Pack-shed or people? That’s the question Les Macare and Els Dobrick are grappling with on a dank day in mid-March as they brave a biting wind to inspect the garden plots, cover crops, and outbuildings on Racing Heart Farm in western Wisconsin. With the exception of some onions sprouting in one of the hoop houses,… Read More →
Pack-shed or people? LSP’s Journeyperson helped vegetable producers Les Macare and Els Dobrick make a big decision about a recent growing season. More information: • Land Stewardship Letter Racing Heart Farm profile • LSP’s Journeyperson Course • LSP’s Farm Beginnings Course • Racing Heart Farm You can find LSP Ear to the Ground podcast episodes… Read More →
Anna Racer and Pete Skold have used state and federal “spark plugs” to build a farm enterprise infrastructure that’s good not just for them, but the community as well. Back in 2012, we interviewed Racer and Skold soon after they graduated from Farm Beginnings and launched Waxwing Farm. Check out that conversation on Ear to… Read More →
Rachel Henderson and Anton Ptak’s secondary enterprise could be a boon for farm country pollinators. (In 2010, Henderson and Ptak were featured on Ear to the Ground soon after they launched their orchard enterprise. Check out episode 78 here.) More information: • LSP’s Farm Beginnings Course • LSP’s Journeyperson Course • LSP’s Grazing & Soil Health web… Read More →
There are upsides to launching a farm on raw, open land: no broken-down outbuildings or junk piles to deal with, the ability to truly start anew from the soil up. Then…there’s the other side of the fence, so to speak. “I decided to move the sheep before they move themselves,” says Hannah Bernhardt with a… Read More →
Beginning dairy farmer Carrie Redden talks about how she sees successful land stewardship and successful farming as deeply intertwined, and why more non-farmers need to make that connection as well. Carrie Redden was interviewed as part of the We Are Water initiative, which documented the stories of several farmers in the upper reaches of the… Read More →
Over the past two decades, LSP’s Farm Beginnings course has developed into a nationally-recognized program for launching the next generation of innovative farmers. Karen Stettler and Amy Bacigalupo talk about how Farm Beginnings got started, the community-centered philosophy it’s based on, and where it’s headed. More on Farm Beginnings • For more on LSP’s Farm Beginnings… Read More →
Hannah Bernhardt and Jason Misik couldn’t afford prime farmland brimming with infrastructure. But sweat equity and soil health are helping them transform a marginal piece of ground far from Corn Country.
This Gateway into Farming Hinges on Small Grains, Livestock & Soil Health With its pool table topography and coffee-colored soils, southern Minnesota’s Nicollet County perennially ranks as one of the top producers of corn and soybeans in the state, and land prices reflect it — in 2019 the average annual non-irrigated cropland rental rate in… Read More →
On a warm day in early October, the owner-operators of Clover Bee Farm are preparing a delivery for the 43 shareholders that make up their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) vegetable operation. Standing in a hoop house, Andrew Hanson-Pierre cleans dozens of fat onions, while across the farmyard in a barn that’s been converted to a… Read More →
