Visit Big Woods Farm
By Janet Kubat Willette
jkubat@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 07/08/2010 1:53 PM
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NERSTRAND, Minn. — Laurie and David Hougen-Eitzman plan to walk visitors around their fields during the Festival of Farms.
The couple are one stop on the three-stop bus tour being organized by the Cannon River Chapter of the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota for the Festival of Farms on July 10. Other stops are at Simple Harvest Farm and Shepherd's Way Farm. In the evening, supper and a barn dance with music by Depot Creek is planned at the Lori and Alan Callister farm near West Concord.
The Festival of Farms is a statewide event to showcase sustainable agriculture.
The Hougen-Eitzmans grow six to seven acres of vegetables every year to feed the 115 families who are members of their Big Woods Farm Community Supported Agriculture.
Their vegetable list is diverse, ranging from potatoes and radishes to shallots and edamame. They plant 55 kinds of vegetables, with several varieties of each kind. They have eight tomato varieties and five varieties of summer squash.
Their CSA members live in the Nerstrand area as well as Minneapolis, Apple Valley and Northfield.
The couple moved to Minnesota in 1992 to take over the farm from Laurie's uncle Bob, who was forced to retire for health reasons. Uncle Bob has become their farm consultant. He knows the soils and helps with their machinery, David said.
They use mechanization and hand work to raise vegetables, relying on a Farmall Cub and Allis-Chalmers D14 to pull their machinery.
The Hougen-Eitzmans farm organically and are in the process of being certified organic.
Laurie works full time on the farm and David has a full-time off-farm job teaching at Carleton College in Northfield. They have two children and five employees, most of whom work part-time.
At first, the couple raised vegetables to sell at farmers markets. Farmers markets are a great way to start if a person is thinking about beginning a CSA, Laurie said.
Running a CSA is different, because the farmer needs to supply their members with produce throughout the growing season, David said. It takes a lot of organization and work to consistently produce a variety of high-quality produce throughout the growing season.
They start planting in early to mid-March and continue planting throughout the season. They make deliveries to customers beginning in mid-June and continuing through mid-October, about 18 weeks total, David said.
Their vegetables are supplemented with herbs and fruit, also grown on the farm.
Their CSA is one of the larger ones in the area, but is considered mid-sized, David said.
Farmers and CSA shareholders get to know each other and the farm, David said. They have a garden where members plant and where members' children built a scarecrow that looks lifelike from the road.
"People join for more than the produce," Laurie said.
The number of CSAs in the Northfield area have tripled in the last three years and doubled in the Twin Cities area, David said, with younger people coming into the business in the last five years.
Laurie said CSAs have reached the people naturally inclined to join, and now have to reach out to people who know they should eat more vegetables, but don't know how to fit them into their diet or how to prepare them. She also wants to reach out to children by starting a kids' recipe page on their Big Woods Farm website. They make sure to include recipes on their website.