About
Blooming Glen Farm is a reflection of the experience and dedication of farmers and owners Tom Murtha and Tricia Borneman. We have been farming together since 2000. We worked on organic farms in Connecticut, Oregon, New Jersey and Pennsylvania before returning to Bucks County to start Blooming Glen Farm. Growing up in Bucks County, Tricia witnessed firsthand the rapid loss of productive farmland to development. We are driven by a passion for food and community, and committed to preserving the rich agricultural heritage of this region. We live our values through the daily work of the farm, and share the bounty of our labor with our community of eaters.
OUR GROWING PRACTICES
We follow organic growing practices. We strive to be good stewards of the land by maintaining and enhancing soil, water and air quality through sustainable farming practices. We encourage and support a small farm ecosystem of diverse plants, birds and pollinators. Our crops are grown without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or genetically modified organisms. We use compost, cover crops, mulching and crop rotation to encourage healthy soil and plants and to build long term fertility. We believe a healthy body is inseparable from a healthy soil. Our farm has been growing since 2006 and is certified organic through Pennsylvania Certified Organic (PCO).
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OUR VISION
In order to be a healthy economically viable farm, it is important to have both a diversity of crops, and a diversity of markets. We sell our vegetables through our CSA, at farmers markets, and wholesale. In a suburban county where competition and rent is high for land use, we face unique challenges to maintaining profitability, and strive to provide a model of a successful small sustainable farm under these conditions. What is sustainability? “A sustainable society is one that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” United Nations, Report of the world Commission on Environment and Development.
Learn more about our CSA HERE.
WHY BUY LOCAL?
Food grown locally is not the same as food transported over long distances. Food travels on average 1300 miles before reaching the consumer. The retail cost of conventionally grown food at the store does not reflect the true cost to the environment of growing, packaging and shipping that food. As a CSA member, your share is harvested the same day that you pick it up at the farm. You will see and taste the difference.
We are losing farms at an alarming rate. Nationally 4.3 million acres of farmland were lost to development and urban sprawl between 1982 and 1992, nearly 50 acres an hour. Locally, there is a rich agricultural heritage in this area that must be preserved. In Bucks County in 1945 there were 4,063 farms on 267,000 acres. In 2009 there were only 933 farms on 75,000 acres.