Why the name?…

The market garden is named after one of the many underrepresented little creatures that allow us to do what we do. Imagine a sand flea; a Springtail is a closely related, soil dwelling cousin. It’s a type of arthropod that is named after its powerful forked tail that can propel the tiny animal up to a metre backwards, which is quite a feat considering that the largest specimen is only about 2mm long. Besides their impressive anatomy, Springtails are also important shredders and microbial transporters in the soil food web. In other words, they are one of the many creatures that make up a complex community of soil microbes that maintain a healthy soil, which allows us to grow healthy crops to sustain healthy people.    

And, although this wasn’t the intention of the name of the arthropod, we hope Springtail may inspire happy anticipation of the season that we all look forward to after a long, wet winter, and also suggest some of the stories and tales that accompany us on our diverse but interwoven paths.  

So Springtail Farm is an ode to the complexity of community, which is essential to, and hopefully supported by, farms like ours. All of these communities are resilient and fragile at the same time. And this applies from the microscopic to the macroscopic to the global — everything from the soil food web, to farm crews, to the local village, to national policies that can support (or undermine…) our work, and everything in between. So here’s to complex, resilient and interdependent communities!