For years advocates of local food in Eureka Springs have touted the advantages of purchasing from local growers. The produce is fresher and has a lower carbon footprint due to not using large amounts of fuel for transportation across the country. And, money spent with local growers supports the local economy.
Plus, if there was ever a disruption of the national food supply, then having a local farm system in place helps keep residents supplied with healthy food. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic has raised concerns about supply line disruptions.
Local growers working to keep the Eureka Springs area supplied include Andrew and Madeleine Schwerin of Sycamore Bend Farm located near Keels Creek. They are producing more food because of increased demand.
Earlier this year, they had to cut off new subscriptions to their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) for weekly organic fruits and vegetables in order to adjust and develop crop plans. After ramping up production, they are now accepting new subscriptions.
After a couple of years with lower production, Madeleine and Andrew decided to hire more crew to gear up.
“We still wanted to focus on customers in Carroll County so we restarted our CSA using an online platform called Harvie,” Andrew said. “It allows for customized shares so people can choose what vegetables of ours they prefer to get. We are doing two deliveries each week to Eureka Springs, one to Berryville and one to Holiday Island. We also offer home and business deliveries.”
At this point Andrews doesn’t do as much of the gardening as he would like, and instead is teaching the crew to do it.
“We are raising three young kids, Beulah, 7, Hans, 5 and Scott, 2 ½, and they are our main priority now,” Andrew said. “It’s good that we can work at our home and they can work (and play) outside with us. We all learn together. I’m trying to find/develop a farm manager. We still live in the yurt, and it’s time to build a ‘real’ house. I’m hoping I can tap into the local timber-frame and stone-work skillset for that.”
Andrew particularly enjoys connecting with his hard-working crew and seeing results of their labor and energy. In addition to Andrew and Madeleine, other full-time team members include Petey Harding, Airik Johnson, Josh Harper and Shanelle Salmons.
“I personally couldn’t live without good vegetables in my diet, anymore,” he said. “I like hearing from our farmers’ market and weekly veggie subscription customers that they are enjoying eating the vegetables we grow. I also enjoy finding the balance of nurturing the land, while encouraging it to be human-friendly. The sheep are great for this. I can build richer soil and more floral and faunal diversity in the pastures by rotating the sheep through our land and the neighbors’. The newfangled term is ‘regenerative grazing.’ It really is magical. I’m always learning more about our spot in the universe through many of our region’s botanical and grazing experts.”
In addition to the CSA, Sycamore Bend Farm also sells at the Eureka Springs Farmers’ Market at the community center on Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and at the White Street Market at Ermilio’s parking lot on Saturday mornings from 8:30 a.m. to noon. Andrew said while the White St. Saturday Market is a smaller market, it is a wonderful group of vendors, locals and tourists.
“I love to see people collaborating,” Andrew said. “Humans are pretty awesome when we can do good things together. After some management changes at the Eureka Springs Farmers’ Market this past spring, we are working to rebuild the market to its heyday of being the go-to source for locally-produced foods. The next opportunity is to see if Eurekans have an interest in coming together to build a public pavilion at the Community Center. One possibility is to have a timber frame project built by the community under the guidance of timber frame teachers for the collective benefit of Eureka Springs.”
Andrew moved here in 2008 and in 2009, Ashley Hill let him start farming on Ashley’s vacant land. Andrew connected with Patrice Gros later that spring and moved out to Patrice’s Foundation Farm to learn the trade.
“After building my yurt, Patrice let me use the back of his property for my own market garden,” he said. “I met my wife Madeleine out there, and in 2011 we started Sycamore Bend Farm with a land lease from Bill King and John Rankine. We’ve bought the land since then, but Bill and John are still big supporters and great neighbors.”
Andrew was in his teens when he developed interests in gardening and cooking, and spent a lot of time in college cooking. In his 20s, he primarily spent his money on restaurants and travel.
“At some point, I was looking for higher and higher quality ingredients, aka vegetables, and that started getting me out to farmers’ markets and local farms,” he said. “I progressed from the kitchen to the garden. Any garden. I traveled in Thailand for a spell. I bought a shovel, and carried it around with me everywhere, on buses and trains and walking around.”
This past year they grew legal CBD hemp. After drying and curing, the hemp bud was distilled into CBD oil and bottled. Their experience is that CBD can be beneficial, depending on the person and the desired results. It is now being offered for sale at the farmers’ markets, and with a few local retailers.
“It turns out that Eureka Springs has a very high concentration of hemp experts per capita,” Andrew said. “A lot of them helped us. It is a fun plant to grow, not without its challenges. Turns out that it does thrive in our organic no-till system. We never fertilized the entire year, and the state inspector said they were the biggest plants he’d seen. Size isn’t everything, but it all went well. We selectively hand harvested right at maturity, dried it properly, then cured for a month before processing.
“We had one of the smallest crops in the state – it’s more like a hand-crafted micro-tincture than a commodity item. My intention was to distill a full expression of the plant’s chemicals rather than focusing on just CBD. I had to destroy a portion of the crop because it was expressing too much THC for the state. Considering factors such as genetics, climate, and legal regulations that are out of our control, Madeleine and I are happy with the final product. Folks get different effects at different doses; we’ve had good feedback.”
“Soon we will start sign-ups for the fall season, September through November,” Andrew said. “Folks can read more at our website www.eurekaspringsfarm.com.”