Imagine this:

When you sign up for a share in Bluebird Gardens' CSA, you are getting the best possible piece of our farm...you will get a box of produce delivered to you each week from June to mid-October!  So when your neighbors are just beginning to plant their gardens in late May and early June, you will be already receiving our first harvests from our high tunnel greenhouses.  And in place of the high expense and hassle of doing your own garden, our garden will come to you each week.  With the weekly arrival of our vegetables, you and your family will be nudged into healthy eating habits!  Your first weekly boxes will likely contain romaine lettuce, cucumbers, mixed lettuce, spinach and fresh radishes.   Nothing compares with the first harvest after a long winter!   But, as the season progresses, you will find more and more new items in your weekly delivery.  Since you prepaid, each box will feel a little like a Christmas surprise with new flavors for your eager tastebuds!! 

Bunching onions, zucchini, new potatoes, shelling peas, sugar snap peas and green beans will soon appear in your weekly delivery.  Beets, carrots, Walla Walla onions, tomatoes, herbs, cabbage, peppers and tomatoes will soon grace your table as well... all with the nutritionally dense flavor of Bluebird Gardens.  The real hit, our main attraction, will be sweet corn.  We extend summer crops as far into fall as possible.  But fall will also bring winter squash varieties, fall radishes, fall decoratives and sweet potatoes.  Two of our chickens that rotationally graze on our cover crops are also a part of your summer CSA full share and one is in the half share!! 

You might think, "It can't get better than this."  But it does!!  As a full share CSA member, you are invited to connect with the farm in seven farm events where you come and gather peas, beans, herbs, tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, sweet corn and fall harvest items for your freezer, canning jars and pantry.  Details of this are listed below under "Share Options"!!

SAVOR THE FLAVOR OF SUMMER AT BLUEBIRD GARDENS!

The real beauty of CSA lies in the connection to the farm.  Since you are signing up to be an active shareholder in our farm, you are invited to attend farm events that will make your connection with our farm more real and fill your freezer or canning jars at the same time!!  See exciting details below under share options!! You will receive newsletters, emails and are invited to take part in the blog on this website.  It is our hope that this blog becomes a conversation of excitement between our customers.  We can share recipes and stories of how we are savoring the flavor of summer at Bluebird Gardens.   And if you have any questions, anytime, just click on Contact and type an email which goes instantly to me.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Before the season starts in 2010, you purchase a $500 full share or a $295 half share to our farm.  (A half share is great for one or two people and a full share feeds a family of three or four.  In either case, our plan is to give you more than your money's worth!!)  If you want delivery to your house, instead of to your neighborhood, it is an extra $100 per season.  There is a secure sign-up on this website or you can pay by check as well.  To make it easier for you, you can make a down payment of half that amount  for now and pay in full by May 1.  Or, if that is a problem, you can work out a payment plan with me that fits you.  We are also offering a sponsorship program if you can't afford the CSA program.  Check out the details under "Food share" in this CSA section.   (There is a limit to the number of shares we can offer, so signing up early guarantees your share for this season. NOW is the time to sign up or you will be too late!)  The share entitles you to a box of produce a week for the summer and fall of 2010, totaling twenty boxes.  On a normal season, the CSA deliveries run from early June to mid-October.  Each box will contain what our season is providing for that week.  For example, an early June box will most likely contain romaine and mixed lettuce, onions, spinach, radishes and cucumbers.  A July box might contain cucumbers, zucchini, regular peas, sugar snap peas, pea pods, onions, cabbage, green beans, beets carrots, herbs, tomatoes and new potatoes.  The August box would likely include most of the July items, except peas, along with sweet corn, cantaloupe and peppers.  We will include two of our pasture-fed chickens in the 2010 Summer CSA  Full Share package.  The half share will receive one pasture fed chicken.  The September and October boxes will also include squash, winter radishes and fall decoratives such as gourds, pumpkins and Indian corn.  The "WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT" page shows a graph of when you might likely see each item.

