tradition, nutrition, regeneration

Chickadee Produce – Charles and Clarissa Mish

203 Chickadee Lane

“All across America, industrial agriculture is sterilizing our topsoil, devitalizing our food, and warming the planet. We grow GMO-free, nutrient-dense food to nourish our family and our customers who crave real food.”

Charles Mish grew up in Michigan around aunts and uncles who farmed, raising vegetables, chickens, and pigs as well as operating a cheese factory. Seeing their direct connection with nature made an impression on him: “It’s what I wanted to recapture when Clarissa and I started growing our own food.” The couple views their biodynamic farm as a way to help with climate change and regenerate the earth. “If only 2% more of the world’s arable land returned to organic farming,” Charles says, “we could actually begin to reverse global warming by sequestering carbon dioxide in the living soil.”

Charles’s approach is labor-intensive as he strives for the right balance of manure, compost, and sea crop trace minerals to enrich the soil, while also combating quack grass and slugs. The payoff? “Food that doesn’t taste like cardboard.”

Chickadee Produce includes fruit (Spartan, Jonagold, Melrose, Red Gravenstein, and Brown Russett apples; Asian pears; and Mirabelle plums) and potatoes. Charles says people tell him they can taste the quality with his Yukon Gold, German Butterball, Yellow Finn, and Nicola potatoes. His favorites are the French Fingerlings. “Sliced, cooked in olive oil, and seasoned with a sprig of rosemary—” Charles says, “delicious.”