Kernels & Seeds
News and Views from your family farm
Vol. 10 No.2 Printed by Scotch Hill Farm, Brodhead , Wis. Spring 2007
Familiar patterns make garden, field grow
What a treasure to have a corner of the 22-acre hay field we established last year to lay out new rows of vegetables between beautiful green paths!
We got out our ancient, ground-driven quack digger and clanked its metal wheels down Scotch Hill Road to the new field. It has a key broken metal piece that I trust our son Joel (with his newfound welding ability) will soon mend. Yet son Jim and I make it do the incomparable work my grandpas’ generation devised it for, drawing up perennial grass roots to decompose in the freezing nightfall and late winter sunlight.
Ten days it took to pitch, transport and lay the manure down, several weeks more to work up the beds and sweet corn patches. Then comes the tilling with our big rotivator, and we’re ready to direct seed, lay black plastic mulch and transplant. Already, neat bean and snow peas rows are emerging, chard, leaf lettuce mix, beets and carrots, too. Onion sets have gone into the ground, and garlic planted last fall is more than a foot high. It all looks so good.
At some point in the past 13 years of growing food on a scale for people other than family, we broke into these rhythms. It took experience and learning. It took acquisition of equipment and mastery of at times 50-, even 100-year-old farm machinery. It took a feel for the work of micro biotic soil life and an understanding of the time it takes to break down organic matter. It took years of Dela keeping notebooks on volumes per family, planting dates, harvest times. It took the support of a community to help us find our way into Nature’s patterns as individuals, as a family farm.
I guess this rhythmic nature of agriculture has been its attraction for human beings from the first cultivation 1,000s of years ago. In our personal history, out of the chaos of past lives and the struggle of first years here, we look back with immense gratitude for all the beautiful people who’ve supported us, bought our vegetables, eggs, milk soap, and livestock. Thank you, thank you.
First farm visits, first crop delivery
Erratic weather this spring, with sudden snow and plunging temperatures, has put outside planting about a week behind.
Yet we still plan to deliver our first crops to Chicago neighborhoods on Saturday, June 9. All local farm pick-up and delivery will start Wednesday, June 13.
First Delivery is
Earth Rider’s owner subscribed to our vegetables this year, and she brought a tour of Chicago visitors our way in a recent Chamber of Commerce-sponsored event.
Inn Serendipity, a “Travel Green” certified B&B about 25 minutes to the west in Browntown is another option. They have some great flower gardens and a country setting (608 329-7056).
If you want to work in a horseback riding lesson from our daughter Holly during a weekday visit here, that’s possible, too. Arrange this with her in advance. Reach her at dreamssharedpoas@yahoo.com or by Calling 608-234-2696
Odds and ends
We had an accident with our new Ford Hybrid Escape that totaled the vehicle. We hope to have it replaced by the time of first delivery. A little extra income right now would help us with surprise bills.
Gifts - Dela has a new soap fragrance that is selling even better than Lavender and Lemon Grass. It is Cedar and Saffron. Need any graduation or wedding gifts this spring?
Food - Also, there is a bumper crop of early spinach, and the hens have been putting in overtime on the egg laying. How about a spinach omelet?
Let us know of your interest, and we’ll work in a delivery as we look for new customers to fill up our season, keep appointments and run errands into Janesville , Madison and Chicago during the month of May.
As always, you can find vegetable sign-up forms, a full year of weekly newsletters (with full lists of vegetables delivered over a growing season) and details about Scotch Hill Farm’s other products and activities at our web site: www.scotchhillfarm.com
Print off and mail order forms to Tony and Dela Ends, 910 Scotch Hill Road , Brodhead , WI 53520 . Call us at 608 897-4288.
New delivery set
We’re counting on one (possibly two) new groups in Chicago reaching the 20-subscriber minimum we need to establish vegetable delivery.
