Snikta is Atkins Backwards, and its a good way to describe us. We are a little backwards in the way we farm and we love to do things the old fashioned way.
We are Adam & Bree Atkins and we love to have fun, love to be outside, love to garden and love to eat good REAL food.
We met in high school in 1997 and it didn’t take long before we were inseparable. We moved into our first house in 2003 and one summer Adam decided to grow some tomatoes. His intent was to show me what a “real” tomato tasted like because I would turn my nose up to tomatoes…yuck, they were so gross!
But he insisted that was because I had never had a real one…. like his grandpa grew back in Alabama in his home garden. The store bought tomatoes were “impostors”, tough like cardboard, white in the center and just flavorless.
Well, after we killed the first few plants by planting them in the shade in bad clay soil we stared researching and learned that healthy, fertile soil was the key to amazing food. We also realized Adam had an awesome green thumb and he spent all his free time researching garden soil, planting methods and everything about healthy plants and it took off from there. WOW, I had no idea what I was missing. The quality and flavor of the tomatoes and lettuce from our garden was eye opening.
In 2008 we sold our Lees Summit home, moved in with my mom to save up some money and started looking for land for the next few years. We found a beautiful 36 acre raw land site half trees and half pasture that was absolutely perfect. It had not been used for crops so it was free of pesticides and after some research we found it had been a 40 acre micro farm in a previous life and was loaded with wild blackberries, pecans, wild onions and garlic and it was ready to come alive again.
We were building a modular home, small and energy efficient to keep costs low so we could focus on growing a farm. Halfway into the building process our builder went bankrupt and got away with our deposit which was 4 years of savings. We were the lucky ones though, some people lost all their money due to some sketchy contracts.
That was a huge setback for us, having the basement and driveway in but no house to put on it. We found another builder that helped get a house built for us and a little extra creativity to do some of the building on our own with the help of our friend Matt. We moved in in January 2012 and have been spending the last few years learning the land and creating our homestead and farm and currently our parents are building on the other side of our property for their retirement to the country.
We focus on Heirlooms mostly of tomatoes in EVERY color, 20-40 lb yellow watermelons, micro greens, salad greens, edible flowers, low sugar jams, basil pesto and old fashioned Lye soap.
We are at the Downtown Lees Summit Farmers Market on Saturdays May – November. We still both work full time jobs to support our growing farm so we are not at the market every single weekend but will try to be there as much as possible. Sometime we just need to rest our minds and bodies.
We are dedicated to creating chemical free, healthy food for our bodies and yours.
We hope you will grow with us and learn along with us too as we dive into this adventure.
sniktafarm.com 