We have made the tough decision to sunset our CSA program. I have made an equally tough decision to take a hiatus from wedding flower work (o.k. so I might still do June weddings where peonies and perennials are at their prime). Wow! This is a big shift as many of you have been with us for decade(s).
I could say that it’s the woodchucks that are making me do this. When I started farming with Rob in 2008-2009 season, our vegetable beds were overrun with woodchucks. Since then we seemed to have had a truce, wherein they left the broccoli and fruit alone in exchange for all the clover and forage in our sprawling field borders. That is up until this season, wherein the next generation of ‘chuckers’ managed to tunnel from the old barn foundation, burrow under our fence and re-surface right next to our beans. I had to admire their engineering and spatial sensibilities, even as they leveled the blossoms and went onto the carrot tops.
Woodchucks aside, my goal of slowing down, taking a sabbatical from production farming this season didn’t really happen, as a few wildcards and labor needs needed to be a priority. It's all good, though it’s also really hard as the farm is home. I love growing food and beauty and sharing this with you. I love plants though need to shift and restore balance. While I am grateful for the humane growing season, wedding flower re-books from last year, a few writing projects that brought joy, and just in time support when the harvests seemed endless, my body is telling me I can’t do it all anymore and I need to pause and listen to it.
I have decided to step back from the business of farming, focus on orchard care and
Farm Blog
Thank you again for braving the blizzard to celebrate, connect with great food, and 'planting an orchard'! Just imagine all those future cherry trees (don't forget to squat:-).
I am so uplifted from all the good vibes, intentions, laughter and seeds shared and planted.
We were able to raise $850.00 in funds! This will go a long way, thank you! Additionally, with all the seeds donated today and from what I've gleaned from others, The women growers in the Sine-Saloum region will be able to plant out a couple hundred row feet/farm. In the past we've planted shared 'demonstration beds' ie since many of the farmers share space/land to grow on we've constructed seeds beds to trial different varieties, plant insectory herbs and flowers and share techniques. From there seeds are harvested and shared forward amongst the individual farmers. So in essence your generosity helped plant teaching/learning/eating/
sharing beds of veggie, herb, and flower goodness!
I will honor my commitment and extend the immense gratitude, generosity that was shared during the workshop with the women farmers in the following ways:
Work with NCBA CLUSA Farmer to Farmer Program to transfer funds and mail seeds.
I'll also email and share highlights, photos forward later this week in celebration of our workshop success.
I am tentatively set to travel there Nov/Dec. or January in 2016.
I also finally remembered the name of third grower group, JUBO (means widespread). If you're interested in learning more about how they got started, here's a link to an interview I did as part of my last Farmer to Farmer adventure in Senegal.
I Will keep you in the loop as the project evolves and thanks again for sharing your generous spirit!
For the chocolate lovers:
Becky Otte, who made the amazing truffles, has more of her chocolate goodness to share and is selling some of her creations just in time for Valentines. if you're interested send her an email: raonine@gmail.com
Also Here is a link to Roots Chocolate website.
For the Fruit Lovers:
I've enclosed a handout of some of the different fruits we grow at our farm as well as a flyer highlighting this season's events at the farm! We'd love to have you venture out and tour the orchard, come visit us (though not nearly as cool as the orchard poses we did during the workshop).
Thank you again for helping me transition from being a butterfly weed seed (ie wind pollinated, not knowing where or how my intentions, projects might stick) to more of an oak or cashew seeds - wherein I can deepen my awareness, provide support in the same place(s) in Senegal for the growers and in my backyard in Wisconsin:-). Here's to planting the seeds of the as yet to be imagined on and off the yoga mat! Wishing you all much abundance.
Happy Mid-winter!
Yours in hardy kiwi,
Erin
PS If you are into exploring the planting side as well as enjoying more local fruit creations, we'll be hosting a Local Fruit Tasting May 16, details on our website.
What's Next?
