‘24 End of Season Reflections
Hello friends!
It’s Ravine here. I just wrapped up my first season at Wonka’s Harvest, and liked it so much I signed on for a second season! Last year I applied to work here to get back to my Wisconsin roots after spending 5 years on the west coast, and try out this no-till agriculture thing. I have learned a tremendous amount here at Wonka’s. Coming in with a background of mid-sized, low-till vegetable farming, I had to learn a whole new system of doing everything from building beds to transplanting; all by hand. I was introduced to growing and harvesting a number of new vegetables and raising pigs for the first time! Around mid summer I was asked to step up as crew lead, and so I gained a whole new set of management and planning skills through this position. As the season wrapped up, we found out our beloved manager Abigail was moving on from Wonka’s, as she found a new farm management job closer to home. With this transition I am filling in the gaps, as production manager for the 2025 season.
As I reflect back on the last year, I am reminded of how wonderful it is to be a part of this farming community. The season flashes past my eyes in a whorl of morning stretches, familiar faces at markets, music in the valley, and piggies in the pasture. We grew countless different vegetables, flowers, medicinal and culinary herbs, microgreens, indoor mushrooms, outdoor mushrooms, and raised a small herd of pigs. I am reminded of our our farm tribulations, with illness, injury, tractor malfunctions, and pig drama, all in the midst of social and environmental unrest around the world. How we still somehow managed to get everything done speaks to the power of community resiliency. Thank you to everyone who supports our farming venture, we couldn’t have done it without you!
Spring
We started the season strong with some returning workers, and some newer folks with awesome work ethic. From the very first day, it was clear we were going to have a lot of fun growing veggies together. The crew made the most of field work each day with hilarious jokes, puns, and even educational talk of herbalism and music.
It was an unusually warm late-winter and early-spring on the farm, which meant we were able to get things seeded and transplanted sooner than usual. The tulips and daffodils came up bountifully, and ended up being a very lucrative crop for us at the Dane County Farmers Market.
Last winter, we built 2 new 145 feet greenhouses, which we call our big houses. Building new beds in these was a challenge. The previous land owners had kept horses on the ground where we put our big houses, so the soil was very compacted, rocky, and had a very chunky clay consistency. It was a lot of work, but we got our beds built and our tomatoes planted! The other big house had greens and our spicy peppers.
When we got our 12 piglets in April, we immediately faced challenges because we ended up with two different litters, of which one was older than the other. This caused fighting from day 1, and we ended up having to separate the litters to protect the younger piglets. Luckily, with time the social order was established and we were able to reintegrate them. By late-spring we were able to get them out to pasture and give them more space to forage.
Baby Rosie!
Farm manager Abigail had her baby Rosie in May this year. The whole crew was overjoyed at her arrival into this world!
Summer
This summer we grew some gorgeous veggies with the help of bountiful rainfall! Our garlic harvest was a breeze. We pulled it all by hand, aided by our healthy, uncompacted soil. We increased our tomato growing capacity from last year, in one of our new big houses. Our fennel bulbs were fat and juicy; we only wish we had planned to plant more! Our eggplants were very productive, making luscious dark purple fruit all summer long. We experimented with selling annual flowers by the stem at our markets. Zinnias and celosia ended up being big hits.
For our CSA, we sometimes like to buy in fruits, veggies, and more from our local farm neighbors such as Linstroth Valley View Farms, Squashington, Meadowlark, Atoms to Apples, and Kingfisher Farm. The crew had a great time picking strawberries for our CSA members from Bures Berry Patch on this muggy summer day.
We loved working at the Mount Horeb Farmers Market. With it being a smaller market, we were able to make friends with the other venders and regular customers. Our crew member Reilly was especially adept at welcoming customers in with jest and friendly service.
We had a ton of fun hand cutting, painting, and showing off our lettuce jam letters!
This year we had our second ever Lettuce Jam music festival! In the middle of our busiest time of year on the farm we put together this awesome event, featuring 3 workshops, a farm tour, and 5 bands. We were grateful to have the talented groups Kiernan, Feed the Dog, Wonderfunk, The People Brother’s Band, and Armchair Boogie perform. We ended up having over 300 people in attendance, with folks camped out up and down the valley. We had 3 food trucks, art vendors, a merch booth, and kids tent. We had a tug-of-war with the farm crew against anyone who wanted to. Within seconds, the farm crew was defeated. We had a big bonfire going all evening with people roasting marshmallows and sharing stories and good cheer. In the morning there was yoga on the stage, which was great after a night of camping.
Preparation for Lettuce Jam was intense to say the least. The crew spent countless hours setting aside field work to get ready. We made 150 hand-dyed and hand-printed Lettuce Jam t-shirts, which all turned out so beautiful and unique. We got the valley ready by brush cutting, mowing, and weed-whacking, clearing fallen trees, and planting flowers. We set up what felt like an obscene amount of lights all over the place (it was worth it), picnic tables, all of the vending tents, and set out signs.
Lettuce Jam was truly a huge success, and it’s all because of these three; Anna, Patty, and Abigail. They worked their butts off thinking of every detail.
Fall
We ended the season strong with a ton of peppers, garlic, and greens. We harvested corn for the first time; so pretty! Our fall storage CSA looked awesome, flushed out with goods like sweet potatoes, clementine cauliflower, dried herbs, and celery. We increased our ginger and tumeric growing capacity this year in our greenhouses. Who knew you could grow ginger and tumeric in Wisconsin? We were a little stressed about getting our garlic planted in time, with the tractor having difficulties. In the end, we got it all planted right on schedule. With the help of a big tractor auger, we dug 400 holes to plant peonies! We are looking forward to harvesting these awesome flowers in years to come.
Dried Herbs
This year we increased our herb harvest for drying. We are hoping to expand our selection of bulk dried herbs to sell. We are experimenting with tea blends and spice mixes. With the warmer weather this fall, the nettle growing down in the valley came up for an additional fall harvest. Our nettle patch is very fertile and vigorous and we are learning how to be good stewards of this wild stand.
Experimenting with Cover Crops
This fall we have begun the process of experimenting with cover cropping. With very little information out there on how to do cover crops no-till, we have to run trials to see what will work best for our systems and soil. A beginner friendly cover crop that we tried was sugar peas. We direct seeded them thickly on a few beds. We were happy to find out that they out competed weeds, and even gave us a harvest of pea shoots to put in our csa and sell at markets. The pea shoots were killed by the cold weather, but continue to provide soil coverage through the winter and will feed our microorganisms once the weather warms up.
We also experimented with winter rye in two locations on our farm. One of the trials was on beds that had been growing brassicas all summer. First, we tarped the area for a month or so, and then we direct seeding the rye and lightly stirred it in. We also direct seeding some rye where we had grown garlic this year. The area was covered in decomposing wood chips, and had very little weed pressure so we didn’t tarp before hand. So far, the rye in the old garlic/wood chip beds is looking really strong. The rye in the old brassica field is looking a little weaker, but still providing soil coverage. The rye will continue growing all winter and into the spring. We will terminate it by crimping, just as most of the plants have begun to flower. Then the plan is to transplant directly into the beds.
Next season, we hope to experiment with other short lived cover crops like sugar peas, such as buck wheat. We hope that the use cover crops will decrease our weed pressure and keep our soil healthy for years to come.
Just like that the season is complete. I am so proud of what we accomplished this season! After some rest this winter, I will be rearing to get the 2025 season underway!
Bright blessings to you all!
-Ravine