At the grocery store, take a look in your cart. Look at the eggs, the lettuce, the beets and the strawberries. If you want to know where that food comes from, you’ll need your Internet Detective hat. But not when you look inside your Dare 2 Dream Farm Box. When you subscribe to Dare 2 Dream Farm Boxes, you’ll know exactly where your produce comes from and exactly how it was farmed and harvested. All the information you need to know about how we farm is here, and if you want to take an even closer look, drive on over to the farm. The gate is always open.
Soil First, Food Next
Good food starts with healthy soil. And healthy soil means it holds water through the summer without synthetic help. To keep soil healthy, our small team employs a process known as regenerative farming. This is a natural approach to farming, which nourishes the earth so that it grows fresh, colorful, nutrient-packed produce.
Here’s what it’s all about:
Our compost is made right here on the farm and aged a least a year. It includes things like spent coop bedding, animal manure, and crop residue, which go into piles that sit a minimum of twelve months before they touch a growing bed. While lengthy, this process is best for keeping fertile soil and growing healthy food. For comparison: the strictest USDA standard allows for raw, uncomposted manure to be incorporated directly into the soil, but it requires a 120-day wait between incorporating raw manure and harvesting the crops. We never apply raw manure to any crops – only our homemade compost.
Between plantings, we employ cover crops. Why, you ask? Because bare dirt bakes, blows away, and dies. When that happens, the dirt loses essential nutrients that help crops grow. Cover crops keeps the good living organisms in the ground, so they continue to nourish the soil and give back to the earth. For example, after we harvest Fava beans, their leftover roots in the soil collect nitrogen. As the roots decompose, the nitrogen is released into the soil, making it healthy for planting again, later. This is a prime example of regenerative farming in action!
We don’t grow the same plant family in the same bed year after year. If we did, the soil would be prone to pests and soil-borne pathogens. By rotating our crops, we naturally disrupt these pest and disease cycles. Because each crop uses the soil’s nutrients differently, we maintain healthy, balanced soil. This is a simple and natural practice, which reduces the need for synthetic chemicals and supports a more resilient ecosystem.
The chips around our fruit trees come from arborists working here in the valley. Not only does this practice reduce local waste and dependence on landfills, but mulch from the local area also helps the soil retain moisture and feeds beneficial organisms in the soil.
What Goes on our Food
As a consumer, you deserve the comprehensive list of everything we use on our food. To start, we’ll tell you that we don’t ever use synthetic pesticides, synthetic herbicides, synthetic fertilizer, or routine antibiotics in the flock.
What we do use is the following – no more, no less.
When compost and covered crops can’t supply something a crop needs, we use certified organic fish fertilizer. It’s a supplement to biology, not a replacement for it.
This is iron phosphate bait for slugs and snails. It breaks down into iron and phosphate, which are both already in the soil. This is safe around pets, wildlife, and the hens.
This is the one nobody else tells you about. PyGanic is pyrethrin, which is a botanical insecticide pressed from chrysanthemum daisy flowers, approved for organic production. Pytherin is the flower extract. This is not to be confused with Pyrethroids (permethrin, bifenthrin, cypermethrin), which are the synthetic lab versions, engineered to persist for weeks, and they’re what conventional agriculture sprays.
Dare 2 Dream Farms uses PyGanic. It breaks down in sunlight within about a day. It’s broad-spectrum, and lethal to bees on contact, so we use it sparingly and carefully. It comes out just two or three times per year, only after the beneficial insects have failed to hold back a pest, and only at dusk when the natural pollinators are off the flowers.
Insects Work Alongside Our Crew
We like to say that we hire insects before we spray. Before we bring out PyGanic (see above), there’s a whole crew of insects already working. Take a look at the powerful role that these critters have in how we farm!
Ladybugs & Green Lacewings
Ward off aphids and soft-bodied pests
Parasitic Wasps
Control flies that zoom around the animals
These insects are our biological control crew. The process is slower than using the sprays that conventional agriculture uses, but it’s healthier by far. When chemical sprays wipe out pests, they can also harm beneficial organisms or disrupt essential processes in the soil. A crew of insects can usually control pests on their own, but when their efforts are overcome, PyGanic can intervene without causing long-term harm to soil or beneficial organisms.
