The Farm
Our mission is to increase the variety of produce within our local community and empower others to grow and cook their own food.
We’re a small-scale farm inspired by kitchen gardens. These are backyard growing areas where home cooks grow the food they love to eat. Kitchen gardens are seasonal, diverse, experimental, and highly productive, despite their small sizes. Building from that foundation, we’ve created a business model that both feeds and empowers our community.
We’re a part-time farm with full-time dreams.
History
In January 2025, owner Michael Liang officially launched Happy Kitchen Farm. He intentionally designed a year of business experimentation where he could test different products and sales channels. Within its first month, Happy Kitchen Farm offered a spring microgreen CSA* and a summer culinary herb CSA, both of which sold out within a few weeks. We created a micro farm stand on the front porch to sell any extra produce and plant starts to neighbors. As our reputation grew, local chefs and food producers also started reaching out, hoping to source locally grown ingredients and support another small business.
With demand exceeding available growing space, we’ve signed a farm lease for a quarter acre just outside Gig Harbor. This land, plus other infrastructure investments, will allow us to steadily grow and transition to a full-time farm by 2028.
Our Products
As a diversified market garden, we sell more than 50 types of produce throughout the year. Most farming typically occurs in the summer, but with our mild maritime climate in Western Washington, Zone 8b, we can grow and sell year-round (with proper planning and infrastructure).
We grow fresh ingredients intended for home cooks and local chefs. We grow varieties that are not often found at grocery stores (which prioritize crops adapted for transportation, storage, and consistency, not necessarily flavor or uniqueness). We want to demonstrate that delicious produce can be grown year-round within our community.
Since many home cooks are also gardeners and prefer to grow their own food in their backyards, we offer plant starts as another product. Like our produce, we aim to fill gaps within existing markets by growing varieties that are not easily found in big box stores or other plant nurseries. We primarily grow and sell open-pollinated and non-trademarked plants, which encourages seed saving and sharing. Even though this may result in fewer future purchases from a customer, we believe the business impact to be negligible; instead this practice reflects our value of food sovereignty and signals our commitment to supporting local food systems.
*What’s a CSA?
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a subscription service for customers to receive fresh, local produce directly from farmers. Customers pay for a “share” of the harvest and, since payment is received in advance of the growing season, this helps farmers with crop planning and managing cash flow.