or tone. Much of the music we listen to is supported by bass tones, played by bass instruments. When these tones are heard in a sequence, it is called a bass line. Returning to garden speak, our vegetables rely on “bass roots” to pull nutrients from the soil and develop into nutrient dense food that’s tasty and nourishing! It’s all about that bass! Bon Appetit!
