Keeping the Family Farm Sustainable

By Jeremy Withnell 
Photo by Bruce Frisch

Bruce Zinke, owner of Zinke’s Homegrown, a farm and business just next door in Canaan, puts down his gardening shears and states, “You know, I’ve never had a full-time job in my whole life.” It quickly becomes clear that this doesn’t mean he hasn’t worked hard. Moving to Canaan in 1942 with his family when he was four years old, he has been involved in farming more types of crops and livestock than can easily be listed. Sweet corn, dairy cattle, potatoes, sheep—you name it—it seems Zinke has experience with it.

On a Tuesday morning, he’s ensconsed in one of his greenhouses off of Clayton Road, just behind his produce stand. On this day, he’s focused on “microgreens,” harvesting some brassica. Red bok choy and baby kale are nearby, ready to be taken by Zinke personally to restaurants ranging as far afield as Sharon and Egremont, Massachusetts. 

 Here in Norfolk, he supplies his products to Wood Creek Bar and Grill. “I’m beginning to get bored of the microgreens,” he confides. “Interest in them seems to be reaching a peak.” He goes on to explain how through his many decades in the farming business, he has followed trends in the culinary world and adjusted his farming practices to keep pace with customer demand.

After speaking authoritatively on the waxing and waning of the demand for decorative gourds, he mentions that for a while it was necessary to supplement his farming income by being a fuel delivery truck driver. “I would work for the fuel companies in the winter time, and go back to farming come spring.” Beyond that, he has lived his whole life as a farmer.

Zinke is a fixture at the Norfolk farmers market. He usually has produce, flowers, and herbs for sale, grown either in one of his greenhouses through the winter or out in the fields. “I won’t put a price tag out on anything, even though they keep asking me to. People think market is a place, it’s not.  It’s a condition. You’ve got to be aware of how the weather has affected the local harvest of a particular crop, or what the latest food fad is, or how the other guys are pricing their goods.”  

Having been in the farming business for so long, Zinke knows a thing or two about the fads that come and go when it comes to produce. “We used to deliver five tons of pumpkin to the bigger markets, because everyone had to have those big pumpkins for fall. Then people started wanting more variety, decorative gourds, Indian corn, that sort of thing. So we branched out and provided that too, only it seemed people only had a set budget for fall décor. They weren’t buying lots of big pumpkins in addition, just smaller amounts of lots of different things.”   

Another observation he mentions is that sweet corn had its day a decade or so ago. “We used to sell dozens of ears at a time each week to individuals that would stop by the road stand, but eventually people would only buy two or three ears at random, perhaps once a month. Right now these microgreens are big, but just you watch, in ten years, it’ll be something else.”  

When asked what his biggest challenge is working in the farming business, his answer was pragmatic. “Well, all my life I’ve worked with providing people with things that will spoil. Timing is everything. You’ve just got to line up what ripens with what people want, when they want it.”