Behind The Scenes: CSA Edition
I think one of the reasons many folks enjoy our newsletter is that we go behind the scenes on certain aspects of our farm operation. One area we’ve never really gone behind the scenes on is our CSA Farm Share program. People have written entire books on Community Support Agriculture so it will be nigh impossible to condense that down into a digestible newsletter but this will get us started.
To put it succinctly: planning and executing a successful CSA program is extremely complicated. We’ll break it down into some easy to think about categories that will shed some light on the inner workings of our CSA.
I love the contrast here between the orange carrots and their green tops set against the charcoal colored soil.
Type of CSA Matters
Did you know there are tons of different types of CSAs? Everything from the traditional farmer choice CSA to our totally customizable CSA is possible. We chose a customizable CSA because we know that almost everyone has that one vegetable they just don’t care for. And even if you do like every vegetable you might get tired of a vegetable or have too much of it stocked up in your fridge. We want our CSA members to get the produce they want, need and like week after week to minimize the amount that goes unused.
Customization Needs Software
Running a totally customizable CSA, in our opinion, requires software to handle the logistics. Imagine taking 100 different orders every week, harvesting for the changing quantities of produce per CSA member requests, and packing 100 different shares every week while also juggling members vacations, missed share pickups, and all of the other things that come up during our busy lives. We decided that software could be the solution to all of this and we now use GrownBy for our CSA.
GrownBy handles all the ordering, label printing, and rescheduling things that come up during the season. All I have to do is put in an estimate of what I think we’ll have available, give our CSA members a day or two to customize their share, and then GrownBy prints out a list of what I need to harvest AND generates labels for us so we can pack 100 shares where no two are the same. On top of that, GrownBy offers the ability for you to change your pickup location and claim vacation days if you’re going to miss a pickup.
GrownBy is our trusty farmer-owned CSA Software.
Deciding What To Plant
I think this is a case where constant iteration has made what is a complex system into something very manageable. Through a combination of record keeping on harvest dates and totals, survey responses, and interaction with our CSA members we have a good feel for the crops people want and in what quantities. Couple that with building slowly starting with 8 CSA members back in 2015 (up to 100 now) we’ve been able to refine and iterate on our crop planting so we’re growing the crops our CSA members want.
Marketing Our CSA
This amounts to telling people about our CSA and how it can make their lives better. I’m not a salesperson by nature: I don’t feel comfortable being pushy, I’m honest, and I genuinely care that people feel like the CSA is valuable to their life. So when we talk about our CSA we talk about it in a way that highlights the positive ways our CSA has impact our CSA Members lives and we try to help potential new CSA members “self select” so that the new members we get have a high chance of enjoying the CSA.
The truth is that CSA is not for everyone. If you know that you don’t enjoy cooking at home and have no interest in learning how then a CSA share is probably not for you. If you’re gone regularly during the growing season on vacation and away from a kitchen then CSA probably isn’t for you. If you’re not willing to learn new recipes, cooking techniques or ways to prepare and eat vegetables then CSA is probably not for you.
Just a small sample of all the wonderful produce we grow.
A Sneak Peak into a CSA Week
Assuming all of the above goes well then we can jump into what the week of the CSA looks like from the farmers perspective. Early in the week (Monday or Tuesday) we do a visual assessment of our crops so we can make an estimate on what will be available for that weeks CSA. Once we have our estimate we add that information to our inventory list in GrownBy, our CSA software. Then, an email is sent out automatically to all CSA members reminding them that it’s time to customize their CSA share. Our CSA members use GrownBy to craft the perfect share before the share customization deadline.
Once the deadline hits we have a concrete list of exactly what we need to fill the CSA shares for that week. We then create a harvest list and head out to the field with our Farm Hands to bring in the harvest. This happens the day before you receive your CSA. Then, on CSA day we print out labels for all of our CSA members and setup our CSA packing station and get to work packing your shares. It’s a tight deadline: we pack all 100 CSA shares the morning of the delivery day but with the help of our Farm Hands and our CSA software we’re able to accomplish this with relative ease.
So there’s a little glimpse into the behind the scenes of our CSA. Is there something we missed or something you’d like to know more about? Drop us a line in the comments below or reach out!
What’s in Store for 2025
2025 is here and in about a month we’ll be starting the first seeds of the season. As we’ve gained experience we’ve settled into a bit of a pattern and the year to year changes don’t always feel as drastic as they used to. Here’s what we’re looking forward to in 2025 and what we’ll be switching up or changing to improve our farm.
New Farm Manager position. We’re excited to announce that we’re planning to hire a Farm Manager position for this season. Now that our family has grown we’re recognizing that for both health of the family and the farm that it makes sense for Lara to take a step back in the summer. Lara had essentially been fulfilling this duty from June - August: making sure the daily task list got done on time and in accordance with our quality standards. But as the farm grew we now need this role fulfilled in May, September & October as well.
New Scallion, Broccoli, Cabbage, Snap Pea Varieties. We switch up some varieties almost every year. Usually if we feel a crop under performs or we notice that it doesn’t have the disease and/or pest resistance we look for. This year, we’re trying a new purple scallion that we’re really excited about. Green Onions/Scallions have been a hit so expanding on this made sense to us. In both the broccoli and red cabbage in particular we were unhappy with the disease resistance from last years varieties so we’re switching these up and we’ll see how it goes. We also want to grow more snap peas so we’ve added an early variety and another mid season variety. We’re hoping for TONS of peas this season!
Dropping A Few Crops. It’s always hard to stop growing a crop. With everything we grow we’ve heard from at least one customer that they love the crop and we hate to disappoint. But, the crops we’re dropping are incredibly unpopular and/or labor intense to grow OR have unsuitable replacement variety options. Crops we’re dropping this year include daikon radish, arugula, and french breakfast radish.
Entry Level Harvester positions. We’re adding a new entry level position where the only duty will be harvesting some of the more tedious crops to harvest like green beans, peas, & strawberries. We see this as a great opportunity for a high school aged person to get some on the job experience. We envision having a small harvester crew of 3-6 people who would work morning to harvest crops in season.
Self-Serve Farm Stand. We’re going to test out a self-serve farm stand this season to see how it goes. It will be pretty straightforward: we’ll have a small stand in the shade at the end of our driveway that’s stocked daily with fresh produce from our farm. We’re a little skeptical that this will work since our farm is located on a gravel road and is located 30 minutes from any larger city. Still, we’ve heard from enough neighbors and through our Facebook/Instagram that we think this is worth trying.
