Easy Bee Farm, located in Spanish Valley, will open a new roadside farmstand, located at 4051 Easy Street, next weekend. The farmstand will stock fresh produce from the farm as well as ready-made items, made in-house, such as salsa, jam, pesto, and bread.
There’s a huge need for fresh produce in the valley, said Easy Bee Farm owner Rhonda Gotway Clyde. Easy Bee Farm offers a CSA share (Community Supported Agriculture), which supplies members with a box of fresh produce every week throughout the growing season; a working-CSA share, in which members volunteer on the garden in exchange for produce; subscriptions for eggs and flowers; and the farm offers produce shares through Utah’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The farmstand will be able to serve everyone in the community, Gotway Clyde hopes. The farmstand building, which is ADA accessible, is right off Easy Street; just inside the front door is a small room where items will be available for cash purchase through a self-pay system. Behind a set of barn doors is a brand new catering kitchen where ready-made items will be prepared and where community chefs can prepare meals for the farm’s farm-to-table dinners. Gotway Clyde said she’s also looking into making the kitchen available to rent.
Easy Bee Farm’s growth has exploded recently: what started as a small farm in 2007 has grown into an extremely efficient operation. Gotway Clyde is particularly excited about the farmstand’s new sink and 20-gallon salad spinner (which she affectionately calls “R2D2”). All produce preparation used to happen in a small room connected to her home, and now, the farmstand will allow staff to work in a larger and more intentional space.
“I realized the potential with the land that I have and how much we can grow in this space,” Gotway Clyde said. “With the preparation capacity I had before, we wouldn’t have been able to grow comfortably.”
Gotway Clyde said she wanted to continue expanding Easy Bee Farm’s offerings because she’s passionate about agriculture in the valley. She calls it her “soapbox,” saying that in a perfect system, residents of Moab and Spanish Valley could utilize the agricultural potential of the valley to grow fresh food, instead of having to truck in produce from elsewhere.
Plus, Gotway Clyde said, she wants to use Easy Bee Farm to inspire other people to try their hand at growing food.
“I’m not doing this for myself,” she said. “That would be crazy. I could have my own garden and grow my own food—but I want and believe and know that gardening is such joyful, peaceful, loving work. What if? What if we had more healthy and sustainable agriculture here?”
Gotway Clyde also imagines the farmstand will be able to partner with other farmers in the valley—she hopes to soon offer quail eggs and other produce grown by neighbors.
“I’m hoping that by doing this, so many people will realize they can do it too. Then we can start our little communities: maybe someday I’ll only have a two-mile radius that I’m selling to, because the next farm over will sell to their two-mile radius,” she said. “It’s all about getting healthy food into people’s bodies.”
The farmstand will officially open on Saturday, June 17. The event will include a brunch, farm tour, and raffle; tickets are $25 per person and can be purchased at www.app.barn2door.com/easybeefarm/all.
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