Those of you who have been reading these newsletters for awhile will have followed our contemplations over the past year or two regarding whether to retire the seasonal vegetable CSA. Having considered doing so last year, we instead instituted a significant make-over for 2021, basically halving the yearly share by making it every-other-week and letting farm members pack their own bags. This reduced the amount of work on our end, and seemed a workable template for a more sustainable way to manage the CSA, much as we’d intended.
But it also provided scintillating glimpses, during the off-weeks, of what life on the farm might be like once the CSA was retired altogether.
These inadvertent tastes of opium have had their effect. I wish I could say I was not susceptible to the temptations of sloth, as I might have contended in my 30s or 40s, but the wages of age are hard to deny. For now, the possibility of laying in the hammock under the plum tree and falling asleep (first: to want to lay in the hammock), or to go on a summer vacation, or actually experience a summer weekend in Madison – these are enticements that have now got my work-ethic by the neck. And while I still find it difficult to sit still for more than ten minutes, part of what motivates me to drop CSA now is precisely that I want to leave some working capacity in my joints and tendons for what I’m hoping might be an active old-age (unless it already is).
The vegetable patch at the farm is likely to shrink only modestly next year, in any case. We will still be feeding ourselves and producing enough for our regular canning-runs so we can keep our value-added sales going. We may do Fall storage shares. The orchard may also increase its production if we are able to provide it more assiduous attention than we’ve been able to in recent seasons.
Summer Solstice Re-cap, Sizing up the Season
With the solstice now past and the deep of summer ahead of the prow, it seemed like a good point to assess the year so far.
The start to the 2021 growing season was auspiciously benign by comparison with a number of recent years. Green-up was long but steady -- a pleasant contrast to the extremely cold late-Springs we’ve seen in the past half-decade when tree-buds only broke in the third or fourth week of May.
The slow warm-up made for good results from the early-season vegetables, with the single exception of peas. Having been planted into delightfully dry and workable soil in mid-April, they sat for nearly two and a half weeks before receiving any appreciable moisture, and their germination reflected it. So, unfortunately, there will be no peas in the vegetable share this year. Otherwise though, planting was – by contrast to Springs in the late Teens -- blessedly uneventful, with warm soils allowing good tilth, and enough moisture during May to germinate carrots, beets, scallions, corn, beans and vining crops.
June’s early, dry heat was a challenge for the lettuce and radishes, both of which were inclined to bolt earlier than usual. Steady irrigation from our water catchments countered some of that. On them up-side, the drought in June seems to have so far kept insect populations – barring the ubiquitous potato beetle, of course -- in check. We’ll see how this plays out now that a significant change for the rainier has commandeered the month’s final week.
Read MoreA Midsummer Frolic to Celebrate American Flowers Week June 28 - July 4
While I have been on a quasi flower sabbatical this year, to pause and (re) consider flower possibilities, this year’s American Flowers Week - June 28 - July 4, is giving me much pause to celebrate!
It is an honor to be among those chosen in the U.S. to be featured for the Botanical Coutre collection! What a diversity of styles featured. You can download/view the Botanical Coutre Digital Book created by Debra Prizing and team with Slow Flowers Society and enjoy the write - up regarding the organic dress we created inspired by the native perennials, pollinator plants, soil and soul love of our Midwest homes.
Written by Debra Prinzing in American Flowers Week 2021, Botanical Couture, Floral Design
In Erin Schneider’s world view, plants and people co-exist in harmony, a notion clearly expressed in the floral dress she created last summer using botanicals harvested from Hilltop Community Farm. Erin is a co-owner and land steward with her husband Rob McClure of the 60-acre farm in La Valle, Wisconsin, which is situated on traditional Ho Chunk Nation lands, about 90 minutes northwest of Madison. Their tagline is “Hand Agriculture for the 21st Century,” a perfect label for their annual bounty of flowers, herbs, produce and orchard fruit grown for a loyal CSA customer base.