New Winter Tunnel. We’re planning to construct a new “winter” tunnel sometime in the next 1-2 years. We’ve got an application in with the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) for one of their programs that can help with the cost of constructing the tunnel and depending on how it goes construction could start as early as spring 2025. This tunnel will be designed for winter growing in mind and will be equipped with a double layer of greenhouse plastic for better r-value, a heater, and passive ventilation. We have very high demand for winter crops like lettuce, spinach, green onions and more and for most of these crops it’s just a little too risky to attempt to grow them without supplemental heating for the coldest nights.
My favorite photo from 2024: our tunnel tomatoes after a pruning session. Look at all those tomatoes!
2024: Poignant Photos From a Transformative Year
As I revel in the New Year I am called to reflect on the previous year. 2024 marked a year of growth, unprecedented hardship, unprecedented gratitude and excitement for the future. We made some huge changes to our farm which felt very scary but ultimately were some of the best decisions we’ve made. Join me as I reflect on 2024 through photos and words.
We Bought A Cargo Van!
One of the biggest changes we’ve made on our farm was the decision to drop our Tuesday CSA Delivery & Farmers Market to allow a better work-life balance. That decision turned out to be amazing for our farm and family: we had better work-life balance and more flexible time on the farm to focus on crop care.
Since we were now delivering 100 CSA shares in a single day along with our market inventory and wholesale orders we needed more cargo space. We purchased this van and put some money towards wrapping the van with our name, website, and motto. We love the van, the flexibility it offers and the additional cargo space!
Off To A Good Start
Our early season crops were absolutely amazing! We had beautiful carrots, broccolini, green onions, radish and of course lettuce available in May and early June.
It felt like the season was getting off to a great start. We were even lucky enough to witness the aurora borealis. It was magical and inspirational but then…
Unprecedented Rain, Flooding & Hail
In May - early July we received more rain than any point previously recorded. We had massive flooding, crop losses, delayed or missed plantings, increased disease pressure and to cap it all off on June 22nd a freak hailstorm absolutely decimated our field tomatoes & peas and caused significant damage to other crops. We were getting 2”-3” rains every 2-3 days. It was almost impossible to get our field work done.
I was broken. Hopeless. Looking for a city job. I thought it was all over…
Our Community Stepped Up
Just when we thought it was all over our CSA community and the greater Mankato community stepped up and helped out. We had so many CSA members offer to forgo their CSA share or reduce it’s size to help us out. We had community members who saw our photos on Facebook and Instagram show up to the market and literally bought everything we had brought. We had our friends over at the Wooden Spoon and South Central MN Food Recovery who bought hundreds of pounds of seconds, damaged crops, and the rare surplus crops this year. We are so grateful to be a part of this wonderful community.
Things Got Better
The rain finally stopped in July and things just got better from there. The crops that survived the flooding and hail did well. Especially our tunnel tomatoes! Our new day neutral strawberries were delicious and a huge hit! We’re doubling the amount we’re planting in 2025. We had a long streak of our busiest markets ever and our wonderful staff did an awesome job getting things harvested, washed and packed for market, CSA and wholesale!
We Got Away From The Farm
We always take a family vacation in early August and despite the hardship this year we still took our vacation. It was great: Addie and I went fishing and boating and we roasted marshmallows over the fire, slept in a tent, played in the water and went out for ice cream!
We Were on the Cover of Agriculture Magazine!
This was one of my favorites from this year. We were on the cover and had an article written about us in Agriculture Magazine - a publication sent to Minnesota Farmers Union members.
The article described our farm and the sort of “boots on the ground revolutionaries” our farming and food system needs. We’re proud, honored, and thankful to be a part of this.
p.s. - You should consider becoming a Minnesota Farmers Union member. You don’t need to be a farmer to be a member and they do a good job of advocating for farms like ours.
Our Staff Are the Best
We had our annual staff appreciation supper late in the season and this year we were even more appreciative of our staff than ever before. They all stepped up and came to the farm with a great attitude despite the difficult situation the farm was in.
Their smiling faces greeted you at the Farmers Market and when you picked up your CSA share. We’re so lucky to have great staff here!
Our Farm and Family Grows in 2025
We can hardly wait to welcome baby Zimmerli to our family this month! Addie is already practicing putting diapers on some of her stuffed animals and babies in anticipation of becoming the best big sister ever.
Our farm will grow too. Not just vegetables but people too! We’ll be adding a farm manager position and expanding our farm crew to keep up with the produce that this little farm grows.
Thank you for being with us in 2024 and we can’t wait to share 2025 with you!
Happy New Year!
What do you do in winter?
“What do you do in winter?” It’s a common question I get this time of year and the answer is a lot! It’s true that winter is a much slower time of year for us here on the farm but we stay pretty darn busy. Especially now as our winter offerings have expanded. In this weeks farm update I’ll go through what we do here on the farm each winter season.
A couple seed catalogs!
Planning!
I'm a planner and I love putting together a good plan and look forward to executing the plan each season. The biggest and most important piece of the planning work I do is our crop plan. We grow over 90 varieties of produce and each year I go through each variety and assess if it's meeting our expectations for flavor, consistency, yield, and overall appeal. Some things get removed entirely from our crop plan (daikon radish, I'm looking at YOU). Others get replaced with a different variety. I also look at the timing of our successions and ask myself if I think we can grow something earlier or later? Did we run out of something consistently? I tweak our planting dates and quantities accordingly.
We also look at our financials and put together our financial plan for the year so we have an idea of how much we need to grow and how much help we need to make it happen. Once the financial plan is done we work on our plan for our farm crew for the summer.
The first photo is a couple of our seed catalogs from a couple years ago. There are hundreds of varieties to consider which seems like a lot but I love pouring over the catalog and thinking about what's possible and what you all would love to see us grow. The second photo as a screen grab of part of our crop plan. The blue bars represent the "off season", the thin grey bar represents when the crop is in the ground but not ready for harvest, and the thick grey bard is the harvest window for the crop.
Seed catalogs!
Winter Crops!
We've been dabbling with winter growing for the past 3-4 seasons as we've built out tunnels and other infrastructure on our farm to allow for some degree of year round growing. The crop care is A LOT less demanding in the winter. We generally don't have to deal with weeds in the winter and most of the work for our winter crops is done in the late fall.
Spinach is our main winter crop. It's incredibly cold hardy surviving temperatures well below zero. It's also incredibly delicious in the winter as the plant creates more sugars to help it deal with the cold temps. We're harvesting, washing, packing and selling spinach for most of the winter!
