June 26th
will be the first CSA pick up day for the 2010 season.

CSA

We are now accepting a limited number of CSA members for the 2010 growing season.

We have lots of SWEET CORN for the holiday weekend!

Open Labor Day

Besides our regular days and hours (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) we will be open on Monday, Labor Day as well, from 9 am to 3 pm.

Two days of rain

Well, it has rained for the past two days so we set up the stand self-serve.



It rained continuously all day today (Saturday). We need it badly but, it is a little tough on produce sales. A handful of brave souls did make it out however and we are, of course, thankful for that.



The rain was hard on our signs and labels so before we open tomorrow we'll have to redo a bunch of them.



And with it being so wet there were certain items that were not put out. Like the Burns' maple pancake mix, maple pop corn, the baked goods and Kristines goat milk soap.



Speaking of the soap, that is another item we've added to the stand. Kristine Heise is offering beautiful and sweet smelling bars of goat milk soap. We just added them last weekend.



Another new item is honey from Heritage Oaks Apiary. This is a product that the Sweeney's have acquired. A relative of John's raises the bees.



The beekeeper is Joerg Kessler. The bees that produce this honey are kept in two area's of Minnesota - Forest Lake and Princeton. The honey from Forest Lake is wildflower honey. The Princeton honey is from bees that are kept on an organic dairy farm that pastures their animals on clover and there are wild flowers in the vicinity.


Sunday is supposed to be sunny so everything will be out tomorrow.

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who helped make last weekend a success! We had sweet corn and sold out each day. Looks like we will have sweet corn again this weekend.

The tomatoes are just now starting to ripen. It's possible we will have ripe tomatoes the following weekend August 21, 22 and 23.

The blue berries are still coming. They sure are good so be sure to get some.

We have a line on some yellow raspberries for this weekend also.

And don't forget the Boker Tov Cafe' locally roasted organic coffee!

Regular days and hours

It looks like we have come up with regular days and hours for the road side stand to be open.

Friday 3pm - 6pm

Saturday 9am - 5pm

Sunday 12noon - 5pm



We'll be staying with these days and hours at least until the rest of the crops come in.
At that time we may have to add other days to help move all the produce.

The main items we get asked for are tomatoes and corn. Still waiting for those. We currently have green tomatoes in the green house. Just waiting for them to ripen. It looks like the corn will be coming in late. Although we are looking for an additional source.

The locally roasted organic coffee will be offered this weekend.

Also we will have a complete inventory of Burning Bush Maple Syrup this weekend as well.

Open this weekend

The farmstand was open today (Friday) from 3-7 pm.

It will be open tomorrow (Saturday July 25) from 9 am to 5 pm.

And Sunday (July 26th) afternoon, which might be self-serve at least part of the time.

Produce available;
radishes
onions
garlic
peas
potatoes
kohlrabi
zucchini
broccoli
beats
salad greens
spinach
raspberries
rhubarb
maple syrup

COMING SOON: LOCALLY ROASTED ORGANIC COFFEE

This years farm stand

This year we are using the Nellis' old horse drawn sleigh to display the veggies and produce.

Lots of positive feed-back about it so far! Adds a rustic appeal.

STAND WILL BE OPEN SUNDAY AFTERNOON.

JULY 19, 2009

Some pictures of produce offered this weekend

Home Made Strawberry Preserves & Banana Bread

We have maple syrup too.

Farm stand opening today

The road side stand will be open Saturday afternoon (today July 18) and (tomorrow) Sunday the 19 th , afternoon.

There will be;

Kohlrabi
Red Romaine Lettuce
Potatoes
Onions
Zucchini
Rhubarb
Mixed Salad Greens
Salad Peas

Over-due Update

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Because of personal family crisis the 2009 CSA was canceled and members were refunded. We'll try again next year.

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Due to the cooler than average temperatures we are behind schedule of what we hoped would be our first pick up day this week for the CSA share holders. Currently it looks like it will be at least a couple weeks yet before we have anything available.

Thank you for your patience.

Weed Control

Last year at the Nellis farm we found that weeds were our number one down fall. The over growth of weeds severely impacted our ability to concentrate on further planting and production for the full extent of the 2008 growing season.

So, armed with information from the class that Kelli and Scarlet went to in Madison we've been considering various options regarding weed control. Of course as most folks know we grow our vegetables free from any kind of chemicals such as herbicides. We don't even think about it. It's just not an option.

