End of Our CSA Season

Another season officially in the books! What an incredible year it was for us. It is interesting the read the final newsletter from every year we have been farming and everything that we learned from that season. The early years started out pretty rough! It feels like we have come a very long way.

The biggest change this season was bringing a nearly full-time employee on the farm stepping into more of a manager position. Having Cindy to keep people working and allowing her to dig into some of our most difficult tasks without us has proven to be the key to venturing into new markets and increasing our gross sales while still maintaining some sanity. We expanded our spring greenhouse operation and offered transplants sales in the month of May. This turned out to be a good decision and we will be expanding transplant offerings next spring.

As far as the season’s successes and failures go, we still have problems with certain pests, varieties bolting in the heat, blight in tomatoes, low fertility in spots, and weeds, but these issues are definitely more manageable than years past. With all the work on our soil over the past six years, we are not surprised to see the health of the plants improved and production higher. We spent more time on succession planning this season and it showed in the consistency of products that we only had for a few weeks other years.

There are some new ideas floating around in our heads for next year to make growing better but we would love to hear your feedback on how to make your CSA shares better. Less or more? Specific crops desired or detested? Timing and amount offered? Packaging? Please help us better serve future members by taking the member survey.
As always, we are very appreciative of you allowing us to provide the food that you feed yourself and your family. It is an honor to be your farmer! We do not take this responsibility lightly. Please consider joining our farm share program again in 2022. We would love to have your return.

With gratitude,

Week 20 Newsletter 2021 – Paper Version

Winding Down

The season of sharing vegetables is winding down quickly. Only one more week and you will be on your own to source produce. Hopefully these last few shares will last you several weeks. We do plan to attend the Saturday Medford markets until the end of the month just in case. We will also take online orders until we are out of our storage crops. We will be offering potatoes, squash, greens, radishes, turnips, carrots, beets and much more well into the winter. Depending on the weather, we may also have continued broccoli, brussels, cabbage and cauliflower. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us to place an order. We can deliver to Medford and Phillips. We truly appreciate how much food you all have put on your tables from our farm this year. It has been our most productive year to date.

As we wrap up our season, we need to finish up our shout out to the people who help us farm. Roxanne has been volunteering at the farm for several years when she has a free minute in her schedule. Having been an active gardener with her family for most of her life, she brings first hand experience and willingness to tackle any job. We have a great deal of respect for her passion for eating real, whole food and the great lengths she goes through to put as much away as possible for winter eating for her family.

Linda came to us as a volunteer before we even knew we needed her. We will never forget her first interactions as a customer when she wanted all of our “ugly” produce that we were afraid to sell. With a background in nutrition and wellness coaching, she is passionate about understanding the role that food plays in every function within the body and the body’s own ability to heal itself in part through what you eat. It has been incredibly interesting to learn from her over the years as we work alongside one another. Both of these women are some of our greatest consumers.

Next week, we will be planting upwards of 100 lbs of garlic cloves for harvest next season. Both Linda and Roxanne have done this task in nasty weather. We appreciate their hard work, sometimes under less than ideal conditions.

Planting for next season,

Week 19 Newsletter 2021 – Paper Version

Learning Farm

We Grow hosted another group of students on Thursday this week. This time, the kindergartners from Rib Lake spent their time learning about the wide variety of vegetables and how each one tastes and how some don’t look like what they see in the cafeteria. They listened to a story and helped harvest pumpkins. Everyone got fresh pressed apple cider warm off the press, helped feed the animals, and ate lunch on the farm. It was a wonderful day of sharing our farm with our community.

The teachers from this class have become regulars on our farm, bringing students year after year. They know how important and influential it can be to show kids how food is grown and how great local food tastes. Some are shocked that broccoli doesn’t grow on trees! And some didn’t know potatoes come from under the ground. Others know every single crop, even brussel sprouts, because they help in their own gardens. The greatest satisfaction for us is when the students get to dig their own carrots, wash and eat it right in the field. They are generally shocked at how different a fresh carrot tastes versus store bought or the school provided “baby carrots.”

While planning this farm visit, the school asked about our tour fees. We kindly replied, “no fee at this time.” It important that our CSA members and market customers understand that our time spent as a learning farm is included in the cost of our products. We give many of our days back to our community as our contribution to the area, largely by educating our youth, but also hosting civic groups, making presentations at schools and clubs, donating transplants and seeds, helping plant community gardens, donating to food pantries and more. These are the things that make our farm a “community farm.” Thank you for enabling us to do this for our living.

Not only is it extremely important for our youth to understand where food comes from and feel a connection, but it is also incredibly rewarding for us to share our passion with others.