Microgreens! Micros are a relatively new crop for us but they've been a big hit. We grow these completely indoors in our heated pack shed so we have a continual supply of them year round.
Storage Crops: Carrots, Beets, Potatoes, Cabbage! These crops are stored in our walk-in cooler at optimal conditions allowing them to be stored well into the winter.
Experimental Winter Crops: Lettuce, Green Onions, Bok Choy, Mizuna, Tat Soi, Celery, Komatsuna and Kale. We're testing these crops out this year trying to understand what the extremes are for these crops.
The winter tunnel in early fall.
We slow down.
There's no two ways about it; there just isn't as much work to do in the winter. That's ok. We work REALLY hard from May-October to bring fresh, sustainable, delicious, produce to you and so we're ok with slowing down a bit during the winter.
We are especially looking forward to really slowing down once baby number 2 arrives in January. We'll soak up new baby snuggles and give Addie extra attention. There may be more daddy-daughter donut days in the future!
Daddy-daughter time!
Hobbies!
Winter is time for hobbies. Two of my biggest hobbies are woodworking and video games. Woodworking for me is both a creative outlet but also another way to keep moving in the winter. I like to build furniture and larger pieces but dabble in smaller work from time to time.
Video games are a bit of a vestige of my younger self and how I stay connected to some life long friends. I find them to be relaxing. It's fun to play a video game where at the end of the day your choices within the video game don't really matter. A welcome reprieve from small business ownership where your choices DO matter monumentally.
My latest hobby project - solid white oak kitchen chairs
The Great Garlic Mulching of 2024
Pretending I’m thrilled to be itchy! All kidding aside it was a beautiful day to be outside taking care of a crop we love!
Garlic Mulching either marks the beginning of next season or the end of the current season. I’m not sure which. This year, it was the absolute last outdoor field project we’ll do this year. It’s also the capstone to planting garlic which is the first crop we plant with intent to harvest in 2025. Either way, it’s a big project and I’m happy that it’s done. Here’s why and how we mulch our garlic.
Mulching garlic is a way to provide some extra thermal protection to the garlic cloves we planted just a few weeks ago. We all have experienced how climate change is making extremes more extreme and temperature fluctuations seem to roller coaster all over the place these days. Mulch helps insulate the garlic and provides some thermal regulation from the extremes we experience.
We have heard that it’s possible to grow garlic without mulching and it’s something we’ve considered but ultimately have decided that the mulch is too beneficial to not use. For us, the main additional benefits include weed suppression, moisture regulation, and the addition of more organic matter. Weed suppression is kind of a no brainer: - the less weeds our garlic has to compete with the better it grows and the less time we need to spend hand weeding it. Mulch also helps regulate and retain moisture which is particularly important in dry years. The mulch helps keep the moisture in the soil and greatly slows down how fast the soil dries out. Finally, the additional organic matter is beneficial to our soil. The vast multitudes of soil microbes feed on soil organic matter. The more organic matter we can feed them the better as they help improve our soil by adding nutrients, improving water infiltration, and reducing runoff. As we like to say: healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people.
We use either straw mulch from wheat or oats or cornstalk mulch from baled cornstalks for our mulching material. This year it took us about 40 small square bales to cover our garlic plot in about 4” to 6” of mulch. It’s a pretty labor intensive process. The small square bales we use are about 40# each and they are all torn apart and spread by hand. We stage the bales over the garlic plot and then tear them apart and spread them out. It’s slow, itchy, and tedious work but it’s worth it to keep our wonderful garlic tucked in for winter.
Garlic has become a very important crop for us and it’s something our CSA members look forward to every year. Not only is garlic delicious but it’s also very healthy including some evidence that it can help lower cancer risk and has anti-inflammatory properties among many others. Check out this article from the Cleveland Clinic regarding the health benefits of garlic.
Ok! That’s the last blog post on garlic for a little while. We’re excited to continue to offer this pantry staple to our CSA Members, our online store and our farmers market stand!
The finished product!
Garlic Planting 2024
Garlic is the first crop we’re planting for our 2025 season and will be one of the very first crops to pop up in bright green rows early next spring. We’ll walk you through why we plant garlic in the fall, how we plant it, and why we’re excited to continue to offer garlic as part of our CSA and farmers market offerings.
Garlic emerging from it’s mulch in mid-April.
So why do we plant garlic in the fall?
Planting garlic in the fall gives us a number of benefits. First, and most importantly, it improves the average size of the garlic bulbs by around 30%. We frequently get comments about how large our garlic is and planting garlic in the fall is one reason for the large bulbs. Second, it’s nice to check something off our planting list ahead of time. The spring is an extremely busy time of year for us and the fluctuations in the weather can have a huge impact on our farm and the ability to plant things on schedule. Having garlic planted going into the season helps reduce that workload and reduce the risk that we might not get a garlic crop. Finally, we’re less busy in the second half of October which allows us to get this job done without worrying about what other jobs need to be done on the farm.
Garlic cloves ready to plant.
How we plant garlic.
Prep The Soil We prep the soil by preceding the garlic with a cover crop. About a month before we want to plant prepare the soil by spreading fertilizer and then incorporating the fertilizer with our tiller. The tiller has several important functions in that it incorporated the fertilizer into the soil, chops up and incorporates residue from cover crops, and leaves the soil light and airy so that we can plant the cloves easily.
Mark Our Rows We use a “dibbler” attachment for our wheel hoe to mark both where the rows of garlic should be and where each individual clove should be.
Plant! It’s a slow process but we plant each clove of garlic individually. This is because the orientation of the clove is important. The root side of the clove must go down for optimal growth.
Mulch! Before deep winter sets in we apply a layer of mulch to our garlic. We typically use straw or corn stover to apply around 4-6” of mulch. Mulching our garlic helps protect the garlic from extreme temperature swings and acts as a weed barrier.
These straw bales will be evenly spread in a 4-6” layer to mulch our garlic.
Why we’re excited about garlic!
Garlic is an important crop for our small scale farmers market and CSA farm. Not only is garlic absolutely delicious in so many applications it’s also really good for you. Don’t take our word for it, check out this blog post from Cleveland Clinic regarding the health benefits of garlic. Garlic can help with everything from helping to prevent some forms of cancer to anti-inflammatory to managing blood pressure.
We do believe that healthy soil grows healthy food that when consumed makes for healthy people.
