An ancient fir tree stands regally in the back of the Lawrence family’s plot of land in Vancouver. Anne Lawrence and her children have many memories of sunny afternoons sitting under the tree making up fairy tales together. That tree and those stories are how they came up with their farm’s name: Storytree Farm.
Anne and her husband, Nelson, have always loved putting their hands to work outside. As a young child, he grew vegetables in his parent’s backyard and this turned into a lifelong passion. In college, both Nelson and Anne studied horticulture, and in the 1990s, they discovered that the lush Pacific Northwest was the perfect place to establish a family. Anne worked for many years as a local nurse, but did much reading about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and was very interested in it. After much research and discussion with local goat dairywoman Lorrie Conway, the Lawrence’s began their first season as a CSA in 2005. Today, the CSA is in their 13th year and is going strong.
At its largest, Storybrook Farms (located at 6227 Ne 124th St.) provided vegetables for 40 families. It now works with about half of that.
“Because of the intensive labor that’s required by this kind of farming, and the fact that my husband works an off-farm job, we’ve scaled back to a maximum number of 20 families,” Anne explained.
If the farm has an overabundance of produce at any given time, the Lawrences provide vegetables to a couple area restaurants. However, their first priority is always their CSA members. The family does all of the work themselves and, recently, their son Scott has taken an interest. Anne shared that Storytree has the capacity to have a much larger CSA, but they want to keep it simple and avoid labor issues. For that reason, they keep things small and family-run.
Storytree Farm provides a variety of vegetables and culinary herbs throughout the growing season, with options of purchasing full or half shares.
“If we have a specialty, it is product quality,” said Anne. “Our members have come to expect extremely high quality food, picked fresh and handled properly to maintain maximum nutrition. We’re small enough that we’re able to keep up very high standards. Although we have never applied for organic certification, we avoid toxic pesticides and herbicides, and focus on soil health to produce nutritious food.”
One of Storytree Farm’s greatest challenges comes in the way of ever-increasing property taxes. Since the family purchased their land in the 1990s, property in the area has been re-zoned several times, bringing in new homes on small lots. Anne explained that this type of growth is difficult on the business.
“Inflated property values will continue to adjust upward, creating financial hardships for small acreage owners who have no desire to leave, but may eventually be forced to do so,” she said.
The Lawrence’s believe that their greatest opportunity right now as a local CSA is to build stronger personal relationships with their members. Anne noted that she has enjoyed seeing that many of the CSA members support neighborhood farms in a purposeful way and are committed to keeping their dollars within the neighborhood economy.
Reflecting on what’s next for Storytree Farm, Anne stated simply, “We are very happy exactly where we are at the moment. Besides our family, this has always been my husband’s one true love.”
Storytree Farm
6227 NE 124th St
Vancouver CSA since 2005
www.storytreefarm.com