SHARE OPTIONS:

FULL SHARE for $500:

• You will receive box a week from June to mid October totaling twenty weeks that will feed a family of three or four.  You will also receive 2 pasture-fed chickens during the season.  We will keep track of the produce you get and make sure the value of produce in your boxes far exceeds the $500 cost.  And, if you attend the farm harvest events, it becomes an incredibly irresistible deal that you can't pass up!! 
• If you desire a real connection to our farm, you are invited to take part in the following events as part of your full share.  You will get to meet us and harvest vegetables for yourself!  You will have a great opportunity to fill your canning jars, freezer or pantry at the same time at the same time you experience life on our farm.  You will see first-hand our wind turbine work and visit the rotational pens of  chickens grazing on our cover crops to see what happy chickens do each day!  You will also get to bond with other CSA members !  
• Pea Pick in mid-July.  I will let you know the exact date in plenty of time for you to  plan.  Come with your family and pick peas to eat fresh and/or can or freeze.  You can pick shelling peas, pea pods and sugar snap peas.  We will have an awesome  time!  Stay as long as you like!    
• Bean pick in early August.  We will save a new patch just for you.  You will find our Jade green beans are amazing for freezing or canning.  You will be able to savor the flavor of summer from Bluebird Gardens ALL WINTER LONG when you come to pick beans at the bean pick! !  
• Herb pick in late August.  We plan to add herbs in your box all summer but this day   allows you to graze and get the exact herbs you want to store for winter.  We are a little new to herb growing but we are planting Cilantro, Oregano, Thyme, Sage, Rosemary, Basil and Stevia.  Let us know if you would like another.     
• Pickling cucumber pick by appointment.  Your full share membership allows you to   come and pick a bushel of pickling cucumbers and will include dill to go with it!!     
• Fall  Harvest Pick in early October!  You will get a fifty pound mesh bag and you    can fill it with produce we have spread out on a huge table.  Choose what you want to fill your bag.  You will have Yukon Gold potatoes, Norland potatoes, Big Daddy and Ailsa Craig sweet giant onions, sweet potatoes, cabbage, beets and carrots to choose from.  In addition, you can choose from an assortment of pie pumpkins and decorating pumpkins .   
• Tomato pick!  As soon as John Wheeler starts to wave his arms showing a push of cold air and frost heading our way, we will email you about a tomato pick. You can gather from our 20,000 tomato plants and choose heirloom, normal tomatoes, yellow tomatoes and roma!!  Come with your boxes and get ready to can.  This will  be spread over several days depending on the weather.  The date??  Ask John Wheeler!!  Tomato quality wanes after the middle of September, so even if there is no frost in the forecast, we will make sure we have this fun event by the middle of September.
• Sweet corn pick!  This day entitles you to ten dozen of our famous sweet corn from Bluebird Gardens.  We will let you know in plenty of time although it will probably be in late August.  We hope to have it at the same time as the herb pick.  If you choose not to make the drive to our farm, you can also get your ten dozen at the end of a selling day at any of our stands.  We will check your name off the list when you receive your corn.  (You have to get your corn at one time and not 2 dozen one day and three the next, etc.  You can, of course, get less than the ten dozen.) 
• We will make sure your box delivery alone exceeds the value of the $500 CSA membership.  The value of the farm events could easily exceed $200.  It is our way of thanking you for becoming a part of our farm!   It is especially our way of establishing your connection with our farm!  

HALF SHARE FOR $295   

• The half share is just like the full share except the weekly box will feed a family of  one or two.      
• The person receiving the half share can choose to attend three of the seven farm events.      

FARM EVENTS FOR $200     

• We value our wonderful stand customers as well and want you to feel a part of  our farm.  If you want to take part if the farm events and fill your freezer and canning jars, you can choose this option.  This option is for anyone who is not a CSA shareholder but wants to be included in all farm events.  These events are listed above in the full share option.   

HOW DO I GET MY BOX?

Once our CSA customers have signed up, we will find convenient drop-off sites where you can get your vegetables each week.  You can choose the one most convenient for you.  Drop-off sites can be residential or commercial.  If five our more of your co-workers sign up for a CSA membership, your job site would be a great drop off site.  Then you could easily pick your box up from where you work.  Be thinking of a good drop-off site in your neighborhood.  It might even be your place!  Let me know if you would be willing.  It is a very simple process.