Grateful to be teaching in the field,

Week 18 Newsletter 2021 – Paper Version

Seed Planning

This is the seventh attempt we’ve had to figure out how to grow a great variety of crops well distributed and varied across the entire 20-week CSA season. In the early years, we didn’t do great. Practice makes perfect but planning and spreadsheets has really helped the most. We look at the days to maturity of every crop, count backwards from the week we would like that crop to be mature, take into account the weather we usually get that time of year and we have a plan for exactly when to plant each crop to get our farm members a great variety over the entire season.

Last week, you received two items that were first seen in your earliest spring shares, red radishes and beautiful broccoli heads. Did you know that this planting was our third round of broccoli? This crop only takes about 45 to 60 days to mature, so this succession was planted back in mid-July. This week, we are giving lettuce in the shares. This crop requires even more planning. These heads are coming from our seventh succession. Each lettuce variety has a little variance in the days to maturity to help spread out harvest times which helps smooth out the transition between plantings.

As the weather cools and the sun shows less, we end up indoors working on season planning and seed research. Since the pandemic started and more people are growing their own food, seeds can be in short supply. We are now making most of our seed purchases in November before the seeds are even available just to make sure that we can get our name on what we need. We are also holding more seeds over from season to season and trying to stay a full season ahead. More and more with weather extremes causing failure in some seed crops, we will find that a specific variety of something is not going to be available for the year. This happened last year with organic white salad turnip seeds. Thankfully, small seed companies are starting to pop up and produce their own products. Planting seed crops in different locations to protect against total failure is the first step in seed security. Succession planning for a CSA program is important too, but without the seed growers we would all be very hungry.

Pulling out the ‘22 calendar,

Week 17 Newsletter 2021 – Paper Version

Benefiting Our Bacteria

This week we hosted a school group and revisited a familiar newsletter topic: eating dirt. Judging by the look on the students faces, they are now wondering, “Does eating dirt actually improve our health?”

A quick search on the internet and you will discover that there is a movement called the “Eat Dirt Movement.” Yes it is real and apparently people are curing a whole host of health issues simply by eating dirt and the soil-borne organisms within. These organisms enter our bodies both from unclean food and unclean hands. They aid the body in absorption of specific nutrients and antioxidants and apparently it is changing people’s lives. Recent research has shown that exposing children to a diverse range of microbes early in life, particularly those found in the soil where they live, reduces their risk of allergies and asthma and strengthens their immune system. Admittedly, we already suspected this to be true but never read the reports.

When a school group was on the farm on Thursday, we discussed how most herbicides don’t just kill weeds, they also kill micro-organisms in the soil rendering it life-less and no longer able to breakdown nutrients that plants need. Growing organically, our plants must be in prime condition to fight off diseases and pests, so our soil has to be in peak health. Even worse, chemical residue in our food deteriorates our own body’s microbiome inside the intestinal tract, which breaks down nutrients during digestion not unlike what happens in soil. When you realize how many illnesses are linked to inadequate gut bacteria, this should be a serious concern. Perhaps most importantly, our microbiome plays a role in our immune system. It is lesser known that it also influences gene expression. The scientific understanding of biological functions is becoming more and more complex every day!

So the take-away we are pondering is that the latest and greatest “superfood” is in fact dirt. The five-second rule was writen to make sure we are allowed to consume that pound of dirt annually. And your dirty vegetables are providing more than meets the eye.

Believing in the power of dirt,

Week 16 Newsletter 2021 – Paper Version

Giving Up On Summer

Fall carries on at the farm. We are thrilled to have a summer-like weekend in the forecast. It truly feels like borrowed time. The average first date of frost for our farm is September 12th. We know it’s coming, but we are never ready. The frost kills all the tender summer plants like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, and if it’s cold enough all the broccoli, cabbage, radishes, lettuce and celery die too. With a little planning, we will still have plenty for CSA shares in storage and inside the high tunnels. While we’ve come to expect the frost wiping the life out of our plants, we’re just not ready to give them up after all the work it took to get here.

This week’s “people behind your food” features two newbies. Debbie and Jay both started the first week of June when it was hot. Really hot!! We had to transplant over two hundred zucchini plants without killing them or getting heat stroke ourselves. With lots of water, we managed to get the job done and done well. Thank these two if you’ve had your fill of zucchini this year.

Debbie was a CSA member last season and decided to up her game and come work on the farm this year to keep busy and help her stay active during retirement. She does a great job staying active! Debbie is never shy to jump right into a task hands-first and get the job done. She always asks “what’s next” as standing idle is not in her play book. We love having her on the farm on Monday mornings because of her getter-done attitude while some of us are still working on our cup of coffee.