Developing our Farm’s Ecosystem
We value harmony with our natural surroundings. We don’t try to force the land to work for us; instead, we work with the land. While our 7-acre farm is surrounded by beautiful hillsides, we don’t try to farm in the hills – that’s not what they’re meant for. We only farm on the flat ground, where it makes sense. Plus, we’re currently building native hedgerows and a wildlife habitat across the farm. When it’s finished, beneficial insects will have somewhere to live year-round while they perform important work in our crops. This entire process supports our farm’s natural ecosystem, creating a harmonious cycle of life nourishing life… nourishing life.
How We Use Water
As with any farm, water plays an important role in how we farm. The difference at Dare 2 Dream Farms is how we utilize this precious resource intentionally. Our water comes from a well on the property. We irrigate by drip on automated scheduling, which means that water goes straight to the roots, where the plants need it. We don’t spray water across the crops, where droplets tend to land on leaves and evaporate in the sun.
The mulch does the rest. Soil with high organic matter holds far more water than depleted soil, which means building soil and conserving water are the same project. It just takes years instead of a season.
Our Hens
We’re not going to call them pasture-raised. There’s no legal definition of that term, and ours don’t always have beautiful grass. But what they do have is room to roam – plus they play a very important role in how we farm. Here’s what we mean by that:
Room to Roam
Our hens have lots of outdoor space, many times more than what California animal welfare law requires. And our hens use it and love it! They’re outside nearly all day, every day. Sometimes we are asked how many square feet each bird has to roam. This number is difficult if not impossible to provide, as our hens have free range of the farm, and unfortunately some fall prey to hawks or coyotes.
We allow our flock of hens to roam freely, perch where they want, peck and flap, because this is what is in their nature to do. But, it does expose them to predators. While hens in industrial barn will never get taken by predators, they are also kept in tight quarters that restrict their natural tendencies and limit healthy development. It’s important for us to be up-front about this, so that you always have the full picture of life on the farm.
A Role to Play
Coop bedding and manure get composted and go back into the beds that grow your vegetables. Garden trimmings and produce that doesn’t make the box go back to the birds. Fertility cycles between the animals and the ground, and nothing leaves here as waste.
That loop is the practical meaning of “regenerative.” It’s not just a label; it’s a closed circle. And it’s at the heart of how we farm.
How We Handle Your Food After Harvest
As a farm that harvests both ready-to-eat produce and freshly laid eggs, we mitigate the risk of cross-contamination and maintain freshness through a few different means.
- We wash produce and eggs using two separate wash stations. Our produce and our eggs never share a tub.
- When we wash the produce, we use filtered water and safe soaps. Hands get washed first.
- Eggs are collected daily, washed daily, and refrigerated immediately.
- Produce is packed in Farm Boxes no more than 7 days after it’s harvested. Usually, the produce in your Farm Box was harvested just 1-2 days before.
Why We Partner Locally
In 2020, our Farm Box operation pivoted from a traditional CSA to subscription boxes. We made the change because a traditional CSA asks a family to pay hundreds of dollars up front and much of our community can’t do that.
Then, March 2020 rolled around, and everything changed. Restaurants closed overnight. Other small farmers were left with crops of good food that rotted in the ground because their only buyers were wholesale accounts that had just shut down. There was nowhere else they could send their crops, and meanwhile, families here couldn’t find groceries.
It was a big problem. In the chaos, we at Dare 2 Dream Farms were classified as an essential business. We became an aggregator, meaning we packed our Farm Boxes with crops sourced from our farm as well as other local farms. And we got the boxes of produce to people who needed it.
Who We Partner With
The chaos of the pandemic prompted the formation of strong partnerships that still exist today. We are proud to maintain partnerships with the following local farms, whose practices align with how we farm. We have witnessed their operations firsthand and trust in them as much as we trust in our own. Our Farm Boxes include some produce and goods from the following partners:
Tutti Frutti
Sunrise Organics
Goodland Organics
Rocking Chair Farms
Ranchito Allegra
Nearly all of these partner farms are within 50 miles of Dare 2 Dream Farms, which means that each Farm Box you receive is packed with genuinely local goodness. When we include items from partner farms, we note this in the Farm Boxes, so you are always aware of where your food comes from.