Erin provides her wedding and event customers a wide range of blooms, including many familiar perennials and annuals, but she is most passionate about prairie and pollinator plants, as well as native varieties not often considered for floral design. She hopes to elevate awareness of Midwest prairie flowers and grasses, which are showcased in a Wisconsin-inspired botanical couture garment created for American Flowers Week, an effort to encourage more of her customers and the florists to share a similar appreciation.
Read MoreEven the Best Laid Wonderment Plans....are Subject to Planting
I cannot fully explain the gravitational pull of arboreal grace and how each spring I bow to your tree-ness—as I thrust another pointed dig with the D handle shovel and etch a hole for the young pear tree to and tuck it into the soil spanning rhizospheric reach of influence.
At the start of the growing season, I surrender to my lack of botanical restraint. It’s hard to resist the insistence of fruit trees and tomato starts, and to plant that which will outlast my lifetime. Even the act of pruning (of shedding, mind you) yields the potential for dozens of new fruit trees as I snip and save scion wood, graft it forward for giveaways, and divide and transplant the currants. With their trimmed limbs, the shape of sea pens, I attempt to write it all down, on seed scrolls, to center myself.
As you may recall, last fall, I shared my intention of a farming sabbatical in 2021 to embrace change and explore, in mutual evocation, what the next ten plus years of the farm may be (or not). I even gave this year a title, “The Transitional Year of Wonderment”..
"Transitional Year of Wonderment" modus operandi for 2021 CSA
“Transitional Year of Wonderment” may, in some ways, have seemed a better name for 2020 than 2021 – after all, the whole of humanity basically transitioned overnight to staying six feet apart from one another. And I suppose it was a bit of a wonder that we managed to keep modern society functioning (more or less) despite this.
But at Hilltop we've taken the slogan as our operating plan for the coming year, having been inspired to imagine what might be possible after seeing seven billion normally fractious and querulous human beings pivot in unison like a school of fish. Erin exercised a long-considered decision to step away from commercial flower production, and I suppose I should have taken the supportive and parallel step of putting down the vegetable CSA – which would not have been an unreasonable move after 28 years.
But – querulous human being that I am – I decided to keep the CSA going, only with a re-imagined format that would require less work so that I could keep it running without distracting Erin from delving into new training or other avenues of interest. It remains to be seen how successfully this plan will work. Erin is nothing if not a supportive spouse, and I suspect that showing up at the garden gate with a hoe in hand will be a distracting temptation no matter my intentions to the contrary.
Read MoreTurn and Face the Strange - 2021 Farm CSA Flow
If nothing else, 2020 – and now, 2021 – have made us all adept at rolling with whatever astonishing new realities history may throw at us. Since we are as well-practiced as ever at keeping our balance in the face of change, I figured the moment was right to pile-on.
As we mentioned in our last newsletter, Hilltop will be undergoing some changes in the coming year. A number of infrastructural projects have been begging our attention for awhile. Erin will be stepping away from commercial flower production in order to free up time for additional pursuits, on-farm and off. All of which posed a great temptation to me to follow suit.
Upon reflection however, I decided that stepping away from the vegetable CSA this year didn't quite make sense. Erin and I will still be growing vegetables for ourselves in our gardens in any case, and -- what is more -- last Fall we made a once-in-a-decade investment in 20 yards of compost which we expect to boost the productivity of our soil.
Read MoreThe Food by the Numbers
We are paying more attention to numbers these days than we usually do, between Covid infection rates and the vote totals that will determine the direction of public policy over the next four years. And so, I will take the opportunity to slip in these for your review, so long as we are paying attention to sums of far greater moment. My figures are rather disappointing – perhaps, in that way, like some of the others.
Despite a meteorological year that was far more conducive to both vegetables and fruit than ones recently past, overall production on the farm was underwhelming this past season. This runs broadside against my perception of the year, which is that it was like those prior to 2016 when we had much more normal amounts of precipitation, decent heat and relatively abundant sunshine than we’ve seen recently.