WHAT AREAS ARE WE SERVING?

We are especially targeting the Fargo-Moorhead area.   Even though we will have two stands in Fargo-Moorhead, we understand how difficult it is to drive out of the way to get to our stands.  Therefore, we would like to make it more convenient for you and deliver produce weekly right to your neighborhood.  We also welcome CSA memberships in other areas we already serve with stands such as Fergus Falls, Pelican Rapids and Wahpeton/Breckenridge.  Furthermore, we would like to offer a CSA to Underwood, Battle Lake, Otter Tail and Perham areas.  If you are not in those areas listed in this paragraph,  feel free to email me at mark@bluebirdgardens.net.  Or just click on contact listed at the top of the website page.  If there is enough interest, we are very open to starting a CSA in any area.  For example, by varying our drive to Fargo/Moorhead, we could easily go through Rothsay, Barnesville, Glyndon and Dilworth.  If there is a work site or neighborhood group that would like me to come and answer questions about our CSA, I am most willing to do that.  I can be as brief as you need:-)  Some insurance companies now pay people who take part in CSA memberships just as they pay people who attend fitness centers.  Check with your insurance.  You may qualify!

If finances are a real problem, which is totally understandable during this hard economic time, you are invited to apply for a CSA sponsor.  Just supply your name, address and phone number, which I will keep confidential, and your story.  Tell of your situation and the need you have for this CSA share. Also tell what size CSA share you need.   I will post your story on this page.  Based on your story, anyone can decide to sponsor your CSA for you!!  If you allow, it would be cool if your sponsor called you with the good news.   Otherwise, I can let you know the good news.

Once someone is sponsored, I will highlight their story so we know their need has been fulfilled.  (This could become a real celebration page!!)   Unless the sponsor wants to remain anonymous, we will add their name as the awesome sponsor!!  One never loses by giving!!!

Ten thousand organisms live in one gram of soil!!  We can't begin to identify and understand all that this life does.  But we can mimic nature.  Nature keeps the ground covered with plant life.  We plan to accomplish this with all the cover crops (as explained in the "Nutritional density" section).  But nature also has animals feeding on the covered ground.  It is one of nature's incredible cycles.

At Bluebird Gardens, chickens are going to join sheep in rotationally grazing on our cover crops.  They will graze in one spot for a few days and then their paddock will be moved to an adjoined section of land.  With the new nutrients the grazers have deposited on the field, the cover crop will spring back with lush growth.

This rotational grazing will not only feed the life in the soil and improve our land.  The meat and eggs will add to the diversity that we offer our customers.  We plan to expand our force of laying hens,  raise two thousand broilers and have a dozen lambs.

The feedback we have received regarding our eggs this winter has been phenomonal!  Our flock of chickens is laying as many eggs as they can but they can't keep up.  The gold yolks are a sign that the minerals are in the chickens' diets.  The chickens have been dining on our beets, kale and cabbage all winter.  You can savor the nutritionally dense flavor of our eggs at Cafe 116 in Fergus Falls.  Jennifer, at Cafe 116, does incredible dishes with our eggs!!

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!

When the chemistry in the soil is in place, the biology party can begin!  There are air and water spaces in the soil so this life can flourish.  But all this life needs organic matter to eat.  Organic matter is the food that provides a continuous diet for the life in the soil.

When nature is left unattended, it knows what it is doing.  The ground is absolutely covered with plants.  Those plants cover, protect and hold the soil in place keeping it from the forces of erosion.  Animals feed off of those plants and deposit their droppings on the soil.  When the plants die, they feed the life in the soil.

Cover cropping, also know as green manure cropping, follows the same principle.  Many times, cover crops are used on soil that isn't actively raising a crop.  Since we need all the land for vegetable production, we creatively work cover crops in with our existing crop.  For example, when the sweet corn is knee high, we broadcast yellow blossom sweet clover seed.  The clover and corn grow together.  After the corn is harvested, it is mowed so the clover can get more light.  The clover goes dormant over winter and grows back in the spring.  When it is tall enough, it is tilled into the soil.

