Women Who Farm: Orange Star Farm Edition

This story starts with a kitten with more than 9 lives.

A few weeks ago, an orange kitten showed up on market day, looking scared and rather lost. Fortunately, Alana from Tonnemaker immediately took it into her arms, kept it safe, got it scanned for a micro-chip (it was too young to be chipped, it turned out), reported the kitten to all the vets and clinics on Queen Anne, and found it a temporary home with one of her friends. I didn’t hear from her over the weekend, so I was going to reach out the following week to see if there were any updates.

Cut to that following Monday, when I rolled up to meet Libby of Orange Star Farm for our scheduled farm visit, and when I popped out of the car, I saw an adorable, tiny orange kitten (much like the one from market the past Thursday) playing on Libby’s porch. After greeting me, Libby immediately asked if I had heard about the story of the kitten from market on Thursday. I told her that, of course, I had heard about the kitten and did what I could to get the word out about the kitten Alana found. She then asked if I had heard the full story:  The little kitten from market that was lost and scared was Libby’s kitten, Carl, from her farm. He had crawled into the undercarriage of her van prior to her trip from Monroe to Seattle and rode under the car the entire trip (even through a delivery stop that she made). So, when she arrived at QAFM, he dislodged himself from the van’s undercarriage and made a run for it. Libby said that she kept thinking the kitten Alana was holding looked a lot like Carl, but she thought Carl was safe at home in Monroe. It wasn’t until later, when Libby got back home after market, that her husband said he hadn’t seen Carl all day – and it clicked. Fortunately, Libby and Carl have been reunited.

I realize that story doesn’t have a lot to do with the actual farm that Libby owns and runs, but it does have a lot to do with the community and friendship that we have at QAFM. So, it’s as good a place as any for us to start the story about Orange Star Farm.

Libby Reed started Orange Star Farm in 2015. Located in Monroe, the farm sits on this beautiful piece of land right next to Woods Creek (for the record, I was really tempted to just forego the farm tour and float down the creek with a cold beverage, but I’ll have to save that for another day if I’m lucky enough to go back). Libby's daily schedule looks something like this: she wakes up at 4:30am, lets the ducks out to their pen from their house, does some work on her row crops, answers some emails, then heads to her other job (at SnoValley Tilth), works a full day there, then comes home, does more farm work, moves the ducks back into their house for the evening, and then around 8:30pm she “falls over” and repeats it the next day. Libby is an incredible powerhouse -- kind, funny, inviting, thoughtful, a hell of a farmer, as well as a baker, a partner, a pet mom, a friend, and a daughter (and so much more).

Orange Star Farm mainly consists of row crops, and Libby prides herself on growing unique varieties that chefs love (including David Glass, the former head chef at How To Cook A Wolf, now head chef at Staple & Fancy) and that draw people from the market to her beautiful stand. Before getting to these row crops, we started our tour by walking among the newly planted fruit trees by the creek, and Libby explained how Snohomish Conservation District (SCD) planted them and took her requests into consideration so she could grow the trees she really wants to grow on her farm. We walked past the creek to the ducks. Libby raises two heritage, critically endangered breeds of ducks, and it was amazing to see them all just hanging out in their pen. They responded to Libby’s voice and came to her when she called them. Duck eggs, if you haven’t had a chance to try them yet, are absolutely delicious. They’re a bit larger than chicken eggs and have a richer yolk, making them perfect for baking and in omelets, quiches, and hard boiled (deviled duck eggs, anyone?). Plus, ducks are just so darn cute.

We moved on from there (although, I could have stayed there, hanging out with the ducks, all day) to the row crops and hoop houses. From magenta spreen (or unicorn greens as we like to tell kids at market) to Jamaican cucumbers (tiny, spiky, delicious bites of cucumber deliciousness) to rows and rows of heirloom tomatoes, Libby is growing incredibly unique, delicious produce. As we walked among the rows, Libby pulled one sample after another for us to munch on as we talked. Each bite was something new and special, from borage to sorrel to spigarello to thimble berry and beyond! Libby is right to take pride in the special food she is growing.

We stopped to talk to Libby’s mom, who was out weeding one of the rows, and I was struck by the incredible kindness and power of these women. They treated each other with such mutual respect and admiration, all while talking about weeding. It’s something truly special. We then returned to Libby’s house, where we pet the dogs and took a look at her awesome cold storage and cleaning facility. Before I left, we checked the car and grounds to make sure we knew where Carl was (never fear, he had not crawled up in my car...he’s safe and sound at the farm).

Libby is a powerhouse woman and farmer, and I am so proud to know her. We are exceptionally lucky to have her at QAFM, and I look forward to seeing what new things she has at market each week (For instance, have you discovered the deliciousness that is a corn shoot? No? Make sure you stop by the market this week to ask her about it.).

Perhaps the best way to describe Orange Star comes from Libby herself, so I’ll leave you with this perfect paragraph that encompasses Libby’s farming philosophy:  In a world where we are constantly bombarded with excess - super sizes, social media sharing and special sales - we are proud to be a small farm. Every small farm is living proof that small doesn't mean insignificant.  In the realm of food and life, small to us means the everyday - talking, cooking, moving, asking, exploring, working, laughing, observing, creating.  All of these things make up our everyday and at Orange Star Farm those are the things that matter to us and inform the way we approach growing your food.