38 growers. Nine regions. One specification.
The catalog only works because of the families behind it. We hold annual contracts (most of them on multi-year frame agreements) with growers from Berrien County to Sinaloa to Westland. We drive every contract before signing it. We pay on the schedule the seed bill says we should, not the schedule the bank prefers.
The grower contract is the product.
The cucumber on the shelf is downstream of decisions we make in February: variety, acreage, planting density, harvest window, grading discipline. We sit at the kitchen table with the grower, walk the proposed acres, and price the contract. Field-run grading or pack-shed grading is decided then, not in the truck.
Half our contracts are with farms our family has worked with for forty years. The other half are newer (Sinaloa Persian started in 2009, the Westland network in 1981) but the same rule holds: drive the field, walk the rows, price the work.
- 38 contract growers
- 9 production regions
- 54 years our oldest contract has held
- 100% contracts driven before signing
The network
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Great Lakes Pickle Belt
8 growersBerrien County, Michigan · Kirby and National pickling stock
The largest pickling cucumber acreage in our network. Field-graded, hydro-cooled, palletized within four hours of harvest. We've held contracts here since the third generation.
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Polk County Cooperative
5 growersPolk County, Wisconsin · Heritage open-pollinated varieties
A five-family cooperative growing the National Pickling line under contract. Open-pollinated only. Seeds saved from the prior year's harvest. The cooperative has rotated leadership every five years since 1947.
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Sinaloa Mexican Network
6 growersSinaloa, Mexico · Persian cucumbers, Mexican sour gherkins
Year-round Persian production for the upscale retail trade. Greenhouse and shade-house mix. Primus-GFS audited annually. The sour-gherkin contracts are with one cooperative in Oaxaca, allocated in March.
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Leamington Greenhouse Cluster
4 growersLeamington, Ontario · English slicing, Beit Alpha
GlobalGAP-certified greenhouse complexes with LED supplemental light. The English long-format season runs October through April. Trucked direct to our Holland, Michigan, warehouse.
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Westland Growers Council
3 growersWestland, The Netherlands · Beit Alpha and specialty Dutch varieties
Three multi-generational greenhouse operations under the Westland council. Rainforest Alliance certified. Sea-freight to our Houston brine drum facility, then truck to interior accounts.
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St. Charles Brining Yards
4 growersSt. Charles County, Missouri · Brining stock No. 2 and No. 3
Field-run grading for processor accounts. Brined within 36 hours of harvest. The yard families have been our brining stock partners since 1971.
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Heirloom Heritage Farms
4 growersLancaster County, Pennsylvania · Suyo Long, biodynamic specialty
Demeter-Biodynamic certified specialty cucurbits. Limited acreage, allocated quarterly. A subset of these farms also runs our Lemon Cucumber program in Sonoma County, California, on a separate California Certified Organic contract.
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Plymouth Heirloom Coast
2 growersPlymouth County, Massachusetts · Boston Pickling (1881 heirloom)
Two farms, both in the Cooper-Hale family extended network, growing the Burpee 1881 Boston Pickling line on a constrained contract. February allocation opens; August through October harvest.
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Yolo Specialty Block
2 growersYolo County, California · Armenian Yard-Long
Two USDA Organic operations in Yolo growing the Armenian Yard-Long. Bundled fresh for restaurant supply only. Available May through September, paused the rest of the year.
Want to grow with us?
We add one or two new growers a year. Multi-year contracts only. If you farm cucurbits and want to talk, send a note through the contact page. We respond inside the week.