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0:14I'm Steve McManaman I'm the manager of verai farm we a Market Garden operation this is my partner and wife inra Delson

0:21she is the chief beekeeper and she also uh runs our production and harvesting

0:28operation we we grow 52 different crops here but we are also one of the largest Growers of shitake mushrooms uh definitely in Connecticut probably the

0:36United States and we uh have just planted a new uh tall spindle apple orchard with honey

0:44crisp and Fuji apples we're growing um 3100 apple trees on a 4 and 1/2 acre

0:52plot our Market are seven pan country clubs and two food banks we grow for uh Vitality we're

1:01regenerative

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1:15Growers operating here in grenwich Connecticut we're one of the wealthier towns um you know in the country what that means is that the people here

1:24appreciate good food they're price insensitive we can maintain profitability because of of our

1:31Marketplace we're running a restaurant at the time we had a French restaurant called Versa Bistro one day we looked

1:37around and we saw that we had 99 other restaurants here in Greenwich but there were no Growers and that was just an

1:45epiphany so I've always liked to say you know you want to get into a business where there's more demand than there is

1:52Supply and we've picked seven high-end country clubs as our client base and two

1:59Food Bank so we have kind of a barbell marketing strategy at one end we have a high-end country clubs at the other end

2:06we give our food away to the two food banks we have um one country club um who

2:16says Steve your your your stuff is absolutely the best I said well why why is it the best he said okay they took me into their walk-in they pulled out some

2:24collared greens that you know the big commercial food distributor gave them it was a week old and it was Will thing it was just you know really limpid and then

2:32she pulled out our collar greens from a month earlier and they were vibrant they were crispy they were still solid it was

2:40night and

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2:45day so we have two Crews we have a heavy lifting crew and we have a harvesting crew the harvesting crew are all women

2:53and so ing runs that crew well our team's been together for a couple of years which

3:00having that familiarity in the process really helps not just you have to clean your tool before you go out and what

3:08size basket but also being familiar with the plant itself and the best way to harvest it how do you enter it into the

3:17cleaning area so there's a lot of unspoken

3:24communication and then so the other crew is the guy crew is the heavy lifting crew so we have one day a week for the

3:32heavy lifting crew and then for the Harvest crew is 3 days a week one of the first tools we used was

3:43the greens Harvester because it revolutionize um you know cutting a row before we'd go in with scissors and cut

3:51these greens and it would take you know an hour or two to to harvest a bed now I can Harvest a bed in 5 minutes we

3:59Harvest with the Harvester and boom bang it's done and we clean it wash it spin it and box it and it's ready to be

4:06delivered and by the way it can be plated right from our box right onto country club members plate right

4:15away these are small tools that are huge labor saving

4:24devices growing food is very special and we can control what we're eating by

4:32growing it ourselves and then when you speak with your customers they just are

4:38blown away by being local right in the backyard we've all got to start growing

4:46our own food if 330 a million Americans start growing their own food we'll have more control over our food and the

4:55quality of our food just the way the rest of the world does it they all grow their own food and they grow it on this kind of a

5:04scale so if you can grow it yourself or buy it locally it just helps the whole

5:11global system to just stay very balanced it is hard work so people will

5:21say this must be your passion it's not my passion this is gratifying you know

5:28putting your hands in the oil harvesting this food uh being outside in the fresh air and the sunlight it's just this

5:36feeling that you've accomplish something building and operating Versa Farms has been one of the most gratifying things

5:44I've ever

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5:53done hi guys I'm Jonathan with Farmers friend if you enjoyed this video hit the like button and subscribe to see more inspiring stories like this to learn

6:02more about our Innovative small farm tools and supplies like easy to assemble Greenhouse kits flame weeders and a lot more check out our website at farmersfriend.com