Read MoreToward a Transitional Year of Wonderment
Dear Farm Friends,
I hope this finds you all well and in good health. 2020 continues to be a year of extremes to say the least, though we are grateful that the farm work has given us the opportunity to stay grounded with the Earth, to share the food and fruits of our labors with you, and to soften the edges and tensions with beauty (flowers!), as well as pause and celebrate change and milestones in people's lives. We did our best to share it in as many ways and avenues as possible and for that we are forever grateful for your support along the way!
and well, I am sun-setting with the season, preparing for a farming sabbatical in 2021 and embracing change in the ‘transitional year of wonderment’. You may be wondering where this is coming from as we have enjoyed steadfast, optimal growth over the years. Just as plants give us signs that they need support—an infusion of compost tea, a coating of kaolin clay to keep the curculio at bay—this farmer needs a bit of compost and it’s transformative boost for continued growth and sustenance.
I hope you feel the embrace of my gratitude to you for your support over the year(s). My heart continues to be fed by the relationships we’ve cultivated, the feasts shared, fruit trees planted, and the lessons learned. I hope this letter to you helps you understand why I am putting the brakes on production farming, what this means for the farm, what Rob’s plans are, and well, what’s in store beyond the transitional year of wonderment.
Read MoreBack at Home
Seldom have I been so happy to be in farming.
In a world in which we are socially distanced from friends and neighbors anyway, traveling from Madison to Hilltop to reopen operations in late March was something of a relief.
At the time, the Safer at Home order has just been issued and few people were venturing out, so it was nice to have an “essential” occupation to legitimately go to, one which required commuting to a beautiful spot in the countryside where keeping six feet from others is a lot easier than it is on a four-foot city sidewalk. Erin and I are also lucky that our day jobs can be practiced remotely, and it was an unexpected delight to discover that the internet service provided by little old Lavalle Telephone Coop was a full order of magnitude faster than the creaky wire big old TDS runs to our home in Madison.
It was also nice to gain a new realization about the advantages that a CSA, and especially a very small CSA like ours, can provide to its members.
In an era in which we've become inured to washing our produce in soapy water or bleach after we return from the store – and realizing that we may have risked our health just going in the place – there is a newly obvious reassurance in knowing that only a single set of hands, or at most two, have touched one's food rather than dozens or hundreds, and that a trip to our drop-site barely merits donning a face-mask, save for the outside chance of crossing paths with another farm member along the way. You would also know immediately if Erin or I became sick (and, as we've communicated earlier, we have contingency plans in place for others to cover for us should that occur).
Read MoreFlowers for First Responders and COVID Care Workers
Farmers + Flowers + Your Contribution = Bouquets of Gratitude gifted to our First Responders and COVID Care providers in honor of their essential services.
We get it. We are all feeling the disruptions of this global pandemic and having to adjust to uncertainty in so many ways. On our farm we’ve lost 100% of our wedding and event flower markets for 2020 yet we have an abundance of peonies and perennial flower mojo that we would love to share! As Ladybird Johnson proclaimed, “Where flowers bloom, so too, does hope.”
We hope you can help us. Here’s how
From now to the end of June, you can pre-order/purchase a custom flower bouquet, grown and designed with love and care from our farm, which we will then give away to First Responders and COVID Care Providers in our local Madison and Reedsburg/La Valle neighborhood(s). You can also contact us directly and we can process your order.
We hope this small act of kindness and beauty will give our essential workers a boost of hope and express our appreciation for their essential work during the COVID-19 crisis.
To honor our workers and thank them for keeping us safe,
Read MoreA Different Sort of Spring Ephemeral...Farm Adaptations Amidst Covid - 19
We were not expecting Covid-19 to join the suite of spring ephemerals, but here we are and here's how your Farmers and your Farm are adapting. Please take a moment to pause, digest this letter and with it the latest farm flow and stay healthy and grounded like a perennial - keeping a strong underground root network, with flexible shoots. Here is what to expect at present.
