June Twentieth The longest days of the year are here. My body knows this very well. We sleep with the windows open at night and the sunlight and bird-songs come creeping in the window all too early for a tired farmer’s body. The chickens are photo-sensitive animals who, when not fooled by artifical lighting, reach […]
June Thirteenth I was once asked by an interviewer for a newspaper shortly after we bought the farm how I felt about moving into a vocation that is so deeply dependant on weather pattern and with the idea that climate change is here, how was that going to affect our success as farmers. It was […]
June Sixth Once upon a time, it was a young girl’s dream to be a farmer. Raised in a river-city in the heart of the midwest, she was born to a German-Irish family that instilled a rip-snapping work ethic, wrinkle-ironing social manners and a lick-your-plate-clean sort of appreciation for food into her that she would […]
More Pictures embedded in all of the archived newsletters. Browse through our newsletters from previous years to read about the season and catch a glimps of the times! Basil plants ready for transplantingBeautiful bunches of beets w/ greensFarmer Jillian in Tomato land!Jillian and Adam as American GothicRutabaga washed and readyNeatly cultivated brassica […]
October Nineteenth Congratulations, you’ve officially become a Locavore! You’ve eaten your way through the Spring, Summer and Fall of an entire Midwestern growing season. You’ve learned how to identify the appropriate season in which certain vegetables are grown. You’ve finally warmed up to zucchini, gotten creative with a bag of tomatoes and tried at least […]
October Twelfth We’re so thankful to everyone who came out the farm on Sunday to show their support, walk around with us, and share food with us! We’re thankful for the beautiful weather that made Sunday a success and for a bountiful fall harvest that has allowed us to be able to fill your CSA […]
October Fifth The garden is in pick-up, shut-down, and clean-out mode. After two more consecutive frosts on Friday and Saturday night green tomatoes are left dangling on dried out, dead and brown plants. The frosts put an end to any of the warm weather crops that have been hanging on and eeking out any last […]
September Twenty-Eighth A very interesting thing is a woman farmer. A female farmer with a husband and aspirations to have children is suddenly an astounding endeavor. Who will farm when the woman becomes a mother? Who will do a full day of tractor work while the mother is tending to a new life? Who will […]
September Twenty-First Your farmer’s left the farm this weekend past! This is big news for us folks, so big in fact that it’s making it into the Weekly Dig Newsletter! Our lives are usually re-arranged as such that we make it clear to most of our close friends and family members that other than a […]
September Fourteenth So….how is the veggie consumption coming along? How are your Spring ambitions to eat more fresh vegetables living up to your promise to yourself? How has the look of your dinner table changed since the vegetables from the farm started filling up your refrigerator and countertop? How has this experience changed your lifestyle…or […]
September Third All at once a shift happened on the farm this week. On Friday morning around 7:30am a 15 second gust of 60mph winds ripped through the farm and tore two large branches off of our beloved (and huge) willow tree that grows snug up near the north-west corner of our home. As good […]
August Thirty-First It’s that time of year, isn’t it? The days are becoming noticeably shorter, the nights are noticeably cooler and the reality that summer is waning is beginning to set in. The kids are all going back to school, the pools are closing, and everyone you know with allergies is walking around with pinched […]
August Twenty-Fourth We all have our heirloom family dishes, dressers and Afghans, but so few of us have heirloom family tomato seeds. I suppose that if this were Italy, we would have all four. But since the concept of heirloom varieties of vegetables is a bit ‘Greek’ to all of us, I’ll do my best […]
August 17th A little fact about me is that I rarely leave the farm. I’m a bit of a spoiled country girl that has a husband that does my bidding off the farm and runs my errands for me and a lovely mother to help with delivering CSA boxes on Wednesdays so that I can […]
August Twelfth By now you may have noticed that the vegetables you receive in your CSA share box don’t always look like the vegetables on the shelves at the grocery store. Our “specs” are a bit looser than those growers who grow 10 acres of the same crop. Our peppers might not always have four […]
August Third Do worms eat your garbage? Do chickens? Do pigs? Do your dogs or your cats? Where do your beet tops and onion roots and cabbage centers and basil stems all go? Is it called ‘garbage’ in your home? We’re a little uuber-weird about recycling on the farm. Our “garbage” falls under at least […]
July Twenty-Seventh Because I know that only on very rare occasions will he read the newsletter, I’ll go ahead and spotlight my husband, Adam. I’ll have to admit that he’s turning into a full-fledged, totally obsessed, genuine farmer. We like to joke about how when we met he couldn’t tell the difference between a cucumber […]
July Twentieth Ode to the Worker Share On this farm we started a worker share program a couple years ago that started out quite loose and without structure. “Worker Shares” were invited to come to the farm whenever they could make it out in an effort to work 3 hours a week in exchange for […]
July Thirteenth The pilgrimage has begun. I’m something of a spoiled ‘northerner’ and temperatures above 80 tend to bring a new challenge to the harvest, planting and weeding routines on the farm that are normally enjoyable, smooth and comfortable jobs to manage. It feels like we haven’t had a summer with this consistency in warmth for […]
Week 5, July Sixth Greens, Greens the magical food! If there is one thing that I hope you can take away from this entire experience from joining a CSA farm, I hope it is that you learn to eat more green food. I’m not really just talking about a side salad with dinner, or even […]