Nestled within the neighborhoods of small-town Pleasant Grove, Utah, sits Snuck Farm, a family-operated farm that was first settled in the 1800s. Since then, it has grown into a larger, local-centric organization that promotes food-based education, sustainability, and community. Fronted by a quaint farmshop and a fenced-off plot of land housing chickens, alpacas, and Moby the Great Pyrenees farm dog, Snuck Farm is easy-to-miss, and yet, once you’ve experienced their hospitality and delicious mixed greens, you’ll find yourself returning again and again.
Page Westover is the Chief Cultivation Officer at Snuck Farm, a self-given title she feels is fitting because she’s in the business of both cultivating produce and cultivating an experience for Snuck team members to enjoy. “My grandpa had passed away… and I was interested in doing something with this piece of land,” Westover says. “I was attached to it, and Utah County doesn’t have a lot of these kinds of places. It was all ready for quarter-acre home sites, but we decided to build this community farm instead.”
Though its roots as a family farm carry back to Westover’s grandfather—whose nickname was “Snuck” due to his prankster tendencies—Snuck Farm opened for business in 2015 with an emphasis on community growth. Due to Snuck’s location, smaller acreage size, and Utah’s drought-prone climate, the farm uses both hydroponic (a system that continuously recycles nutrient-dense water) and soil-grown methods. With a desire to create a sustainable business—one that is focused on people and the planet as well as profit—Westover notes that the choice for hydroponic growing made sense for their economic and community-minded goals, considering the process is water efficient and allows for more growth per square footage than soil would offer. “We wanted to feed as many people as we could on this little piece of land,” she says. “All of our greens, kale, arugula, and basil are grown hydroponically.”
Snuck’s two main greenhouses house their produce year-round. One is home to hydroponically grown items, such as all of their greens and raw produce, while the other contains their soil-grown produce, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, and radishes. From December to May, Snuck also uses its greenhouse to produce flower plugs for local flower farms. While their flower starts are just one of the ways Snuck focuses on prospering community and relationships between local farms and businesses, Snuck is also part of a Farmyard Share program that partners with surrounding farms such as Carter’s Family Farm and Quail Creek Farm to bring locals a robust variety of fruits and vegetables.
Read more at slugmag.com