About our Farm Family
Lara and Dan met in 2016 and quickly bonded over farming, food, and the pursuit of a sustainable lifestyle. One of our early ‘dates’ was finishing up a project on our farm. We were married in June of 2018 and our precious daughter Addie joined us in December of 2020.
We love our farm lifestyle. We are so grateful that we can grow food for not only ourselves but our surrounding community! We are grateful that Addie has wide open spaces to run around and grow up in.
We love our colleague farmers and supporting their businesses as well as other local businesses. We strongly believe in trying to keep as many dollars local as possible. This helps keep our communities strong and helps keep rural America strong.
Our goal with Cedar Crate Farm is to produce the highest quality produce in the area using sustainable methods. We believe that through the use of cover crops, companion planting and crop rotations there is little need for chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or fungicides of any kind to produce healthy, wholesome produce. Cover crops are amazing tools that they attract beneficial insects, scavenge nutrients from the air and soil to make ready for next seasons produce. They also help reduce or eliminate erosion and help establish healthy, living soil. Companion planting helps synergize the strengths and weaknesses of various produce and crop rotations, and ensure diseases that may be present don't affect future crops. By combining these strategies we seek to minimize or eliminate any need for chemicals and fertilizer and let nature do its work for us.
Food is fundamental, we all need it to survive. It's our belief that food should be high quality, local, and sustainable. It needn't be overly dressed up or processed to taste good. That food should come from a farmer you know, one who will encourage you to visit their farm for a tour!
Cover crops
Cover crops are one of our favorite sustainable tools to use. A cover crop is a plant species or mixture of plant species that are planted without the intention of harvesting them. Instead they are used for their beneficial properties such as adding biomass back to the soil, attracting beneficial insects, or even adding some nutrients back to the soil!
The image to the left is an example of one of the cover crop mixes we use. The mixture includes tillage radish, kale, clover and Sudan grass. The tillage radish (bottom left), helps break up compacted soil and the clover (bottom right) fixates nitrogen from the air into the soil.
companion planting and crop rotation
Did you know different plants can help repel bugs or pests when planted near each other? For example, one of the biggest pests to vine crops, cucumbers in particular, is the cucumber beetle but cucumber beetles don’t like to be near radish so we plant radishes close to our cucumbers. Thus, the cucumber beetle pressure is reduced or eliminated without the need for sprays. This strategy is called companion planting. We intentionally plant all of our produce in this manner.
Additionally, we rotate our crops to reduce disease pressure and help balance soil nutrients. For example, peas and beans fix a small amount of nitrogen from the air while corn consumes a large amount of nitrogen to grow. Thus, we make sure that where we planted corn one year, we follow with peas or beans the next year to help offset the nitrogen imbalance.
Varieties selected for flavor
Our seeds are selected for flavor first! Nearly all of the produce you find in the supermarket are varieties that are chosen for the ability to be shipped and their shelf life. Unfortunately, the side effect of this is lost flavor. That’s why we always select our seeds that have the best flavor!
The image to the left is of our Carmen sweet peppers. They are one of the sweetest peppers we’ve found; almost like candy!