Gratitude! We are so grateful for all the well-wishes, check-in's and creativity that is emerging in our neighborwoods. Thank you! and please stay healthy, be playful and pragmatic.
Farm Menu: At this point our intention is to continue with the growing season as scheduled, and with it our commitment to growing resilience, beauty and abundance for you. As a small CSA we are not concerned about more than 10 people gathering at our drop-site(s). If circumstances require it, we can provide home delivery for a period of time, just please let us know. As your sole laboring farmers, we continue to uphold and ensure all public health and food safety precautions.
Finding Success with Local Flower Farm Events
I am excited and grateful to be a guest blogger with Team Flower, a global flower community that spans generations, experience levels and areas of expertise through sharing resources, expertise and cultivating networks of mutual support. The following is the first of several guest blog articles that I’ve been asked to feature for Team Flower.
You can access the article in its entirety on their website
and if you are interested in experiencing our farm events and farm flowers, we are hosting Brunch n Blooms this year on June 14 and August 9, 2020. RSVP Here
Hosting events on your flower farm offers opportunities for both community learning and illuminating your flower farm. It’s a great way to connect your community with your business, strengthen relationships with customers and local vendors, and build networks of mutual support in a festive atmosphere. Flower farm events are a lot of fun—and offer a lucrative revenue channel and creative outlet—but they can also be a lot of work. A little planning, budgeting, and intention-setting on the front-end will go a long way in harvesting positive outcomes for you and your community.
Over the years, the event models on my own farm have evolved, and I want to share some flower wisdom and insights I’ve gleaned to support you with artfully hosting on-farm events. Read more
Read MoreWhat's Ahead
Once past the cross-quarter point in early February, the small return of evening light -- stolen so prematurely and frustratingly back at Lammas -- is just enough to rekindle the enthusiasm to go forward into a new growing season; although frankly, at this point, sitting with my feet up and a book on my lap has not lost much of its appeal. Lengthening days do make me itchy to get back on the land and, as they say, hope does spring eternal each year. But climate change is increasingly putting a strain on that.
The three wettest years on record in south-central Wisconsin have all occurred since 2016. The next three wettest occurred during the previous seven years. So that's the six wettest years occurring in the past twelve; the odds of having another “wettest year on record” are therefore effectively one in two at this point, rather than the 1 in 80 that would otherwise be expected (the climate database I'm looking at goes back to 1940).
The Three Wonders of Marigolds and Wonderment of the Season
Mid-winter’s lucid grey days know no end to longing and wonderment. Even the morning birdsong seems subdued under the atmosphere’s nimbus mood. Can you tell it’s the cabin fever phase of farming in Wisconsin?
I wonder will year 13 as your farmer florist and orchardist, be a ‘Baker’s Dozen’ kind of luck or the kind of luck that makes you surrender. One thing I do know is that I am lucky, I can pay attention to the wisdom of flowers and fruit. I can listen to the wisdom of what people say it is they value about being around flowers, feasting on our fruit.
Marigold Wonder One
I long to plant summertime,
Prop your yellow – orange pathfinding poms,
That edge the gardens with the
three phases of your existence
Confusion – balance – creative force
In a vase
Like the Ashes of the Old World.
Counting on my Fingers: The Year in Numbers
Sometime in July, my left thumb began hurting. It wasn't due to any injury so far as I could tell – I'd simply slept on it badly, cocked-up under my neck to support my head. I didn't think much about it until I slowly realized that it wasn't getting any better as August turned to September. Thumbs get quite a lot of use around our farm, and Erin quite reasonably chided me for putting-off having it looked at. We were busy of course, and I suppose that was my excuse. By the time we were drawing-in the last of the harvest in October, my thumb's continuing sensitivity finally prompted me to set an appointment at the clinic, worried that twenty-six years of farm work might have taken its toll and that now, perhaps, I had left it too late.