Between the rows of plastic where we plant vegetables such as melons, tomatoes, cabbage and peppers, we plant white Dutch clover that only gets six inches tall.  It acts as a living mulch.  It keeps the soil covered from erosion and builds up organic matter for the soil.  We plant buckwheat or vetch and rye between the rows of pumpkins and squash.  Just as the pumpkins are about to spread their vines, we lightly till the cover crop.

We continuously use clovers and vetch to build up the nitrogen in the soil and rye, oats and sudan grass to hold the nitrogen in the soil.  We notice a dramatic change in soil tilth from these cover crops. 

This cabbage is planted on plastic with trickle irrigation under the plastic.  Notice the white Dutch clover planted between the rows of plastic.  It is a living mulch that protects the soil from wind and water erosion.  It also helps prevent weeds and will build up the soil with organic matter and become food for soil life.

In early April, most of our work will occur in the main greenhouse and in the seven high tunnels.  We will be getting the soil ready in the high tunnels and will begin planting.  We will also be doing a lot of transplanting and planting in the main greenhouse.  As soon as the weather allows, we will be planting crops outside in the field.  By following soil test results, we will be first spreading the elements that are missing from the soil to our land by tractor and spreader.  Peas and potatoes are planted with tractors and planters.  Whew!  Radishes, lettuce, chard, spinach and carrots are planted with a walk behind planter.  Onion plants and sets are planted by hand.  The three MESA stewards, Mike M. and I will be here then to get these jobs off to a flying start.

In May, we begin to plant warm weather crops such as sweet corn and green beans with the tractor planter.  The real focus of time in May is to work on the crops planted on plastic in the field.  These are tomatoes, melons, cabbage, broccoli, cucumbers and kale.  The tomatoes and melons get a row cover of plastic and fabric to give them a greenhouse effect.  We may take on another intern in May since this is a lot of handwork.  There is nothing more wasteful in a season than to be doing this planting in June because there wasn't enough good weather or help in May. Planting of pumpkins and squash in the field will also occur.  Some harvest of cucumbers and lettuce from the high tunnels occurs in May.  Radishes can start by end of May as well.  Diane will start the KMart stand when these crops are ready.  We would also love to surprise our CSA customers with an early box in May as well.

In June, the CSA routes begin and Diane will continue the KMart stand in Fergus.  We will be still planting.  More time will be focused on weeding.  This year we are trying an organic paper weed barrier for onions.  That should minimize the time spent weeding onions.  We are also going to use a rotary hoe and rolling cultivator on the row crops of sweet corn, green beans and peas so we are hoping that increases weed protection efficiency there. 

Using white plastic mulch on raised beds in the yard, we are hoping for the first season ever to have lettuce and chard producing the entire season.  If that works, we will be doing successive plantings of lettuce and chard all season.  Sweet corn, peas and green beans are also planted in successive stages so we have a continuous crop as long as possible.

In July we will be adding the stands in Pelican Rapids, Breckenridge and Fargo Moorhead.  A typical day in July begins at 6:00 with most of us picking peas for the day.  A few will stay back to harvest lettuce and chard in the cool morning air.  After that, last year, we spent a lot of time weighing produce in the shed.  This meant for a very late start at each of the stands.  This year we are going to try weighing those items at the stands using legal hanging scales.  Since the whole morning won't be spent with everyone getting produce ready in the sheds for stands, those at home will get an earlier start with the rest of the day's harvest.  After breakfast, those who stay at home will harvest the items that can be done the day before such as green beans, new potatoes, beets, carrots, onions, tomatoes, melons, etc.  Those who sell at the stands will leave right after breakfast.  July becomes the most intense month with the harvest of small items such as peas.  This becomes much easier in August when peas are replaced by larger items such as sweet corn, melons and tomatoes.

On CSA route days, the focus will be on packing boxes with less attention to the stands.  CSA routes will be scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, which have been the days when the stands need the least produce due to less sales on those days.  Our plan will evolve as we determine needs.

The bottom line is I hope to give everyone as well rounded an experience  as I can.  I would like to have each person experience tractor work, if they choose and to participate in traveling gun and trickle irrigation.  We will all take part in planting, weeding and harvesting.

So...should you apply for an internship??  I hope you do, but keep this in mind.