St. Benedict’s Catholic Church, 2215 W. Irving Park Road (at Leavitt Street ) is on track to join our Saturday delivery route. We’ll try to be there each Saturday by 2:30 p.m. on the Leavitt side of the church – traffic and parking permitting, starting June 9.
This will leave Oak Park morning and 1:30 p.m. Logan Square delivery unchanged. But it will push Berry Memorial church delivery to 3:30 p.m. until 4:15 p.m.
The other possible new delivery point is in the 200 block of South Ashland Avenue at Epiphany Episcopal Church, just west of the Loop . We have an interest list for that location, but no confirmations. Time is running out.
On-farm pick-up this year will be from the walk-in cooler in our machine shed, same as last year on Wednesdays. Drive into the barnyard right up to this building to get your produce. Wednesday Janesville and Madison deliveries will be the same this year, too.
Vol. 9, No.2 Printed by Scotch Hill Farm, Brodhead , Wis. Fall 2006
Looking back on all we accomplished together
November finds Dela busy night and day in our soap kitchen, filling the air with sweet fragrances of essential oils, herbs and flowers. We’ve already taken part in some successful alternative holiday gift fairs, winter farmers’ market benefit sales for Harvest of Hope farm crisis funding and two school fundraisers.
Dela and I are working hard to show a strong finish in milk soap sales for our 2006 grant project reports. That project is in a 4th year of helping 8 other Illinois and Wisconsin farm families diversify production and increase incomes.
We head into winter with many responsibilities and hopeful hearts – for other farm families we’re trying to help in the farmstead soap-making guild, for other grower associations we’re part of, for sustainable farming apprentice training and for the work of Churches’ Center for Land & People – justice, earth stewardship and community.
In my annual ritual of putting gardens and fields to bed for winter, I’m so grateful for mild weather. In southerly breezes I work to disengage remnants of hundreds of bedding plants killed in frost and freezing weather several weeks ago. I carefully pull up the remaining black plastic mulch from the moist soil, turning and rolling row after row out of fields. I mow down weeds, stalks and vines in the new 5-acre field where much of our produce and sweet corn grew this year. Rain begins to fall, commencing Nature’s winter work of decomposing plant matter and enriching the soil for next spring’s plantings.
Talk to us; we’re listening
Want to suggest changes or additions to varieties of vegetables we grow?
Dela works over winter months to plan nearly 5 months of food in weekly deliveries to more than 100 families. She selects 100s of varieties from certified organic and heirloom seed sources (Johnny’s, Federated Cooperative, Underwood Garden , etc.). Over the years, subscribers have made suggestions we all benefited from. You can suggest changes, too. Contact us at 910 Scotch Hill Road , Brodhead , WI 53520 ; or 608 897-4288; or scotchhillfarm@wekz.net
We’ll sow this field to alfalfa, forage grasses and a nurse crop of oats next March. Fall preparations and the new rotary cutter we bought to use with our John Deere tractor last spring put us ahead of past years. You helped do that. Community support of our farm and chemical-free practices contributed many improvements to Scotch Hill Farm this year. Here’s a sampling:
Our wish list is always long. Presently, we need a livestock feed mixer to prepare our own dairy goat and laying hen rations. We need fencing and an enclosure to move our sheep to a new pasture and prevent over-razing. We want to improve our 1930s farmhouse with Energy Star windows, passive and active solar heat, and insulation. We want to install wind generation, finish renovating a FarmAll Tractor, erect a hoop house, replace our 4-row corn planter, purchase a snowplow. And our long-term goal of acquiring irrigation will be costly to accomplish
We can always think of ways to cut operating costs, improve efficiencies, reduce carbon emissions. Everything we do, everything you do, at Scotch Hill farm, contributes to greater sustainability, food security and stewardship. Thank you.
Vegetable eaters wanted: Sign up for season 13
Subscriptions for our farm’s delivery of fresh vegetables and herbs are running well ahead of this time last year. Our family’s 13 th year of deliveries starts the 2nd week of June and runs for 20 weeks, well into October.