As if to put as fine a point on that sentiment as possible, the soonest available time with a doctor turned out to be at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. I suppose the diagnosis would have been the same whenever I'd been seen, but I found Fate's additional fillip in this regard slightly amusing. Arthritis is an occupational hazard of farming, and the sort of hand-agriculture that we engage in -- with its endless hours of repetitive motion and straining of the limbs against the forces of nature -- hardly makes it less-so. Arthritis has already crept into my back and shoulder, but I've found these joints amenable to stretching and exercise as succor for their occasional creakiness and pain. Not so my thumb, which has thus far remained recalcitrant and is generally unhappy wrapped around a hoe or hammer handle. I have a bit of occupational therapy scheduled for the winter months ahead, but I admit mild concern if I can't manage to get a grip on this new challenge. On the other hand, I'm unlikely to give up farming very easily because I'm addicted to it.
From Digits to Numbers
Read More2019 Flower Retrospective
I designed my last bouquet for 2019 today. A modest seasonal wreath to illuminate the ephemeral magic, radiate the beauty and calm, transmute the grit and grind of growing. It was an infusion of dried strawflowers, lavender, gomphrena, hot pepper, hops, hazelnuts, and thyme. I am continually amazed at the intensity of color and optimism present in blooms, even when dried. Supported by a wreath of grapevine, layers of evergreen, and plumes of switchgrass, and shaped by my hands and hearts, my mind daydreams to this past season.
Flowers are a distillation of Nature’s music. They help us tune in and fine-tune how we show up in the world. They are with us in celebrating and commemorating life’s milestones and to welcome strangers and family alike. My hope is that the flowers we grew for you this season brought joy and new connections and brought a bit of beauty and balance to your days. I hope you found your investment in our farm’s flowers worthwhile, enriching, and were inspired by nature and the relationships that emerged from the rays and rhizomes—bouquet feasts and brunches embedded within the hospitality of the land. This soil and soul love I find with flowers is indeed sustaining and has kept me going and growing on our farm for 12 years. It's quite a regenerative and humble place to be immersed in—all this flower power moving through the landscape that we get to share with you!
Here is how flowers sustained us in 2019:
Read MoreYour Farmers are on TV! Enjoy the Guest Blog from our Friends with WPTV Around the Farm Table →
We had so much fun working with Inga Witscher, Colin Crowley and the crew at Wisconsin Public Television in being part of their “Endless Summer” Episode of this season’s Around the Farm Table. Enjoy the blog entry by the show’s producer, Colin Crowley and enjoy the episode!
Producer and videographer (and occasional goat wrangler) Colin Crowley is back, with a behind-the-scenes look at the second episode of Around the Farm Table.
Read MoreThe Fruit and Flower Mood Board - a Season's Color Palette Reverie
The other day I received an inquiry to grow and design a flower feast for a 2020 wedding celebration. With 12 years under my belt, I continue to deepen my understanding of how to both read the landscape as a grower, align wedding dates with flower phenology, and read the needs and interests of clients and members.
June brought the ability to see green. Growth was the name of the botanical game and I found myself marveling at how the pears, peas, and poppies sprung from its original seed-coated horizontality, gesturing forever upward and outward. Onward with growth, mulch, and the subtleties of purple and pink. Pink pillows of peony blossom, cathedral spiries of delphinium racemes and the intimate splashes of pink on pistils on view when I paused to consider fruitset of apples and aronia.
Read MoreThe Harvest Homestretch
A single nighthawk, batting across the sky one evening last week, was enough to panic us about the end of summer. We’d already been watching the barn swallows getting set to leave. In mid-August, their offspring still romped the skies, swooping for horseflies past our ears, testing one another with their dives. Last week they sat on the wire, carefully watching the sun go down. Next week, the boreal dark one step too near, they will be off and gone.
It seemed a good occasion then to look back briefly on the summer and estimate what the Fall might hold in store before frost chokes the life out of what remains of the garden.
Read More