Our storage & organization hack!
One of the least glamorous but most important jobs on the farm in the fall is cleanup, storage, & organization. It’s a huge undertaking every fall but everything we’re able to do now is time saved in the spring and less wear and tear on our equipment, supplies & tools.
Fun fact: storage & organization is my jam. I love to have everything neat & tidy and for everything to have a home so that I always know where something is. But with the hustle and bustle of farm life during the midst of the season things get jumbled and cluttered. The best example of this is with our landscape fabric.
Landscape fabric is a tool we use a lot on our farm but it’s one that can be difficult to manage in storage. You see, we have a variety of crops that we grow in landscape fabric that have different spacing requirements which means that we have landscape fabric with different hole patterns for different crops. Nothing is more frustrating than grabbing a run of landscape fabric and bringing it down to the field only to realize the spacing isn’t correct for the crop you’re planting.
We developed a labeling system but we still had piles of landscape fabric in random locations in our storage shed so we decided to solve that problem. We built some shelving out of scrap lumber on the farm and built these great shelves. Then, we went through all of our runs of landscape fabric and sorted them into their respective hole spacing. The result tickles my brain in all the right ways: a neat, organized landscape fabric area in our storage shed where anyone could quickly figure out what’s what.
It feels good to have this project checked off the list and to have this system in place for seasons to come!
Seeding, Weeding and Thanksgiving Shares!
Wow! Where did May go?! It’s been a busy month here on the farm and we’ve been working on a lot of different projects. We’ve also been working on a new holiday share for Thanksgiving. Read on to learn more!
Direct Seeding
Our push seeder with row marker.
Direct seeding refers to planting seeds directly into the field and relying on the soil and rain to germinate said seeds. This is opposed to transplanting which is where we plant a seed we started indoors in a more controlled environment. More on that below.
Unsurprisingly, May is by far the busiest month for seeding for us. This is for a couple reasons. First, we utilize succession planting so that we have a steady supply of vegetables throughout as much of the season as possible. This means that even though we can plant things like lettuce, spinach and radish in April, we usually have more successions of plantings in May and even June. Additionally, we’re planting some of our warm season loving crops in May which include basically anything that grows on a vine like watermelon, cucumbers and squash as well as sweet corn, beets, carrots and more! These two factors contribute to May being a super busy month for planting.
Transplanting
Brussels sprouts, napa cabbage, herbs and cabbage transplanted into landscape fabric which serves as a weed barrier.
Transplanting is an important part of our crop plan each year. We transplant certain types of vegetables for several reasons. First, starting the seed indoors in a controlled environment gives our seeds the best chance at getting off to a really good start. This is especially important for crops like lettuce and broccoli that have a hard time out competing weeds. Second, it affords us a longer harvest window for crops like peppers and tomatoes which are typically ready later in the season. Indeed, some crops like peppers would not produce anything at all if it weren’t for starting indoors. Finally, we because we are planting in a controlled environment we can achieve extremely high germination rates meaning we waste less seeds.
The biggest tradeoff for transplanting is that it’s much more labor intensive. This balances out some with reduced labor from weeding but it is still a factor. Other tradeoffs include increased cost since we need trays to hold the plants, growing medium, and a place to put the plants after they’ve germinated but before they’re ready to be planted outside.
Our transplant tunnel which holds our transplants until they’re ready to be transplanted outside.
May is a big transplanting month as well. We transplanted several successions of lettuce and broccoli as well as cabbage, brussels sprouts, napa cabbage, peppers, eggplant and tomatoes. I haven’t done the exact math but it’s well over 3000 transplants so far this year! Crazy!
Weeding
Weeds are always an problem that we face on our farm. Because of the shortage of rainfall in the first half of May the weed pressure was pretty light. However, the second half of May produced adequate rainfall and the weeds sprung up as fast as our crops did! We’ve been hard at work keeping the weeds at bay using a variety of cultivation tools including our wheel hoe, walk behind tractor, long and short handled hoes and as a last resort good old fashioned pulling weeds by hand.
Our walk behind tractor with finger weeders. The yellow fingers flick small weeds out of the rows without damaging well established plants.
We’ve talked about our walk behind tractor before but it’s worth bringing up again because of the impact it’s have on our farm. We are already reducing weed pressure by utilizing the walk behind tractor and, as a bonus, it’s easier on our bodies as well.
Chicken and Pasture Update
Our chickens are acclimating really well to their new co-op and pasture based life. Admittedly, it took some time and training for the chickens to realize there’s plenty to eat in the pasture and for them to get used to the automatic door on their chicken coop but now that they’ve learned their new setup they are looking healthier than ever and laying TONS of eggs!
Our chickens LOVE the grass!
Our pasture that we seeded in early May is also looking really, really good. The field has gone from a bare field to a sea of green. The rainfall in the later part of May really helped the pasture grow quickly and we think that in a month or so that we will be able to move our chickens onto the new pasture where there’s plenty of clover, grass, bugs and more for them to eat. We feel really good about converting convention farmland into perennial pasture!
Our pasture is GREEN! Now it just needs to get big.
You might be wondering where our chickens are if our new pasture isn’t established yet. The answer is that we have around an acre of CRP land between our produce field and a drainage ditch that runs along the township road. This is where our chickens are currently and although the CRP land isn’t 100% ideal it’s a lot better than being confined into a chicken barn!
Holiday Shares
And now for the most exciting news; we are raising turkeys for a special, one time holiday shares that will be a nearly complete meal for your Thanksgiving gathering! This share will include one pasture raised turkey that we estimate will be between 12 and 18lbs, potatoes, carrots, beets, winter squash, lettuce, garlic, carrots, and more. Plus, this share will be fully customizable so you can tweak your quantities to get the perfect amount for your gathering. These shares will be delivered to your residence the Saturday before Thanksgiving or available to pick up on the farm. To sign up for your share today visit this link: https://www.harvie.farm/farm/cedar-crate-farm/signup
Mmmmm turkey!
Spring has sprung! Here's what's happening on the farm!
Wow! It’s hard to believe it’s the end of April already but here we are. It’s been a busy month on the farm and we’ve been tackling a variety of projects around here. Here’s what we’ve been up to this Month.
Planting
Caitlyn helped us get the first potatoes and green onions planted back in early April. This is the earliest we’ve planted potatoes since our farm started! We planted three kinds of potatoes for you this season including our popular and beautiful pink fingerling potato, our early red potatoes and our “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” white potatoes.