Jay recently moved back to the area as part of his retirement as well. Being a neighbor of Tom’s, he was always hearing about our farm and decided to join the team and work in exchange for fresh, local veggies. Jay has his work cut out for him in the Monday pack shed filled with head strong women. He does exactly what he is told to do, of course! A lot of that being the heavy lifting, root washing, cutting tops, and most recently assisting with the rebuilding of our oldest high tunnel. And never so much as whispering a complaint. So far we haven’t found anything Jay can’t do. It has been great having them both on the farm this season.

Until next time,

Week 15 Newsletter 2021 – Paper Version

People Behind The Food

Is it soup season yet? When the weather starts to cool down, we turn to soups and stews. The one-pot meal is quick and easy and makes the whole house smell good. With such a wide array of hearty vegetables and herbs coming out of the fields this time of year, the flavors will never be better. Shortly after we started farming, we discovered just how easy it is to make and preserve our own soup. Just warm it up and lunch is served. If you pack a school or work lunch, you know how challenging it can be to come up with ideas. Everyone in our house has their own small thermos-type container and fall soups put away when the harvest was ripe are often inside.

This week’s “people behind your food” feature appropriately has the two workers who are on the farm the most. Cindy joined our team back in April and brought with her loads of experience in greenhouse management as well as years of experience growing on a vegetable farm and in high tunnels. She is on the farm four days a week, which means we spend a lot of time together! Not only is she incredibly organized – bonus! – she has an excellent work ethic and ever-positive attitude. We value her input in making farming decisions. We could not ask for a better person to help us with the incredibly challenging work we chose to do to make a living. We are thankful she is already looking forward to working with us again next season.

And then there’s Tom. Tom has been volunteering at We Grow since 2016. Having just moved from Phillips with a passion for growing and eating quality food, he considered our farm his own garden and tended it as such. Fast-forward five seasons and nothing has changed. He is in the pack shed every Tuesday when we pack your bags and more often than not, he will be at the farm working on something that he sees needs to be done whether we can help him or not. He just does it. The best part is that he finds just as much joy as we do when a new system works out or when we bring in a great harvest. He even spends his off-farm time thinking about vegetable farming and brainstorming new innovations. With a knack for pestering us to get things done, we appreciate having Tom around to keep things rolling.

Rolling into soup season,

Week 14 2021 Newsletter – Paper Version

Seasons Change

Do you feel it in the air? The seasons are starting to change. Very subtly Mother Nature changes course and then all of the sudden, summer is over. We’re so infatuated with fall that we completely lose track of time and suddenly winter is thrown down on us. If you’re like us, you wait and wait for that one last warm up late in the season to get the last few preparations done before full-on winter. If it never comes, we’re forced to leave tasks unfinished as the ground freezes solid and snow doesn’t melt away.

Before all of that, we have some major fall harvests to get done. This week we starting pushing through the onion harvest to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We planted well over ten thousand and there are only a couple thousand left. Each one has to dried in a warm space and the skin cured for winter storage. Then we will start chipping away at the potatoes and the winter squash. We are thrilled to have all these winter crops well this season to offer our customers. Thankfully we have some great help to get it all done.

You may recognize Jessica in the photo above. She has been volunteering at our farm since 2018 and was a member before that. As a health and wellness teacher, Jessica brings a passion for wholesome food. Her good vibes attitude and ability to always wear her “go with the flow” pants makes for a fun work environment. And she shows up even though she keeps her own garden. We always look forward to having her help.

Joining us this season is Kristin. She comes to us from Florida by way of North Twin Lake, where she is working on building her Wisconsin home. Having seen the health effects first hand of the average American diet, she has passion for clean, organic eating and healing from the inside out. Even with painted nails, she never passes at the opportunity to dig spuds or lug around heavy crates. We are so thankful to have the extra hands on our heaviest harvest days. Once again we truly appreciate our volunteers’ hard work and showing up when we need them.

Until next time,

Week 13 Newsletter 2021 – Paper Version

Keeping Up With Weeds

Weeds defeat us. Weeds are our biggest problem at this point in our farming career. We’ve let them get away in previous years and created an even larger problem than we ever imagined was possible. It is all a result of the seed bank within the soil. These weed seeds wait for perfect conditions to germinate. Of course, that coincides with when we plant our vegetable seeds. No matter when we plant, if we turn over the soil we bring up more weed seeds. When just one weed gets away and reaches maturity, it spawns tens of thousands of seeds that are ready to grow the coming season. And the exponential growth of weed seeds in the soil carries on.

