MK and her husband Andrew own and operate Open Book Farm, in Middletown, Maryland. They raise pastured livestock (pork, chicken, beef, turkey, and chickens), Certified Organic produce, and two free-range children. In their farming practices, they strive to cultivate soil health, foster livestock well-being, and to reconnect eaters to the source of their food.
What are your current farm projects?
Some of the stuff that we're currently working on: developing aerated static-pile composting for our chick bedding, which we use in our deep-composted no-till greenhouse and high tunnel; repairing our enormous 100+ year old barn, so that it lasts another hundred years, planting perennials (now that we have our own farm), creating systems and standard operating procedures so that the path of least resistance is in fact the best path :-). And trying not to let the farm dominate our entire lives. That's a big one—this year we've been trying to intentionally carve out more family time that does not include thinly veiled farm projects. ("Hey kids! Who wants to help me pick peas?!")
We go to a really awesome, relatively small market in DC every Saturday. We sell from the farm on Saturday mornings to a lovely group of local folks. We have two rather unconventional CSA programs (summer and winter), and we wholesale a lot of chicken—we raise about 5000 birds each year, processing most of them on the farm. We have one employee April–October, and another for about 10 weeks over the summer, to get us through the height of tomato season.
Check out MK's instagram feed @openbookfarm, and the farm website, where she writes about how they steward the land, build soil, pasture raise their animals, sequester carbon, and more. Awesome young farmers! Thank you for your good work, MK and Andrew!
