Couple brings passion for community farming to area

JACKSON TWP., Montgomery County — Since fitting their honeymoon around milking goats at a Hawaiian dairy farm last winter, Ben and Emily Jackle have set off on an agricultural quest that's just as unconventional.

This year, the Jackles hope to supply 25 to 30 shareholders and their families with boxes of vegetables grown at their farm just west of Dayton. In exchange for receiving a box of vegetables each week for 20 weeks, shareholders pay $450 upfront.

The concept, called community-supported agriculture, or CSA, has taken off in recent years locally and nationwide. In the Miami Valley, nine farms with a CSA option are registered with localharvest.org. Six of them began their CSAs since 2004.

"Organic is becoming such a common thing," said Ben Jackle, 29. "I think the importance of buying locally is as important, if not more so."

The Jackles — he's a native of Chicago, she of suburban Cleveland — met during an urban gardening class in Boston in 2004, and discovered they shared a love of farming. They later interned at organic farms in Montana and Illinois. Deciding they wanted to farm somewhere in the Midwest, they settled in February on a farm near New Lebanon.

This past year, they became vendors at the 2nd Street Public Market in Dayton, becoming known for produce such as heirloom tomatoes and Emily's homegrown flower arrangements, larger versions of which will be available this year through a "flower share."