To help us tackle this major problem, volunteer Linda comes to the farm every Tuesday just to pull weeds while we pack shares and leave for farmers markets. Quietly, she gets her work done and asks for nothing in return. If you receive brussel sprouts in your share, you can give her credit. She gave up two days in the heat in July to clear the rows perfectly of weeds. Linda tackled the weeds that were taller than her in the middle of the pepper tunnel too. The shishito plants are growing well now. We can’t really put a dollar amount on how much she has done around here, besides the success of the current crop, keeping the weed seeds from hitting the ground is going to benefit the farm for years to come.

Working with Linda in the photo above is our dear friend Sally. Sally has been coming to the farm for several years and helped our farm get established in the Phillips area. She helped us hang flyers in local businesses, told everyone she knows about the share program, delivered the Phillips shares for a few seasons and comes knocking on our door every March to get her hands dirty in the greenhouse. This season she showed up every chance she could to work on traying transplants. We certainly appreciate all the time Sally has invested in our farm, helping us get where we are today.

This past Tuesday, Linda and Sally worked on weeds in the fall brassica planting. They both love to be outside, stay busy and feel appreciated. Don’t we all?

Until next time,

Week 12 Newsletter 2021 – Paper Version

Boots On The Ground

Every so often, we are reminded of just what it takes for a small farm to grow, harvest, pack and distribute fresh produce for 80 CSA members. While at the front you might see two farmers and their right-hand woman getting it done, the commitment of many volunteers is what actually puts the food on the table. Quite literally! We would like to start highlighting some of our volunteers who commit to being on the farm every week to help us.

This Friday was Angie’s last day for the season because she is a school teacher and coach starting her “real” job. Even more important, her birthday is this week! We share so much when we work together and get to know people fairly well. This is one aspect of having worker shares on the farm that we love. Each week we catch up with friends while picking and packing. Some people come to the farm as friends, and others become friends after they come to the farm.

Angie arrives every Friday bright and early for her four hour shift. She heads out into the field with our myriad of workers and volunteers. We gather up the produce that can’t handle heat first and has to be harvested in the cooler morning air. We take that first big load up to the pack shed for rinsing, sorting and bagging. Then we head out to a second field to get the next load while a few might stay back to finish up round one. This cycle continues until all the items are packed into crates, labeled and put into cool storage.

As we near midday, it’s time pack shares and online/wholesale orders are organized. If there is a big harvesting task that is dreadful to do alone but tolerable with more people, we make sure to squeeze that in before Angie leaves because a positive attitude is one of her greatest assets. If the heat turns on, we try to finish up the day with shaded tasks like running beets and carrots through the brush washer, weighing out portions or cleaning dried garlic.
Angie is a farmer at heart from her upbringing and we think she loves having a tiny piece of farming in her life through her work at We Grow. Whatever the reason, we are grateful for her time here in exchange for a weekly share of produce.

Until next time,

Week 11 Newsletter 2021 – Paper Version

Who Pays For Cheap Food

Every year about this time, we come forth with that story about the farmers market shopper who surprises us. This year it was an individual who commented that our peppers cost more than WalMart’s. Our quick response was to note the fact that you can’t talk with the WalMart farmer and ask how that pepper was grown or even know where it came from. And that your money isn’t supporting a local family. Not to mention, the flavor isn’t even comparable because that pepper probably traveled a very long distance. It was noted that we would gladly pay this amount if she herself had grown the pepper and we were standing on her side of market stand.

What is it that makes us dole out large amounts for processed foods, prescriptions drugs, and fad diets, but when it comes to buying real, whole food the indifferent person shuts their wallet? In 2020, U.S. consumers spent an average of 8.6 percent of their disposable personal income on food.

Pre-pandemic figures put 14 cents of every dollar spent on food in the farmers pocket. According to USDA, over half of all food dollars are spent at restaurants, cafes and other food service places. Compared to grocery store purchases, farmers receive an even smaller share of away-from-home food dollars, roughly 2.4 cents, because of added, prep, service and marketing.

Where shoppers were once content to husk their own corn and slice their own apples, they now buy those foods pre-husked, pre-sliced and otherwise processed. Over the past 50 years, the shift from cooking meals at home, to eating away from home has shifted the food dollar and farmers profit very little compared to just a few generations ago. Interestingly, this trend has not taken hold in European nations and less “developed” countries.

Looking ahead 20 years, where does this put farmers? We do not feel like our farm is a victim of processed food. We have worked hard to find a strong customer base that understands local food, but it is a tiny percentage of our population. How do we create space for more young farmers? How do we get more people to buy whole food, direct from farms? How do we get that notion out of our heads that cheaper is better.

Feeling less offended with age,

Week 10 Newsletter 2021 – Paper Version