Anyone who makes payment or deposit and post-dated checks before Jan. 1, 2007 , is eligible to receive $10 worth of holiday shape milk soap or eggs from our farm during winter markets. You can also get $7 off any purchase of our coalition’s Asparagus to Zucchini cookbook, which retails for $19.95 nationwide
Our delivery routine in 2007 will likely follow the same pattern as this year. Each week, subscribers will receive a weekly newsletter listing contents of each bag, recipes and notes from the farm.
Past years’ newsletters are posted to our web site at www.scotchhillfarm.com. Weeks vary from year to year with changes in temperature and rainfall. An order form for our daughter Holly Deschene’s fresh-cut flowers is also available at this web site.
Subscribers should try to come to the delivery points at hours designated, or send someone in their place to pick up produce and obtain other items (fresh eggs, milk soap, etc.) on a first-come, first-serve, as-available basis.
If subscribers can’t come to pick up their vegetables, they need to let us know ahead of time to donate them to a charity or person in need. Subscribers can obtain a statement of the charitable contribution of their vegetables if they desire.
Vol. 7, No.1 Printed by Scotch Hill Farm, Brodhead , Wis. Winter 2004
Scotch Hill Farm begins 10 th growing season
Celebrating people who made it possible
So many people in Wisconsin and northern Illinois have helped our family farm reach this season.
We thank each of you who’ve purchased food and farm products from us. We thank all who’ve helped work on farm projects, grow crops or get vegetables ready for delivery.
We don’t have space to name all of you, but we want to single out a few for special thanks:
A big thank you to each of these and all the rest of you in 9 communities across the years who’ve shared so much with our farm and our family. You’re the greatest!
Internships return to Scotch Hill Farm in 2004 season
We didn’t take on any interns in the 2003 growing season. We focused instead on our own 3 sons, who worked very hard and helped us make it through 6 or 7 weeks of drought and very hard insect conditions.
This winter has brought much interest from young adults in our internships through the Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training.
Daniel Acosta came here for an intern training tryout late last year and has agreed to intern with us for a full season.
Daniel has been living with his family and working in their fireplace mantel business in North Carolina . He is originally from Ecuador and has taken part in several internships on farms and in farm research.
We’re very excited to have him joining us in the coming growing season. We’re still getting internship inquiries and taking applications. We’ll introduce you to Daniel and any other interns who pass muster at our spring work day.
Helping young adults learn fundamental skills in organic agriculture and encouraging farming as a vocational choice are priorities of our farm. Your subscription supports this objective and meets this need.
Notes from Scotch Hill Farm
Your dollars in 2003 helped our farm grow
When we start preparing ground in March for planting in May, we’ll be using the new 50-inch rotivator ($2,500) and the used black plastic mulch layer ($450) your produce payments helped us buy last season. Your vegetables will keep cool all season with the used refrigeration unit ($1,000) your purchases made possible for the walk-in cooler we built in 2002. Our John Deere 3020 got a new tire and inner-tube ($600), our 1988 pickup got a new engine ($2,500), our electricity was upgraded ($4,500), we added a second truck for hauling produce to Chicago subscribers ($3,100) and we got 1/3 painting of our farm buildings done ($650). We could go on and on, about improvements your support makes possible. In all, it takes about $8,000 per month to operate a small farm and feed a family. We’re very grateful for your support. Thank you!