 This is more than a job...it is a mission.  It would be too much work to merely be a job.

If you are applying because you have nothing else to do this summer...it is a job.

If you are applying because sustainable farming is your passion...it is a mission.

If you think work is merely showing your presence...it is a job.

If you think work is giving it all you have...it is a mission.

If your prime goal is earning money...it is a job.

If your prime goal is being inquisitive and learning...it is a mission.

If the smell of the earth, the blossoming of plants, the harvesting of produce, the crow of a rooster, the call of a bluebird, the sun on your back, the happy companionship of your co-workers and the satisfaction of bringing our best to our terrific customers appeals to you... consider joining the mission of Bluebird Gardens!!

In return, this is what you would get back...

• $1200 per month stipend (in addition to items listed below)
• housing and utilities (a $500 per month value)
• training (a $400 per month value)
• We eat the vegetables we can't sell  (a $100 per month value)
• End of year bonus $500-$4,000  (This depends on how well we meet farm goals.  I will lay them out when you get here.  It also depends on the percentage of the season you were here.  And finally, it depends on how well you did in regards to speed and quality.)

Don't ever assume our positions are filled for the year.  In fact, I thought we were filled for this year and now we have some openings again.  Email mark@bluebirdgardens.net or call Mark at 218-205-4739.  An even easier way to connect is to use this website.  Just go to Connect with Us/Then click on Contact and fill out the email form which is delivered instantly to me.  I will get right back to you.

We have stands at the following locations where we sell directly to our great customers:

FERGUS FALLS

BJ's East  7 days a week

K-Mart  7 days a week

PELICAN RAPIDS

The vacant gas station on the north end of town  Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday

BRECKENRIDGE

The Thrift Store  Monday/Wednesday/Friday

FARGO/MOORHEAD

Moorhead Center Mall  Monday through Saturday

We are looking for a location in Fargo

Mark's great grandparents, Knut and Guri Boen, immigrated from Norway in the 1880's.  They purchased our current farm and  began dairy farming.  Years later, Mark's grandparents, Gust and Ida Boen continued dairying.  Mark's parents, Kenneth and Margaret Boen, were married in 1943 and continued the family tradition of dairying.  Both Kenneth and Gustav were born in the farmhouse that now serves as a home for our interns.  The pictures show Kenneth coming back with the manure spreader, Mark and his mom milking, our holstein and gurnsey cows and Mark's dad, Kenneth.

Mark was born in 1953 and grew up milking cows and attending to calves.  In the 1960's, Mark became aware that the eastern bluebird was endangered because of the lack of nesting cavities to raise their young.  He began putting up bluebird houses across the farm.  It took years for the first bluebirds to nest.  But the first pair finally came and over time the eastern bluebird became the most common bird on the farm. 

 Many calves were entered in the County Fair each summer.  Mark went on to college and became an elementary teacher, though still involved in the dairying operation. 

 On August 6, 1977, Mark married Diane Rund and they bought a ten acre farm west of Fergus.  Because the teaching income was quite meager, Bluebird Gardens got its start in 1978.  On a six acre field (with three acres under water), armed with a Troy Bilt tiller, a Gardenway cart and a Ford Pinto, the vegetable business began. The picture above shows Mark and Scooter "selling" vegetables. 

At that time, most families had their own garden and cars drove past their little stand on West Lincoln Avenue in Fergus Falls.  Armed with sheer determination, the couple continued the vegetable business along with teaching.  In 1982, Mark and Diane began to purchase his parents' farm.  Initially, Mark and Diane milked cows with Mark's parents, along with the vegetable business and teaching.  It was at that time the vegetable business acquired the name Bluebird Gardens, in tribute to the bluebirds on the farm.

Mark's dad was determined the vegetables would go and the cows would stay.  But he didn't win that battle and in 1986, the cows left and the farm was then dedicated to vegetables.  The business slowly grew and Diane sold the vegetables from one stand in Fergus.

In 2002, Bluebird Gardens took on the self-serve idea and five self-serve stands were started in the area.  This allowed much more accessibility for our customers and allowed Bluebird Gardens to grow.  In 2008, full service was once again offered at the stands with the help of Mesa stewards and interns.