Instead of listening to me blab this week, I want you to read this. Mark Spoke in Viroqua a couple weeks ago. This article was published in the Kickapoo Free Press a three weeks ago: http://www.kickapoofreepress.com/cms/node/170 The pinnacle of good taste by Mark Kastel No community in this country has more at stake, in […]
The man born to Farming, by Wendel Berry The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming, Whose hands reach into the ground and sprout, To him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down In the dung […]
To some it is taken for granted, like the children who simply expect to find it on the table whenever they are hungry. But to some others, it is a rarity and a special occurrence saved only for when they have the time and energy to prepare it. The home cooked meal is the soul […]
Take your hat off to the Heirlooms An Heirloom Tomato? What’s that? What’s an heirloom? And why do some of your tomatoes look so funny? Well, ya see, if I was your grandfather, I’d sit you on my lap and tell you about when I was a boy. Once upon a time, before the industrialization […]
The feel of the season is changing. For the first time this week, I felt a fall breeze in the air. I wasn’t imagining it either! There were others in the garden that noticed as well and confirmed my observation to be true. It was still full sun outside, but when the wind blew, you […]
The arrival of the cicadas marks the beginning of the most difficult time of the season. They are here to sing the high notes while the rest of us are passed out on a lawn chair somewhere with watered down lemonade from too many melted ice cubes. The cicadas pulse their buzzes on and off, […]
Eating meat in general is a very controversial subject in some circles, and one that arouses passionate voices from both side of the spectrum amongst vegetarians and carnivores alike. Here at the Small Family CSA farm, we eat meat. We’re quite picky, if you will, about what sorts of meat we eat; and to cover […]
I usually do the deliveries to La Crosse, Onalaska and West Salem on Fridays, but this past Friday I did the deliveries to Dubuque and Galena so I could stop and see some close friends of mine who just returned from living in Hawaii for about 8 months. So when I was back in Dubuque last […]
It’s hard to believe that it’s already week three and I haven’t gotten around to introducing myself and the other members of our Small Family Farm. I’m Jillian, the youngest member of the farm. I’m the full-time, over-timer here that works every-day-all-day long , devoting my every waking hour to the gardens and the success […]
I remember when I was a child and *they* told me that what goes up, must come back down again. And even as the years have been passing me by, in my rebellious nature I am still trying to come up with something that goes up and does not come back down again. Isn’t there […]
It feels as though this full moon past has been one last protest to the summer’s end. It stands to shine on us, even as we sleep, reminding me of the light-filled days that seemed to never end. The 18-hour days are just about over for me now. The darkness is winning again and so […]
My favorite month, September. The temperatures are starting to cool off now and I am reveling. The balloon that has been inflating all summer long is finally beginning to deflate a little. The pressure is letting off we’re even getting a little more sleep now! I love September! We spent the week continuing the green […]
On our small little six acre plot of vegetables, we manage the garden fairly primitively. By primitive, I mean mostly using manual labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the crops. We do have a 75 horse power tractor and a spading machine that we use for tilling up the soil and we have a large […]
We made it half way through with only blessings abound remaining. The weather looks promising with plenty of bearable temperatures, plenty of rain, and harvests flourishing. I probably couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful summer if I had planned it myself. I’m feeling a bit better about things this week as we are catching […]
Zat is zee question! Did you know that we cannot legally say that we are an organic farm? We can’t write it on our advertising material or put it on our farm label. There’s a pretty hefty fine if I get caught doing so too. Last time I checked, it was somewhere in the neighborhood […]
On the home front, the crops are doing quite well, I must confess! We trellised the vibrant, hairy tomatoes for the first time this week. There’s even a few green tomatoes hanging there as a bit of a tease, just dangling like a Christmas tree ornament swaying over your presents two weeks before Christmas is […]
I want to talk briefly about Community Supported Agriculture and what it means to us. CSA farms are becoming a more main-stream way of buying produce, and the past decade has seen the number of CSA farms that exist grow exponentially. There are so many different kinds of CSA farms and the products they offer […]
I think I may have a small case of the farmer blues. Nothing gets you down like an already cool spring topped with 12.5 inches of rain that washes your hard work and top soil down into the valleys below. No, it’s not really that bad, it just takes the bounce out of your step, […]
Welcome to the beginning of the 2008 CSA growing season. Buckle up and prepare yourself for a long ride. We’ll travel through the 2008 Midwestern growing season together eating a very wide variety of produce that can be grown in our area for as long as most of these vegetables can be offered by mother […]
At the end of the growing season, some farmer’s like to say that they are working on ‘putting their gardens to sleep’. When all the harvesting is done there is still work to do to prepare the ground for rest before the onslaught of winter and harsh weather. There is still plastic to be ripped […]