POULSBO — Lisa Hurt spent two decades molding a raw piece of North Kitsap land into the tidy farmyard she tends today.
She hacked back the brush, tilled garden plots by hand and built herself a house, all while working construction and painting jobs to pay the bills. Her garden offered up more produce than she could use, so she gave veggies away to friends and donated to food banks. It wasn’t until recently Hurt considered marketing her hard-earned bounty.
“Last year was the first time I really had a moment to think about selling,” she said, striding across her Port Gamble Road yard on a drizzly Thursday.
Hurt wasn’t ready to commit to a farmers market booth, but a new local foods cooperative helped her ease into retail. Her Rainbowzen Farms became one of the first producers to join Kitsap Fresh, an “online farmers market” that allows customers to order food from nearby farmers over the Internet and retrieve their orders at a pickup point in Poulsbo each week. Kitsap Fresh launched in June 2015 and has grown to more than 150 members. Buoyed by its early success, the co-op will add a Bremerton pickup site this week and is eyeing locations on Bainbridge Island and other parts of the county………….Read More at the Kitsap Sun website
Kitsap Fresh 