What's the Buzz?

Hi farm friends!

We've been busy bees getting things ready for the 2022 growing season. We wanted to share an update about what's been going on and our latest big news!

Here's an overview:

• CSA sign-ups now available!

• Plant sale on May 8th

• Farmers market location announcement

• Farm expansion news

• Intentions for this year

CSA

Our CSA program is now taking members! The CSA will run for 20 weeks, from May 28th through October 8th. Pickups will be available at our farm or at the Farmers Market+ at the Dole. We're also excited to offer delivery within McHenry county (for an addition fee).

The regular CSA cost is $700 for the season but we're offering a lower price of $650 as a thank you for supporting us our first year. That works out to be $32 a week and we're sure the value will be much higher!

Since we're still small, we're capping our CSA membership at 5 members this first year so hop on over here if you want to sign up!

Plant Sale + Open House at Ramshackle Farm

We've teamed up with Ramshackle Farm and The Farmer Beat to put on a plant sale and open house at Ramshackle Farm on May 8th. There will be plenty of plant starts, flower starts, regionally-adapted seeds and more offered at this event! We'd love to see you there! If you want to, you can RSVP on the Facebook Event page.

Farmers Market+ at the Dole

If a CSA is not your thing but you still want to support us, we'll be at the Farmers Market+ at the Dole this summer, starting May 29th. We're so excited to be welcomed at this market; they were voted the #1 Farmers Market in Illinois by people who enjoyed their variety of vendors plus all the extras they have to offer. Check out their website for more info on what to expect at this awesome market!

Farm Expansion News

As you may know, we bought our farm in February 2021. Rob immediately started setting up garden beds and by the end of the year we had twelve 25-foot beds. We utilized a no-till, deep compost style farming method when building these beds.

What does that even mean, you might be wondering. Well, instead of tilling the area, we threw cardboard down right over the existing grass and covered that with 6 inches of compost. Then the beds were shaped (as you can see in the picture to the right) and we planted directly into them. We lined the pathways with wood chips from some trees we had removed.

This year we've added nine 25-foot rows and plan to add three more before the season really gets going. It's a simple method but pretty labor intensive. We've seen such abundance using this method that it's worth the work for us!

We have plans to expand into the back part of our property, adding an additional sixty 50-foot beds. However, considering the cost and time to build on that scale with the deep compost method, we've decided to take a slightly different approach in the back. We'll have more updates on that later.

Intentions & Goals for 2022

We're really excited about this year! We took a lot of time this past winter to plan out the garden so we'll hopefully have an endless supply of fresh produce to share with our community. We've picked varieties we hope everyone will enjoy.

We're so happy we got accepted into a Farmers Market this year and we're excited to offer our CSA shares. We're really looking forward to working with our CSA members. When you support our farm through the CSA program, it means more than just helping buy seeds. Your input is important to us and we want to hear from you! If there are any crops you'd like to see us try that we aren't currently offering, we can look into getting them for the next season. We'd love to have you visit the farm and we're hoping to offer some events in the summer exclusively for our CSA members.

Our next big goal is to get our barn renovated so we have a dedicated wash/pack area and cold storage. We're also adding fruit trees and shrubs every year so we can offer more fruit once they mature. Follow us on Instagram or Facebook if you want to watch our progress.

Thanks!

We look forward to getting to know you and hope we see you at the Plant Sale, Farmers Market or as a CSA member! Thank you so much for supporting our dream.

XOXO

Sarah & Rob