First Harvest of Hope benefit sale a success
We were 7 small family farm enterprises, and we sold products from sustainable farms in Wisconsin . Each producer donated a portion of proceeds to Harvest of Hope emergency fund for farmers. The sale at Midvale Lutheran last December helped our farms very much, and together we raised $540 for Harvest of Hope. That fund helped more than 50 farmers last year with gifts of $36,000 to meet crises. Over the years it has prevented suicides and saved farms from failing. We’re organizing more sales around the state; Churches’ Center for Land & People, which Tony directs now part-time, has voted to partner with the fund to spread its work even into Illinois , Iowa and Minnesota . The second sale will be in Milwaukee March 6 (see calendar) and will draw people from 5 Catholic churches. We’re looking for small family farm producers, groups to branch off this work into other states, and churches to host benefit sales. Contact 608 897-4288 or Scotchhillfarm@wekz.net
Milk soap marketing co-op off to good start
Tony and Dela hosted workshops in January for 9 dairy goat producers in northern Illinois and Wisconsin at Scotch Hill Farm. This began the work on a 2-year USDA Small Business Innovation Research project to organize a milk soap-making guild and cooperative. Tony and Dela also made a presentation at the Midwest Value-Added Conference in Eau Claire , Wis. , on integrating a commercial kitchen and soap-making into small scale crop and livestock production in January. Our gross milk soap sales in 2003 came just short of $24,000, more than ¼ the revenue we need annually to meet our obligations and run this farm. Thank you!
Vol. 7, No.2 Printed by Scotch Hill Farm, Brodhead , Wis. Spring 2004
Planting at Scotch Hill off to best start yet
Snow peas and spinach are loving this cool, wet weather. Three kinds of cabbage, onion sets, tomatoes, green peppers and other plants (started in our greenhouses, then transplanted to garden and field) are putting on size and adapting well to soil.
Basil, cilantro, chives, oregano, tarragon and other herbs are all thriving. Beets, chard, lettuce, radishes and other varieties we direct seeded are pushing up through soil and starting to grow. Melons, okra and other plants are clinging to greenhouse warmth.
We had some touches of frost over the past 6 weeks that sent our family out into the garden evenings with wheat straw to cover up plants. The “too dry” stretch of weather early on turned into more than ample rain.
Thus far this spring, however, Mother Nature has not been too harsh in reminding us that we’re mortal servants of the plant world and not masters of life.
Volunteers, garden loving subscribers and worker shares (mostly from Madison and Monroe) have been joining our family for weeding and mulching sessions. Thanks to everyone’s efforts, our garden and fields are the best they’ve ever looked in May. It looks like a beautiful, promising start to the 2004 growing season.
A new addition to the wide variety of produce you’ll be getting this year is the Fava bean. Second only to soybeans as a source of vegetable protein, this large shell bean can be eaten fresh. Since it thrives in cold, damp weather, our Fava plants have gotten almost a foot high already. Our farm apprentice this year, Daniel Acosta, tells us this delicious bean is very popular in his native Ecuador . He promises to share authentic Fava recipes with us all at first harvest.
New greenhouse helping our farm keep growing
When you come for a visit to our farm this year, you must check out our new walk-in cold frame and reconditioned green house from years past.
The latter, a lean-to made largely of cast off wood (scavenged from factory dumpsters), and recycled plastic from a defunct flower and vegetable business, had taken quite a beating from storms over the years.
Much patching and repairing in March warmed up the old greenhouse along side a low shed that was once a hog house in our barn yard. Addition of heat lamps to the structure got our flats of seedlings through numerous cold spells this spring.
The new structure is a lean-to on the south side of our red metal machine shed. It’s 16 by 35 feet. Walls are made of heavy plexi-glass panels that once provided storm windows for a Catholic church in Janesville . One of our faithful subscribers, Ron Suttherlin, donated the panels to us when he got a contract to upgrade the church’s window coverings.
Tony brought them home 2 years ago and saved them all along with a design in mind for a new cold frame. The materials are much sturdier than the rolled commercial grade plastic we’ve been using.
Aaron Deschenes and Daniel, with help from our 3 sons when they weren’t in school, got the job done. This doubles our capacity for getting seedlings going in late winter and early spring to lengthen our season.