More Local Partners
The Farm Stand at Dare 2 Dream Farms features more yummy food from small local producers including pickles, teas, baked goods, snacks, preserves, and soaps.
That’s a special part about how we farm and what we’re actually building: an ethical, wholesome regional food system that doesn’t collapse when a distribution center does. When you subscribe to a Farm Box or buy something from the Farm Stand, you’re supporting small farms and producers’ daily operations.
The Results of How We Farm: A Comparison
All of the information above is a LOT to digest. Soil, water, insects, partners – and so much more. But all of that matters. We are committed to farming this way because it directly impacts the food you receive in your Farm Box – the food you serve to your family!
The results of how we farm show up in each Farm Box – and if you ask us, you can see the superiority the moment you open the Farm Box! But you should know what’s different on an even deeper level. Take a look at how our Farm Boxes compare to other sources of produce. This is why all of the information above matters to you!
| Dare 2 Dream Farm Box | Supermarket produce | National subscription boxes | |
| Grown by | Megan, Jeremy, and a team under 10 | Unknown, often imported | Aggregated, suppliers undisclosed |
| Days from harvest | 7 or fewer | 7–14+ typical | 5–10+ typical |
| Distance traveled | Nearly all within 50 miles | 1,500+ miles average | National distribution |
| Every input disclosed? | Yes, on this page | No | No |
| Can you visit the farm? | Yes | No | No |
| Animals and crops in one system | Yes | No | No |
| Where your money goes | This farm and its neighbors | Distributors and retail | Investors |
| Picked for | Flavor | Shipping durability | Shipping durability |
Our Guarantee
If something in your box is wrong, we’ll make it right. Just contact us and let us know. We’ll either replace it right away or in your next box, whichever suits you.
You’re not filing a claim with a call center. You’re texting the people who grew it.
Come See How We Farm
Every claim about how we farm is checkable in person. That’s why we wrote it down. Staying transparent about how we farm is important to us, because we know that good food is important to you. If you want to visit the farm to see how all this works in action, just come on by.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, and the full list is above: OMRI-listed fish fertilizer, Sluggo for slugs, and PyGanic (botanical pyrethrin from chrysanthemum flowers) two or three times a year at dusk. Nothing synthetic. That’s the entire shelf.
This is the right question to ask any farm with livestock, and the answer is composting. We never put raw manure on anything. All of it composts for at least a year before it goes near a growing bed, which is more than three times the strictest USDA waiting period for raw manure.
No, but it’s all local. We farm seven acres, which can’t feed a community. What we don’t grow comes from named partner farms, nearly all within 50 miles, listed above. If it isn’t ours, we’ll tell you whose it is.
Collected daily, washed daily, refrigerated immediately, and washed in their own bins — never the ones used for produce. Because they’re washed, keep them in the fridge.
We replace it, either right away or in your next box. Just tell us.
Because our eggs are washed (as we described above), keep them in your refrigerator. Washing removes the natural bloom that lets an unwashed egg sit out on a counter. We can’t sell unwashed and unrefrigerated eggs by law.
Nothing in your Dare 2 Dream Farm Box is more than 7 days from harvest. And usually, it’s much less (around 1-2 days). Supermarket produce is picked underripe, shipped, and held in distribution for 1-2 weeks. Their varieties are selected to survive a truck, but we pick for flavor because it only has to survive the drive to you. That’s the whole reason it tastes better and fresher!
No, and it’s a decision, not an oversight. Here’s what it means:
Certification is a paperwork system designed for farms selling into wholesale, where the buyer will never meet the grower. But we sell directly to you, the consumer. We want you to meet us, and we want you to see where your food is grown. You’re welcome to come to Dare 2 Dream Farms any time, and see how we farm firsthand. You can walk right up to the compost pile, the coops, the weeds, the bugs, the wildlife. We believe in total transparency, and we stand by our practices.
Several of our partner farms carry organic certification and we respect them for it. It’s just not how we choose to prove ourselves to you. We’d rather put that money into soil and habitat and answer your questions in person. We’d rather answer face to face, show you how we farm, let you touch and see and smell, that show you a stamped certificate and say it’s enough.