Dan was also able to start direct seeding some of our early season crops including radishes, arugula, spinach, lettuce, kale and more. New this year are hakurei turnips which are also known as salad turnips. We hope this will spice up our early season offerings.
Transplanting into the Tunnels
We’ve also been hard at work transplanting crops into our 3 caterpillar tunnels. We’ve transplanted our first two plantings** of lettuce and kohlrabi. We’ve also direct seeded lettuce, cilantro, peas, spinach, carrots and beets into our tunnels.
Setting Up Irrigation
No doubt about it; it’s been dry this April. We’re lucky to have a quick recharging well and excellent equipment for irrigating our fields. A lot of farmers are concerned that this season will be a season of drought. We are too. Luckily, we made an investment into some irrigation infrastructure that will allow us to water the majority of our crops in the event of drought.
Setting up irrigation is a bit like building with Legos and Dan has tons of experience building with Legos. We have several components of our irrigation system including our mainline which runs from our hydrant the length of our farm. From this mainline we’re able to connect in both drip irrigation and overhead irrigation.
The Chicken Coop
This has been a project that has languished this year but we’re happy to share with you that it’s nearly completed. As we mentioned in our last blog post this coop has several improvements over our last coop the biggest of which is that it’s on wheels allowing us to easily move it around our pasture!
Speaking of pasture, Dan also seeded our pasture. We are converting roughly 2 acres of what had been corn and soybean rotation for decades into permanent pasture for our chickens and whatever future livestock we decide to add. This was a fairly big project requiring nearly a full day of tractor work. First, Dan had to work the rough cornstalk ground with a small tractor mounted field cultivator. This broke up the large clumps and helped level the ground. Next, Dan spread about 1 ton of fertilizer using our tractor mounted fertilizer spreader. Then, Dan added the pasture mix to the spreader and spread the seeds over the pasture. Finally, Dan took a harrow section and lightly worked the ground one more time which helped get the pasture seeds incorporated into the soil.
March Farm Update
March is a time of excitement on our farm. The snow has mostly melted, the first plants of 2021 have been seeded indoors, we’re finalizing our plans for the 2021 growing season, and getting our equipment ready for another year of growing for you This March has been unique for us. Lara’s maternity leave ended at the end of February and I have begun caring for Addie full time while also trying to keep up with things on the farm. For a first time dad it’s been a little tough but I have been loving the quality time with Addie and I can’t help but think about having her help with all of these farm tasks in the future!
The biggest project we’ve had so far this month is starting our seeds. We have a robust seed starting setup with several key components. The first is our germination chamber which we built with a reclaimed upright freezer, a couple crock pots, a temperature controller and a humidity controller. This keeps the space inside the chamber at a steady 78 degrees Fahrenheit with 95% humidity which are ideal conditions for starting seeds. We have lettuce, thyme, cilantro, oregano, kohlrabi, broccoli, tomatoes, cabbage and peppers all up and we have a goal of transplanting the cold tolerant crops like lettuce and kohlrabi into our tunnel around the first week of April.
You can see the germination chamber in the upper photo with some of our seed starts. Notice the crock pots at the bottom of the chamber that help keep our temperatures consistent. Below is a recent photo of lettuce and cilantro on our grow rack. We hope to transplant the lettuce sometime during the first week of April!
End walls and plastic on the first tunnel back in early March.
Another big project we’ve completed with the help of our farm hand Caitlyn is getting the end walls and plastic over our caterpillar tunnels. This project involved waiting for a very calm day as even a 10mph wind is enough to cause a the large sheets of plastic to blow uncontrollably. This can be difficult in March as the seasons change. It seems we have more windy days than calm days this time of year!
Finally, we’ve begun construction on our new chicken coop! We’re making some improvements over the first chicken coop we built including building the coop on the frame of a trailer so that we can easily move the coop to fresh pasture. Unfortunately, the skids on our last coop did not work well. It was very difficult to move with the tractor and we ultimately left it in one place. Other improvements include a mesh floor so that the chicken poop will fall onto our pasture fertilizing it and keeping the chickens clean! We’re hoping to finish building the coop in the next 2 weeks. Stay tuned to Facebook for more pictures!
What's happening on the farm in February?
There's no doubt about it: during the winter there are way less "Instagramable" moments on the farm but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy! Read on to see what we've been up to this winter.
Baby Addie
Our precious baby Addie was born on December 22nd in 2020 and we've just been loving every minute with her. She's growing so fast and somehow is getting cuter every single day. Addie is keeping us very busy and we're so lucky to have this slow time of year to spend with her
Crop Planning & Seed Order
We spent a lot of time updating and adjusting our crop plan for this season. We've added two new 16' by 100' tunnels to our farm which more than quadruples the amount of tunnel growing we will be doing this season. As such, we had to develop a plan for which crops will go into those tunnels and which crops will be planted after the previous crop is harvested. We keep track of all of this using Google Calendar and Google Sheets that are updated yearly.
Equipment and Supply Orders
We have been ordering the necessary supplies and equipment to make our 2021 season a success. One of the things we're most excited about is our new walk behind tractor and cultivation setup. This tool will help us reduce the amount of hand weeding we have to do on our farm saving us time and our backs! Check out this Youtube video below:
We've also ordered components for an irrigation system since we finally have a well on our farm. This system includes both drip irrigation and overhead irrigation. We use both forms of irrigation on our farm in strategic ways to enhance the quality of our produce. Other supplies we've ordered include tomato stakes, packaging materials, and fertilizer.
Marketing
We've also been hard at work getting our CSA shares marketed and sold. We increased our total shares from 50 up to 80 this year and have about 25 left to sell. They're going really fast this year so if you have a friend or neighbor that's considering signup up, they should do it soon!
We're excited to be starting plants in just a few weeks. It will finally feel like winter is coming to an end and that spring will be here soon! We love the slower pace of winter but we can't wait to get our hands dirty again!
Thank you for supporting our farm this season!
June Farm Update: Weeding, Planting, and Pack Shed Progress!!
Wow! Where does the time go? We’ve been so busy on the farm planting, weeding, and setting things up for our season that time just seems to go by so fast. May and June are very critical months of the year on our farm. The work we do now helps ensure our season is successful. We are usually juggling multiple important farm tasks such as weeding, planting, and setting up infrastructure and each task usually has a set of weather conditions that work best.
