“Ouroboros, emblematic serpent of ancient Egypt and Greece represented with its tail in its mouth, continually devouring itself and being reborn from itself. …Ouroboros expresses the unity of all things, material and spiritual, which never disappear but perpetually change form in an eternal cycle of destruction and re-creation.” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ouroboros

In case some of you are new to Full Circle CSA I wanted to write up a little synopsis about who we are and what our mission is. Many of you have been following us for years and know us personally and that we are chemical free growers who try our best to produce clean nutrient dense vegetables harvested fresh for market. But I am sure some of you may have stumbled upon us or will being seeing us at markets for your first time this 2025 season so I’ll start at the beginning for you who may be new to us. First, thanks for checking out the local food of Chester County. We have a ton of great farmers in this area which is a blessing, as are you for helping to support that effort.

The drawing you see above is our logo which is photocopy of the original drawing Sammy made when we were sitting down thinking of a farm name and logo as we set off to start our own business growing vegetables for farmers markets. We had spent the last few years working on a tractor farm in West Chester. I like to say this is where we learned how NOT to farm. I always criticized the owner for having me work long and varying sized rows a whole tractor with apart. He always wanted me to totally plow over the fields, and disc them, and to roto-till between the beds for weed control. I saw all of this as way too destructive to the soil, especially considering we were never adding organic matter back into the soil. I learned from experience, even before all my reading, that standardized beds made the most sense for planning, and permanent raised beds made the most sense for minimal soil disturbance and moisture retention.

Our logo was inspired by the ouroboros, an ancient symbol of a snake eating its tail. In our case, it is an earthworm eating its tail. For us, the earthworm is one of our best employees, them and the rest of the soil biology that digests organic matter providing us rich and fertile soil. Nature is the perfect example of how through death, we can have life. It is more than just a philosophy of farming, but also a way of life. When asked if we are certified organic, we say we don’t need to be because we have morals and ethics that guide our growing practices, we aren’t just following some standardized idea of what “organic” is because organic can just as well be a conventional tractor farm spraying government approved organically derived chemicals. Part of our philosophy, like the worm eating its tail, is keeping things in their whole natural parts. This is why we prefer compost and fertilizer teas (what we view as whole food for plants) over synthetic or organic derived nutrients in concentrated forms (what we view as vitamins or supplements) leaving them less easily incorporated by soil biology and hence less bio-available for plants.

*Peas and beans on the tractor farm in West Chester 2012*

After a lot of reading, a lot of learning by trial and error, and becoming a certified permaculture designer we were lucky to be approached by a local land owner with all the infrastructure for farming and were offered to start up on their space. We had a great season there and were forced to work on permanent beds that were varying lengths, which was a better growing situation with great soil but still not what we were dreaming up. We were blessed to have one good season on that land before it was sold when we continued working our night jobs (which we worked during farm season also) until I began working at another farm in Downingtown which was doing everything I had dreamed. Permanent beds making up garden blocks in a neat uniform way for ease of planning and minimal soil disturbance.

*Permanent beds across the hill, but varying lengths. 2015 Full Circle CSA est.*

*Our humble beginnings at farmers market 2015*

This is where I learned to farm. As the owner became a father of three he let me execute his plan from sowing to harvest and even selling at farmers markets. For a few great years I farmed with him, even with some of Sammy’s help, until he shifted his business model away from farmers markets and more to a delivery online market targeted to urban areas. This shift, my lung collapsing on the job, and our longing for our own farm again led us to being introduced to our current land owner who is one of the most generous and kind people we know all through very interesting connections going back many years.

Through my experience selling for Down to Earth Harvest I was able to do market research, and get to know many of you even, which gave us a great idea of how and what to grow for market. As our friend transitioned away from markets we were allowed to take over his spot at the Eagleview Farmers Market and Malvern Farmers Market with a lot of great relationships and insight right off the bat.