Neighbors show us that farming is much more than a business
Last week, just ahead of the recent heavy rains, our John Deere 3020 tractor returned to the farm. The 1965 tractor, which we purchased 3 years ago on a home equity loan, had been using a lot of oil. Tony feared we’d get into the growing season and lose it to a serious breakdown.
Phil’s Tractor Repair in Davis , Ill. , completely overhauled the engine for us, but it took 6 weeks’ time and cost $3,600. Tony drove it the 15 miles home and right into the field to work. We laid black plastic beds for transplanting vegetable starts in our home field and rotivated two-thirds of a rented field for planting sweet corn and beans.
With a second borrowed tractor (a neighbor’s 1945 AC), Daniel and Aaron immediately followed Tony’s tillage with the ground-driven 4-row corn planter. The field was almost completely planted before the rains began the next day.
There’s lots more field work to be done, and we’re praying for a little relief from rain, but we’re grateful the tractor is back in action. We’d been so afraid for weeks that the tractor repair was going to delay planting and ruin our 20-week harvest schedule.
It was gratifying during the weeks we were so vulnerable to equipment down time to watch 4 neighbors come to our assistance. One loaned us the old AC for spreading manure and beginning field work with an ancient quack digger. He also helped us plow a rented field. We returned to that field amazed to find the property owner had disked over the clods of meadow grass into a level planting surface.
A third neighbor brought an end-loader to help us keep two spreaders running back and forth to fields with manure. And an Amish neighbor saw we were falling behind and tilled up an entire field with a team of horses without our asking for his help.
Breakdowns, flat tires, equipment failures and wild swings in weather are all a part of any scale of agricultural production. We thank God, however, for a caring community that takes time to lend a hand.
We’re reminded constantly that farming is more than a business. True farming brings out the best in people. The support of our consuming public will help us now pay back our neighbors for their kindness.
New milk soap products
Our daughter Holly, research project assistant Karen Zapatosky and Dela have been cooking up new products in our farmstead soap kitchen.
We’re really liking a new liquid soap made from milk and other natural ingredients. It’s a head-to-toe body wash that makes a great shampoo. Lip balm and a skin cream round out our new gift boxes.
We also have several new bar soap fragrances, including apple-honey oats, a grapefruit and ginger combo called “Sun up” and a Cappuccino variety that scrubs away kitchen odors like fish, garlic and onions.
These new products are helping us meet a goal of having a package of skin care products for our guild and cooperative of farmstead soap-makers. We hope to make consistent quality and quantities of these products in a block to attract a hotel chain or an institution that will buy our cooperative’s soap.
Our other farm cooperators are making and selling their first batches of milk soap around the state.
Judge sides with citizens
A Rock County Circuit Court judge ruled April 15 in favor of our citizen’s appeal against a permit for a 1200-animal unit facility in our rural community. The decision voided a local board of adjustment vote and let stand a 2002 town denial of the permit.
Our family helped lead this effort. We’re still working with neighbors to strengthen local zoning laws, defend against possible appeal to a higher court and oppose a new state livestock facility siting law.
Tony attended a public health conference in Iowa City March 29, which confirmed our every concern about environmental and health impacts of confined animal feeding operations. Scientist and doctor, after scientist and doctor presented research and data from around the country and world. Doctors of microbiology, veterinary medicine, epidemiology, bacteriology, clinical health, toxicology and infectious diseases. Hydrologists, engineers, economists, life and social scientists. They all spoke to implications of these industrial operations that now proliferate in Wisconsin , the Midwest and the world. Industrialized farming practices have reached proportions that threaten human health and food security on a scale rivaling nuclear proliferation.
Farm hosts wedding fete
Just before our first delivery of produce this season, Scotch Hill Farm hosts a wedding celebration for our daughter Holly and Aaron Deschenes. We’ve been trying hard all spring to get ready for the big event June 5 – re-flooring part of the barn, sprucing up the grounds, making wedding dresses, cooking and much more. We’re happy for our daughter and welcome Aaron into our home, farm and business.