Take weeding for example. We have multiple tools and strategies to deal with the inevitable weeds including flame weeding, plastic mulch, frequent shallow cultivation and hand weeding. Our flame weeder works best when the weeds are very small and when the wind speed is less than 15 mph. It’s been fairly windy this spring so we haven’t been able to flame weed as much as we like. Cultivation requires dry ground and for the most part we have had that. By killing weeds with cultivation and flame weeding now gives our crops a chance to establish themselves and out compete future weeds. Furthermore, by killing weeds now we ensure that the weeds don’t reproduce and add even more weeds to our fields.
Planting is another very important task for obvious reasons. There’s a lot of thought that goes into when we plant crops, where we plant crops both in relation to what it’s planted next to this year and what was planted in that spot last year. We keep a Google Calendar of our planting dates to help make sense of everything and compare year to year.
Our new pack shed is also coming a long nicely. Our posts are set, the rafters are up and they are beginning the work that will go into the floor including setting drains, raising the grade and installing pex tubing for our heating system. We expect the shed to be finished around mid July and hope to start using it then as well as it will greatly improve our farm efficiency.
Early May Farm Update!
It’s been a busy couple of weeks here on the farm. From seeding to building and planning we have some updates we’re excited to share with everyone. This time of year, especially this year, is a nice return to normal for us. With how crazy life seems when you tune into the news, we feel really lucky to have at least some part of our life seem like normal. Getting our hands in the dirt and seeing our seeds sprout to life is comforting in these uncomfortable times.
Seeding
We already posted about how we started planting our seeds about two weeks ago but this week we did our second round of seeding. Unlike conventional corn and soybean farms who usually plant once a year in the spring, we are continuously planting all season long to keep a steady supply of produce available in our CSA shares, Farm Stand, and farmers market. In fact, the last seeds we plant each year are usually in September! To be fair, we are definitely a lot more busy seeding in the spring and the amount of planting we do is certainly less during the summer.
Almost all of the first seeds we’ve planted are up and overall things look pretty great! We’ve got excellent stands of peas, carrots, lettuce, arugula, beets, cilantro, spinach, and kohlrabi. We’ve even got some sweet corn up (though it might not survive the frost). We haven’t planted any warm season crops like cucumbers, peppers or watermelon yet but they will be planted in the next 1-2 weeks.
Building
Many of you know that we sold our house in March this year which also means that we sold our washing and storage building (our old garage) and that our new facility is not done yet. Since we need somewhere to store our veggies between now and when our new pack shed is done, we’ve had to construct a new temporary walk-in cooler which is well under way. We finally have power at our farm site and within the next few weeks we should have running water and have begun construction on our new pack shed. We can’t wait!
The frame of our walk-in cooler.
Weather
You can’t be a farmer, or a Minnesotan for that matter, without talking about the weather. Overall, the weather has been pretty great (with a few exceptions) this spring. We’ve had fairly warm temperatures overall and we’ve never been able to plant as early as we did this year. That said, the weather has not been without it’s challenges. We’ve had days where it’s been so windy that we were unable to do any work in the field and the plastic on our tunnel sustained some damage. We were able to repair the plastic but it is very likely that we will need to replace it by the end of this season.
In addition, it’s been pretty dry this spring. We could really use a good shot of rain in the neighborhood of one to two inches of rain. The rain is necessary to get our seeds to sprout and to make sure our transplanted crops get well established. Finally, and most damaging of all, the multiple freezing nights this weekend are damaging our tomatoes and peppers which are currently in our tunnel. It’s actually so cold that even the tunnel is not enough protection for them. We’ll see where we turn out after this cold, but it’s likely we’ll have to purchase new plants (if possible - many farms are sold out) or have our tomato and pepper crop be delayed by a few weeks. We’ll keep you posted on how we turn out.
Broiler chickens!
Lara and I miss raising livestock (we had to sell our flock of laying hens to facilitate our move) so, for a couple of reasons, we’ve decided to raise around 100 broiler chickens (meat chickens). We are very interested in incorporating livestock into our operation and broiler chickens are a relatively low cost way to get started. We are also able to process up to 1000 chickens on our farm without inspection from the department of ag and with all the scary stuff in the news about meat packing plants closing, we thought we’d do our part to help provide healthy, sustainable meat to our community.
We will be ordering our flock for the early part of August with an anticipated processing date of late September. We’ll be taking pre-orders for our birds on our website with a deposit of $5/bird. We will butcher the birds for you on our farm and they can be picked up at the Mankato Farmers Market, with your CSA, or on the farm. We’ll also show you how to cook them perfectly every time whether in the oven or on the grill and we’ll show you how to get the most out of every bird. Lara and I are able to turn one chicken into nearly a weeks worth of meals.
An Exciting Time of Year: Planting 2020!
We couldn’t have asked for better weather this past week. With warm temperatures, sunny skies, and a nice breeze we planted the first round of our direct seeded crops this week. As an added bonus, we started planted about two weeks earlier than the past couple seasons. Hopefully, that translates into some of your favorites being available earlier in the season! To cap it all off, the week ended with a little over a half inch of rain which is the perfect amount to get our recently planted seeds to sprout.
Unloading one of our fertilizer super sacks.
Our farm direct seeds most of our crops. For those of you unfamiliar, direct seeding refers to planting the seed directly into the ground. The alternative would be to start plants in a greenhouse, indoors, or high tunnel using seed trays and potting mix and transplant them into the ground (we do some of this as well). One of the advantages of direct seeding is that it’s fairly fast compared to transplanting. The disadvantage is that we don’t get that head start that started plants get. This week we direct seeded potatoes, onions, peas, cilantro, radish, arugula, lettuce, spinach, beets, kohlrabi, swiss chard, and sweet corn!
Our Hoss seeder. Simple but effective.
We were also able to pick up our cold tolerant started plants (lettuce, thyme, parsley, cabbage, broccoli) over the weekend. This year, because of our construction projects and move, we outsourced our started plants to our friends at My Minnesota Farmer. We are lucky to have a group of farmers and friends who are willing to help each other out! We’ve already got most of them transplanted into our tunnel!
It’s been a busy week and to cap it all off we got a half inch of rain last night which will help our recently planted seeds to sprout in the coming days. We really couldn’t have asked for better weather.
With all of the craziness going on in the world, things felt like normal here on the farm. This time of year always makes us think of the hope involved in planting a seed. We hope that it doesn’t get too cold or too hot. We hope that it doesn’t get too dry or too wet. We hope that it doesn’t get eaten by insects or wildlife. We think that message of hope is more important now than ever before. And just as our seeds will sprout and bear their fruits despite whatever nature has in store for them, we too will overcome the adversity of this pandemic.
