Market Watch: Veritable Veggie Cornucopia at Shooting Star

Albany Patch takes a look at the people behind the . Matthew McCue and partner Lily Schneider are three years into a partnership in Shooting Star CSA in Fairfield, CA.

What's your role in it?

MM: We both share similar responsibilities. We're both partners. I do production stuff, she does production stuff. I bust knuckles on the tractor. She does a little bit of that. She's really good at the marketing stuff, setting up all the farmers markets. She also does a lot of production. Our knowledge and skills are pretty diversified, but we're interchangeable too. We kind of share all the work. She also keeps her shirt looking cleaner than I do. (laughs)

Before that, Lily farmed at a different CSA, but that farm was in Sebastopol, so we were both in Sonoma County and we were like, “We want to farm somewhere where there is a little bit more flat soil and a little bit better weather." So we ended up in Solano County for the soil. We're having a lot of fun with it and we have our markets and we're finally making some money with it which is good.

What are your main crops? We have tomatoes. We have potatoes for the season. We've got a lot of stuff at the farmers markets from the CSAs. Today we brought tomatoes, peppers, squash, onions, basil, sweet corn and some other stuff.

Have you always been a farmer? Well, before that I worked as a commercial fisherman and as a soldier.

Are you enjoying your life now? Well, I enjoyed it then. It's different. People often say that it was so horrible, but it wasn't that bad. But it is really fun doing this,. I enjoy it a lot.

How did you get involved in the ? We've always wanted to be part of the Berkeley farmers markets and I think they called us. We kind of jumped at it because it's such a great farmers market organization, and it was really impressive because people actually came and looked at the farm when we became part of the market. We didn't necessarily get that in other places. Not all farmers market associations will do that. Albany is really special.

How is being at this farmers market special? Well this is, like, top-notch members. We really feel like we succeeded in life to be with all these other vendors. 

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Everybody makes mistakes ...  ! If there's something in this article you think should be corrected, or if something else is amiss, call editor Emilie Raguso at 510-459-8325 or email her at emilier@patch.com.