In the past we have used wasted hay and used straw from our animals. This works well but, we don't have near the quantities to cover everything. Plus not every crop will do well with these if they are warm loving plants since these materials used as mulch tend to cool the soil.

The picture to the right is a heavily mulched bed of carrots from 2008. Grass clippings and dried leaves can be used as mulch also. But, these are materials that will need to be stock piled if we are going to have enough quantity to mulch on a larger scale.

Other options for mulch include plastic and synthetic fabric.

To the left are some examples of black plastic mulch. This mulch has a warming effect on the soil so warm loving crops are said to do well with this. On the other hand cool loving crops would do poorly. Interestingly there are a variety of colors available with plastic mulch since it is found that plants react differently to different colors. The use of various colored mulch is a whole new arena so for us we will just stick with black and get used to that first before we delve into a more complex technique.

A down side to plastic mulch is you have to water from underneath requiring the extensive use drip irrigation systems.

The plus side is that since the water doesn't readily evaporate the plastic helps keep the soil moist.

Synthetic fabric mulch is water permeable so over head watering is possible with that plus rain water can also pass through which is something plastic mulch does not do. That too being another down side to plastic in that you need to water even if it rains.

Upon further study it does seem these weed control options are a good alternative for the organic grower. So we are eager to experiment with some of these methods this growing season and look forward to not having to spend near as much time eradicating weeds.

The Hatfield Transplanter

When Kelli and Scarlet went to the "Wisconsin School for Beginning Market Growers" at the University of Madison they learned about a number of labor saving devices.

Though this particular tool was not discussed, we went to some websites recommended in the class and saw this neat little device. It can be purchased at Johnny's Selected Seeds. A little pricey at $119 but, can you imagine how much time and labor this thing can save.

Wisconsin School for Beginning Market Growers

By Russ Nellis



Kelli and Scarlet went to a class at the University of Madison called "Wisconsin School for Beginning Market Growers". It was a three day class and they came back with loads of great ideas and information. The class was taught by coordinator John Hendrickson and three different full-time farmers. The farms represented were Spring Hill Community Farm, Luna Circle Farm and Shooting Star Farm. Two of the three operate as CSA's. The third, Shooting Star Farm grows mostly for high end restaurants and farmers markets.



Last year, two major drawbacks for growing on a larger scale than any of us were used to, was that of planting and weed management. Thankfully these two components of growing crops were covered thoroughly in the class. Various labor-saving devices for planting were discussed and natural methods of weed-control were shared.



At the Nellis farm for instance, we planted 4 beds of carrots with approximately 1500 seeds per bed. Also we planted by the 'square-foot method', with 16 seeds per square foot. That meant being bent over, down on hands and knees, hand-planting over 6000 individual carrot seeds! Both time consuming and hard on the back. We really like growing by the square-foot method because it is nice and tidy and takes up very little space. The biggest draw back is that it is very labor-intensive. Then, before you know it, weeds start cropping up and it soon becomes an all- consuming effort in keeping them under control. So the information the ladies learned at the class should prove invaluable for the 2009 growing season.



Also, Scarlet and Kelli enjoyed hearing the first-hand accounts of how the three different farmers operate their farms, how they started, what they learned in the course of time and where they are at today.



Spring Hill Community Farm, one of the featured farms, is a CSA and they happen to have a nice video about their farm posted on YouTube. Their video, which is the one posted below, gives a nice overview of what their CSA looks like.

It's nice to be able to look at how other people are doing things and to see if we can incorporate any of what they are doing into our system. And we were greatly encouraged in that it looks as though we really are right on track. We are starting out in a very similar way as these folks did. And we have a lot going for us already with plenty of space and lots of tools already at our disposal.

We are anticipating an exciting year ahead us and are looking forward to trying out some new things for the up coming season!

Filling the CSA bins-2008

Out door kitchen

Filling the bins every week was a team effort. Thanks to everyone who pitched in and helped!

Snap Shots From 2008 Growing Season- Nellis Farm

Garlic, Onions, Beets

Squash, Tomatoes

Various Squash

A bed of 1500 Carrots

Carrots, Beets, Parsnips, Rutabaga, Corn

Green Beans

Snap Shots From 2008 Growing Season-Sweeney Farm

Blueberry plants

Gardens

Snap Shots From 2008 Growing Season-Elaine Thorn's Garden