How We're Adapting our Farmers Market Stall and CSA For COVID-19
I’m not sure there’s a single industry out there that hasn’t had to adapt in some way for COVID-19. Farms are no different and we’ve been hard at work listening to webinars, consulting with state officials, and learning from our peers on what the best methods are for mitigating the risk of COVID-19. We’re going to go through the changes we’re making this season.
Farmers Market
Social Distancing: We will be offsetting our market tables about six feet from the front of our stall and tying a rope across our canopy legs to create a physical barrier between us. You’ll still be able to see all of our produce but you won’t be able to touch it before purchase. We will also be marking with chalk 6 foot intervals in front of our stall space so you’ll be able to easily see safe distancing.
Contact-less Payment: We’ve been using Square for years now and have decided to purchase a contact-less payment chip reader. If you have a card with a chip, Apple Pay or Google Pay then we won’t have to touch your card. This will be our preferred method of payment this season.
Online Pre Order: We’ve setup an online Farm Stand we’re you’ll be able to pre-order items each week and pick them up at the market. We recommend scheduling your pickup time for Tuesday or Thursday as they are usually lower traffic days. To sign up visit this link: https://www.harvie.farm/farm-stand/cedar-crate-farm
Hand Washing Station: Our market has invested in several hand washing stations that will be located throughout the market. One will be adjacent to our stall.
Face Masks: Luckily Dan’s mom is a gifted seamstress and made us cloth masks for use this summer. We will be using them at market while that recommendation remains in place.
Sanitizing After Handling Money: Any time we handle cash or touch a shared surface we will sanitize our hands and that surface.
Farm Shares/CSA
There has probably never been a better time to be a member of a farm share. This is a great way to have food security, minimize your exposure, and support small businesses like ours. While our CSA was already very safe we’re taking these additional steps.
Mankato Farmers Market Pickups: We’ll still be packing your produce into crates BUT you won’t be able to take the crate home with you this season. Instead, we ask that you bring a reusable bag and will ask you to pack your share into your own bag. The crates will then be left idle for 1 week before re-use. Current studies suggest the virus does not persist longer than a couple days on surfaces.
Saint Peter Food Co-op Pickups: We will NOT be packing your produce into crates this season. Instead, we will be using wax boxes which we will re-use after they go through an idle period of one week.
In General
Employees and/or family members who are sick will not be working while ill and will follow all CDC and MN Dept of Health guidelines for returning to work. This was true before as well but it’s important to reiterate.
If COVID-19 is contracted by someone on our farm our market sales and CSA drops will pause until the person is recovered while meeting all CDC and MN Dept. Of Health guidelines.
Our existing food safety plan before COVID-19 is also effective for COVID-19. You can read about that from an early blog post here.
Food safety has always been very important to us and it is even more so during this pandemic. We will do everything we can to minimize and eliminate the risk of transferring the virus to protect vulnerable populations. Thank you all for supporting our farm this season!
Our Farm is Here for You
I’ve been really struggling with how to write about how our farm is dealing with the coronavirus. I’ve had no less than 3 different drafts of blog posts that I decided to scrap because they just didn’t feel right.
Really, what we want to say is that we are planning on planting everything we planned on before the coronavirus spread to the United States. We’re planting all the same seeds, in the same or greater quantities than before. We are still planning on constructing our new pack shed. Our farm will carry on this year and how we get our produce to your kitchen is just details.
We are ready, eager and prepared to grow food for you. We are here for you and because of you and we will find a way to make sure you can access our produce.
Thank you all for your support. Stay home, stay healthy and stay safe folks.
Conference Season: What We Learned This Year
We’ve attended a number of conferences this winter including the MOSES Organic Farming Conference, the Sustainable Farming Association Annual Conference, and the Northern Growers Conference. You could say we’re eager to learn and are always looking for ways to innovate on our farm. We’ll go through some of the highlight of what we’ve learned during this winter season and what impacts our knowledge will have on our farm.
Nutrition
One of the most interesting and exciting things that I learned (or really reaffirmed, as I already knew this was true) is that pastured production of broilers yields more nutritious poultry. One talk at the Sustainable Farming Association was able to compare several poultry production systems and even had grant funding to have their poultry analyzed at a nutrition lab. What they found was that pastured poultry on all nutritional metrics measured was significantly more healthy than what the USDA says a standard serving of chicken nutrition is. Vitamin E content was significantly higher, the Omega 3 to Omega 6 fatty acid ratio was significantly lower and so on for everything they tested.
This wasn’t a surprise to me but it' sure is nice to have a study to back up what I know is true. I also imagine this can extend toward not only any pasture meat production of beef, pigs or layers but also to vegetables grown using organic forms of fertilizer such as animal manure and compost. This is a great affirmation for why we do what we do: it’s healthier for you and better for the environment.
You can read the study summary in the MN Dept of Ag Greenbook 2019 under the Livestock Section Page 138: https://www.mda.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/2019-09/greenbook2019.pdf
Diversity
Just like many organizations push for human diversity, diversity of production on farms is extremely important. Many of the talks I’ve gone to involve cover crops (cover crops are crops that are grown to enhance soil quality but are generally not harvested and sold) and most studies conclude that a diversity of species in cover crop mixes yields better results. In addition, diversity on the farm can also include a multitude of crops grown for profit - something we’re already really good at! It can also include incorporating livestock into farming operations. Basically, the more you can do the better off your farm will be!
The image in this section is a photo of some of our cover crops. This particular mix is our fall and winter mix that includes radish (bottom left), clover (bottom right), sudan grass, and kale. We have a summer mix as well that includes things like buckwheat, sun hemp, soy beans, cow peas, sudan grass, and more! We’ll keep experimenting with cover crops and building our soil!
We have a vision of adding more livestock to our farm starting next season. We’re interested in poultry both meat chickens and laying hens, pigs and beef cattle. We likely won’t add all of those at once but we’re excited to incorporate more livestock into our farm.
Early Winter Update and CSA News!
2020 will be a year of changes for our farm. We’ve been hard at work planning for these changes and are hopeful that they will lay the foundation for what we dream our farm to be someday. Read on to see what changes are in store and what we’ve been working on.
