As our "old" customers have gathered, we are reaching out to the new frontier of CSA.  We will continue to serve our great customers at our stands, but we have also had a lot of requests in the past years to start a CSA.  What is CSA?  Briefly, a customer decides this time of year to purchase a share of our farm.  In return, they will get at least twenty boxes, one per week, of produce from us.  It is delivered to their place of work, their neighborhood, or even to their house.  This box will include our pasture-fed chickens!  We will use our thirty two years of experience to stock the boxes with the favorite vegetables.  The CSA section of our website tells all about it.

I want this blog to be for you.  You are requested to communicate with us right here.  What are your questions?  What do you wonder about CSA?  Do you like our new website?  What could we addto it that would help you?  Just click on "add a comment" below and fire away. 

Next week, in the blog, I will add some pictures of the tomatoes.  Last week, they gave me the first rich scent of tomato...a sure sign of SPRING!!  I didn't breathe a word to the tomatoes that it was way below zero outside!!  I thought what they don't know won't hurt them!!

Dillon and I are leaving early this morning to attend the Moses Organic Conference in LaCrosse.  We will be there Thursday through Saturday.  It is always an awesome conference!

NEW LEARNINGS

In January, I went to the Minnesota Organic Conference in St. Cloud.  I learned a tremendous amount about soil health, how to run a CSA and food safety.  It was one of the best conferences I have ever been to.  What I learned complemented what I had been reading all winter.

A week later, I attended the MN Fruit and Vegetable Growers Conference also in St. Cloud.  Once again I learned a lot.  One of the best benefits of these conferences is to network with the fellow vegetable growers and with the trade show people.

WELCOME CSA!!

The biggest news of the winter for us comes in the form of a duo !  The first is that we have finally come to the realization that we need to expand to offering a CSA.  For years, we have heard requests for this.  We had always thought that selling at stands, alone, was the best service for our customers.  But many people want the extra connection with a farm that brings a box of produce for them to their neighborhood each week.  We are going to use our 32 years of experience to put the items we have found to be popular in your box!!  Stand customers, nothing to fear.  We will still be offering produce to you at our stands.  Let us know...what would be your dream CSA?

NEW LAND!

The second huge news is we have a chance to buy 75 acres adjoining our land to the west of our farm.  Adjoining land is so important for us because it allows easy irrigation and harvesting as well.  The extra land allows us to spread our wings and offer a CSA to reach more people than we have in the past.  We are totally excited to evolve into the CSA component.  It also gives us to freedom to expand into apples, strawberries and asparagus.  It also allows us more rotation options and the chance to give some pieces of land a break with cover crops alone.

                                                                              NEW WEBSITE!!

Being in my first year of retirement after 34 years of teaching elementary school, I experienced a very difficult fall feeling quite disconnected and lacking in purpose and value.  However, the extra time has allowed me to catch up on farm reading.  I have especially focused on soil health and what we need to do to foster soil life. By mid-winter, I am beginning to shed my Scandanavian guilt of not teaching and starting to savor all I can get done at home with more time.   I have been able to attend unlimited vegetable conferences and do the very building of this website!  Hats off to Small Farm Central for hosting a website so in tune with our needs as growers.  Once I caught on to the basics, building this website has been enjoyable.  Let us know through this blog what we can do to make this website more helpful to you!

                                                                    THIS BLOG'S FOR YOU!!

The purpose of the blog is not only to let you know of instant farm happenings.  It is your chance to offer feedback to us and to connect with other customers as well.  By summer, this blog could become an awesome sharing of experiences and recipes between all of our great customers.  Feel free to enter your comments anytime.

                                                                          FARM HAPPENINGS!

This week, I got the first tomatoes planted.  I will include pictures as soon as they show their faces.  I expect to be smelling tomatoes leaves in a couple of weeks!!  I can't wait!  On this blog, I will give you brief updates on what we are doing.  My goal is to involve you in the production of your food!!