Fitch Family Farms to launch community garden

MOSES LAKE — Ten Moses Lake residents gathered at noon Saturday at Fitch Family Farms for a meeting. The topic? Community gardening.

With “goals” written on a whiteboard, the group shared its visions of opening the farm on Stoneridge Road Northeast to the community. A brainstorming session on plants included strains of beans, peas, kohlrabi and even hot peppers.

This year, Fitch Family Farms will convert into a community-oriented space, where volunteers can decide what is planted, do a little work and take some produce home. Details have yet to be determined, as Saturday was the first meeting.

The farm was established in 2011 with three acres and the goal of having the widest selection of produce available to the community, owner Chris Fitch said. The family sets up a booth at the local farmers market for spring produce sales, and in the fall they host a you-pick pumpkin patch. Aside from their deals with several restaurants around Moses Lake, in 2020 they donated more than two tons of produce to the Moses Lake Food Bank.

With a recently built greenhouse, the farm is able to grow produce year-round, Fitch said, and all of the earnings go back into it.

“I don’t have any wishes, wants, desires or goals to get rich off the farm,” he said. “I really just want to build a community where people feel like they are free to come in and walk around like it’s their own property.”

Fitch is a representative for the New York Life Insurance Company and runs Basin Welding & Mechanical on West Third Avenue. With the need to step back this year to make time for his other pursuits, he saw the opportunity for more community involvement on the farm.

The need for a community farm is abundant, he said, because people spend thousands of dollars on their own system just to have it fail or because they can’t keep up with bugs, weeds and watering.

“We have a community garden downtown,” Fitch said. “It doesn’t really get used. And the reason it doesn’t really get used is because nobody knows how to frickin’ grow anything.”

The Fitch community garden will be different, he said. The farmers market sales will pay for the overhead and the equipment, and there is an automated water system.

Volunteers can come on their own time and put in what they wish to get out of it, Fitch said.

The biggest days are Fridays, he said, when the produce needs to be picked, washed and loaded for the farmers market Saturday morning. Those days, he likes to make big pans of stir-fry and feed everyone with fresh-picked vegetables.

Building community and friendships is as important as any of it, he said.

Down the road, there may even be the need for salaried employees and management opportunities, he said.

This is a great idea for everyone, especially children and retired folks, Moses Lake resident Janelle Rasmussen said. She’s been interested in farms and having a community endeavor, she added, and is intrigued by volunteer possibilities.

Not only is it a great pastime but a learning opportunity, too, she said.

“If you go to elementary schools and ask (kids) where their food comes from, most of the kids are going to say the grocery store,” she said. “Whenever my daughter was young, she didn’t want to eat vegetables, but I took her to a farm and she started picking things off the plants and eating them. That’s how I actually got her to eat her vegetables.”

With the lack of events happening around town, this is a good way to get people out of the house, Fitch said. People can be outside and as distanced as they want.

“With the right leadership, this wouldn’t be a small success,” Fitch said. “It would be immeasurable.”

Weather permitting, people can start volunteering in February, Fitch said. For more information, search for Fitch Family Farms on Facebook.

Sam Fletcher can be reached via email at [email protected].