Our fruits and vegetables are certified organic by OCIA. We
grow raspberries, strawberries, melons and lots of fresh organic
vegetables. For the most part, we are subject to the Minnesota
seasons, but we are using a high tunnel to extend our season a bit
in 2011. That means we may have tomatoes a few weeks early or salad
greens into November. We don't want to fight Mother
Nature too much, but we hope to give our customers the best of local
and organic produce for as much of the season as possible.
Check back here or just call us if you are curious about what we
have available in any particular month of 2011. We'll try to
update the website, but things get a little wild once the planting
and lambing seasons start. But our first offerings will be
tulips and salad greens - hopefully as early as April. And of
course, we'll have lamb, chicken, wool, eggs, and handmade soap
available in the meantime.
WHY IS OUR PRODUCE CERTIFIED ORGANIC?
This is a question
we get asked fairly often, and we are lucky to live in an area where
people support small farms and locally grown. If you buy any part
of your food from small local growers, then you are doing a good
thing for yourself and your community. But we did choose to take
the next step into certified organic for our produce because as we
went through the process we just really became convinced that the
stringent guidelines of certification are pretty important when it
comes to fruits and vegetables. Some growers will tell you they
don't apply pesticides or herbicides but just
"don't want to bother getting certified".
However, there is much more to meeting the requirements of organic
certification than just not using herbicides or pesticides.
For example, it requires that we take measures to insure that we do
not use genetically modified (GMO) seed and that we purchase
certified organic seed. It also requires that we are proactive
about practicing sustainable farming methods that improve soil
quality and the environmental diversity of our farm. Although
our fruit and vegetable production is certified organic, our lamb
and poultry are not certified. We do try to come as close as
we can to following organic standards with our meat and eggs.
We do not use any growth hormones and we feed non-medicated poultry
feed. Our lambs are raised on certified organic pasture and
fed primarily hay in the winter. All of our poultry are
uncaged and "free range".