Our New Land
If you’ve been following along with our blog posts the past few months you’ll know that we recently purchased 7 acres of land adjacent to our produce field. We intend on building a new pack shed that will house our wash lines, packing tables, and walk-in cooler. We’ve been hard at work on planning this shed, securing bids from local contractors and filling out grant applications to help cover the cost of this project. Of particular note is the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Value Added Grant which, if awarded, would cover up to 25% of our project cost. We’ve spent several months filling out the application and supplying the correct supporting documents. We’re hopeful we will be funded but won’t know until March of this year.
New CSA Software
A spring full share.
We’re excited to announce that we’re partnering with Harvie (https://www.harvie.farm/) to help our CSA members get more out of their CSA membership. We’ll have more details and sign-up live by the end of January though there are several features we wanted to let you know about now.
More Customization Ability - Harvie will allow you to have even more control over your CSA share on a week to week basis. You’ll have the option to customize each share each week to suit your preferences.
Reschedule CSA Pickups - Harvie also lets you easily reschedule a pickup if you’re going to be out of town.
Add more items to your CSA - Harvie also lets you add more beyond what you’d normally get in your CSA. Need extra sweet corn to freeze? Harvie will let you add more based on our availability and it will automatically get added to your share!
Sign up for next year - Harvie also has the ability to auto-renew your CSA membership so you don’t have to wait for our email next season.
We hope that you’ll find that Harvie improves your CSA experience and we will be eagerly awaiting your feedback as we move to this new system.
Beef Shares
Mmmm….steak :)
Last month we introduced our Beef Shares and we’re excited and encouraged by the response we’ve had so far. Partnering with my parents to offer beef shares helps build the bridge on where I came from to where we’re going with the farm. We love that we’re able to offer beef that is raised on the farm I grew up on and that we’re able to offer people food that’s fresh from the farm!
Our House Is For Sale!
In addition to the new pack shed we’re also building a new house on our new land and, as such, our house near Kasota is for sale. We’ve really enjoyed living here and we absolutely love the location but in order for our business to grow we need to be closer to our field and have space to expand into more livestock as well as the ability to invest in infrastructure like greenhouses and irrigation. If you know of someone looking for a solid starter home or empty-nesters looking to downsize our listing can be found here: https://search.truerealestatemankato.com/idx/details/listing/a359/7022977/58105-243-Street-Kasota-MN-56050-7022977?widgetReferer=true
Cedar Crate Beef!!
Earlier this week we announced that we’re partnering with my parents, Mike and Diana Zimmerli, of Wabasso, MN (about 1.5 hours west of Saint Peter/Mankato) to sell beef shares! We expect the beef to be ready in late winter/early spring and will be processed at the local butcher shop in Wabasso. Check out our new Beef Shares page for all the details and reserve your beef today!
About our cows
Some good lookin’ cows!
My dad raises cattle the same way he always has and the same way my grandpa did: in a large fenced in area with access to windbreaks and shelter as well as their food and water. His cattle are fed a mixture of silage, ground corn, and additional vitamins and minerals as needed.
To be clear, these are not pastured or grass-fed cattle unless. We would like to provide grass-fed beef or some kind of hybrid approach in the future but we’re not there yet.
One of the advantages of silage fed beef is that they are ready to butcher more quickly than their grass fed counterparts. What this means for you is that it is cheaper to produce than grass fed beef because there’s less labor involved so it’s cheaper for you to purchase than grass fed beef. Another benefit of silage fed beef is that is has higher fat content meaning more marbling in your steaks and better flavor overall.
Why are we adding beef?
We feel really strongly about supporting local farmers and local businesses and think this is a great way to tie together what we’re doing with our produce and my dads farm. We also love that we will be supporting the meat market in Wabasso instead of the large, industrial meat packing facilities where most super market meat comes from. This helps revitalize rural Minnesota and helps keep jobs in rural towns. Finally, we are excited to partner with our family. Farming and family go hand in hand and this is just another example of how farm families work together to produce delicious food for you!
Click the button below to learn more about our beef shares and to reserve your share today!
We Bought Land!!
The grove of trees in the background is our new land! Our pack shed will go in the clearing in the center of the photo.
We’ve been working on this for awhile and we’re happy to announce that it’s official: we purchased 6.7 acres in Waseca County adjacent to our produce farm! You may or may not know that our farming situation for the past 5 seasons has been a little different than what you’d expect. We’ve been driving about 30 miles southeast of Mankato to our 2 acre vegetable plot and hauling all of the produce we’ve harvested back to our home near Mankato for washing, packing and temporary storage until it ends up in your Farm Share, our Farmers Market Stand, or the Saint Peter Food Co-op.
This farming setup hasn’t been without it challenges. We’ve had to be very diligent about the amounts of produce we harvest. Going back for more produce because we didn’t harvest enough wasn’t really an option for us because of the time required. In addition, we spend about an hour every harvest day driving. That’s a lot of time we could be using for weeding, harvesting, washing and other farm tasks. The weather also poses a challenge; the weather at our house isn’t necessarily representative of the weather at the plot and we’ve had a lot of issues with jobs that require certain conditions that were hard to predict. In addition, we’ve had to haul coolers and ice on our harvest days to help keep our produce cool. You get the idea, farming like this was really hard. We spent a lot of extra time because of the distance between our home and our farm.
What’s Next?
The land by itself doesn’t really help us solve any of the problems mentioned above. That’s why we’re investing into infrastructure and a brand new pack shed. Our pack shed will be a dedicated building for washing, packaging, and storing produce and it will be located on our new land. Our pack shed will have a number of features that we’re really excited about:
A rough, to scale, sketch of our pack shed floor plan.
Floor drains: We wash a lot of produce and floor drains will help us keep our shed clean, dry and safe by moving muddy wash water out of our shed.
Insulation and heat: Our last harvest of lettuce was on November 8th this year with temperatures hovering around 30 degrees, just below freezing. Insulation and heat will help us maintain comfortable temperatures as we continue to extend our harvest season.
Larger walk-in cooler with space for another walk-in cooler. We maxed out our 8’x8’ walk-in cooler several times this season. Our new pack shed will have a 12’x12’ cooler with room for a second cooler if needed.
On site bathroom: this might seem silly but it’s going to be really convenient to not have to walk up to the house to use the bathroom. It will save time and help keep mud and dirt our of our house.
We hope to start on the pack shed first thing in Spring 2020 with an anticipated completion date of early August 2020. We have a lot of work ahead of us but we’re so excited to be making this investment into our farm, our community, and into providing great tasting, healthy, sustainable produce for you!
p.s. If you know any electricians, plumbers, masons, or other contractors let us know! We’re working on gathering bids for our project and any additional leads would help us out a ton.