*Down to Earth Harvest in Downingtown, PA 2016. Permanent beds, uniform blocks*

*Open pasture where we began again in 2018 in Glenmoore, PA*

The top 3 questions we get when we tell someone we are a farmer: “What do you do in winter?” “And you make a living doing that?” “How did you get into that?” Not very interesting answers but I’ll tell ya. In winter we plan, and I try to gain weight. We make a modest living. I got interested in farming because I was morally and ethically opposed to modern western civilization, mainly the vanity and over consumption but also the technology that continually alienated us from nature and each other and even our own individual human nature. I was greatly inspired by the Amish for their separation from worldly things, from the world but not of it if you will. They were able to govern themselves and were highly skilled and productive and faithful. I was also greatly inspired by indigenous peoples from all over the world but especially of our own lands. I read about the spiritual significance they found in all of Creation and how they lived a life of reverence as a way of keeping the balance. You won’t over indulge if you know that if you do you can’t eat next year, nor will your family. People of the land learned to appreciate and respect what the Earth provided for them without abusing their privilege or forcing their will on Creation.

So I didn’t know what to do being as back then, I didn’t even want to use a weed wacker for consuming some gasoline. I was studying permaculture when thankfully a high school friend invited me to work on that farm back in 2011 as a volunteer and I never looked back. Farming was my way to apply my ethics of gratitude for the gifts of Creation while connecting to people who just wanted to eat some salad. Through our conscious effort to grow food without chemicals we could then tell people why, and even how. The best part of our job is to share our knowledge of growing food, which really isn’t as much as you’d think as I’m more of a doer than a learner. But that’s what makes it easy and wonderful to share. If you build the soil and protect your plants from pests, you can not fail.

Now I’m not as radical as I used to be, but my basic beliefs are all the same. I’m less harsh towards technology as I see it as a tool and how you use that tool is what counts. When I get a tractor it will be more to move stuff and not so much to beat the crap out of the soil. But, I do see certain applications where a tractor preparing your soil to make the conversion to less impactful practices could save a lot of time and back pain. Our mission is to love the Earth because that is what provides for us, to love our community because we all have our part in Life, and to share what we do with whoever wants to know and wants to support local and wants to take control of what they are consuming.

It is in my opinion that the way to a sustainable world is through cottage industries producing local crafts for local markets. In one of the more radical things I used to read I found great insight when the writer spoke about exporting violence. He eloquently describes how violence isn’t just fighting, but exploiting other people or objects or environments; and how by exporting that violence elsewhere it distances us from it and makes it somehow okay or at least easier to just forget about. We want cheap goods, but at what expense? We want a clean environment, but it’s cheaper to get the product from a less regulated country that creates more pollution and less than ideal working conditions for those manufacturing the goods. He also went on to describe horizontal hostility. When people on the same playing field are pinned against each other so that real power players can get away with many a “violent” act all the while regular everyday citizens hate and make enemy of each other.

Perhaps we can learn from the Amish and Tribal communities. Even looking to the recent past of the 18th century you can find examples of sustainability. Everything was used for many things until it was dust. Ceramic dishes and mugs, wooden utensils, horse and oxen drawing wagons with people collecting the dung for fertilizer. Living hedgerows for fences and coppicing which became firewood to heat the homes and cook. People would be mending clothes and shoes. Living a rural agrarian life and foraging gently would be what sustainability looked like, in fact that is how we sustained until farming provided us so many privileges that we wanted to travel to the moon and fight over where to get our delivery take out for dinner. And now we have reached the point where we are so technologically advanced that we can’t even consider the possibility of applying our knowledge and skills and automation to best utilizing our natural world in a more harmonious way. We want to consume endless amounts of energy while not having a thoughtfully efficient way of producing endless energy without exploiting the environment harshly in some way (even solar and wind are dependent on mining). And this is why it is our duty to take responsibility for ourselves and our impact on our environment, both locally and globally. By consuming local, and by producing something ourselves we can little by little chip away at the need for more stuff cheaper from farther away which in turn is consuming more energy typically at the expense of someone somewhere else.

Food is the easiest place to start for choosing something closer to nature and less impactful. But it could also be the cleaning products you buy or make at home, what the material your clothes are made of, how far goods and services are coming from to get to you. The miles quickly add up. This is why we sell our produce locally, we are 7 and 14 miles away from our farmers markets. If you’re lucky, you could get your food from right outside your door. If you like to knit, start getting some wool from one of the many local Alpaca or Sheep farmers. The cheese and milk around our area has got to be some of the best you can get. All you need is right here, and if it isn’t maybe you could find out how to produce it so it will be right here.

Farming is a radical act for us. Supporting local agriculture is a radical act for you. Thanks for being radical.