Spiral Path Farm

What is Spiral Path?

Spiral Path is where we get most of our local organic products from. They have a 255 acre farm up in Loysville, PN. Terra and Mike Brownback have owned it in 1978. It started out as a conventional pig and grain crop farm, but in 1991 they transitioned to all organic produce. Now they supply Wegmans with their best crops of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, collards, baby spinach, baby arugula, baby romaine, mixed greens, kale, romaine, green and red leaf lettuce, zucchini, goldbar squash, dandelion greens, beets, herbs, swiss chard, and more! Anything that doesn't make the cut for Wegmans high standards but is still good is put into CSA boxes, a variety box of super seasonal veggies (and some fruits), which are sold to the community. They recently bought even more land to meet the ever-increasing demand for produce from Wegmans stores.

Their Philosophy

They strive to support and nourish the soils that their crops grow in. Healthy soil creates healthy plants. They do not use chemical fertilizers or pesticides. They use an all plant compost "processed" by red wigglers, a worm that stays in the top strata of the soil, to nourish extra sensitive plants.  The use of even organic pesticides is limited, and usually come from plant extracts that naturally repel the invasive insect. The Brownbacks use nature's foodweb to naturally reduce their pests. Every year they send of soil samples to be evaluated by a lab to check the levels of crucial minerals. Carefully maintaining the soil chemistry allows their produce to be successful and plentiful. They have open fields and hothouses for the seedlings, baby greens, and extended season growing. They use cover crops to replace nutrients sapped from the soil and to reduce erosion, and they practice crop rotation so as not to deplete a field of all of 1 or 2 nutrients.

Here are some photos from my trips to the farm: