News From the Farm
Keep current with up-to-date news from Farmer Renee.
Earth Day Special
Monday, May 6th, 05:00 PM
Happy Spring - yes it's coming, it really is...
In a salute to Spring, Earth Day and CSA supporters -
Sweet Earth is offering a planet supporting special...and we are extending this well received special through Mother's Day!
In 1970, Wisconsin's progressive Senator Gaylord Nelson founded and celebrated the first Earth Day on April 22nd. The idea was to promote ecology and respect for life on this jewel of a planet.
Here at Sweet Earth we've been supporting Earth Day every day since 1974 with care for the good earth using organic farming practices. We are inviting shareholders to join our 2013 CSA season with the following Earth Day special.
If you have been a shareholder with Sweet Earth in the past and want to join for the 2013 season, please take $20 off the price of your chosen share size.
But wait - there's more! We're also offering our former shareholders a set of three wonderfully done children's books with an environmental theme beautifully illustrated, written by Tim Magner of Green Sugar Press. Yep, you'll be getting a discount, the three books, and great food for the 2013 season - ahh, what a deal!
Then, if you know family or friends that would like to join for the 2013 season but will be new to Sweet Earth, they can choose between the discounted share price or the set of children's books by Tim, ( retail value of over $35.)
I'll be at the Elgin Green Expo event in Elgin on May 10 from 7-9 P.M. and May 11 from 9 A.M. - 4 P.M. where you can sign up for CSA at the discounted price and pick up your books there as well. If you can't attend that event - don't fret - we have a plan- the books can be dropped off with shares at the start of our season.
As we have said many times over the years - supporting the right kind of farming is the best way to care for the land and its farmers. Please see our website "join today" to print out your membership form to use the discounted pricing through Mothers Day.
Sincerely,
Farmer Renee
Your investment really counts!
Good Morning! This is not the stock market report - just reminding you that your investment in farmland, farms, and farmers really counts.
Today's quote:
"To affect the world by the ordinary act of eating is a powerful invitation."
Farmer Renee / Sweet Earth Organic Farm
WELCOME!
About the Farm
About the Farmer
"It is only when we are aware of the earth and of the earth as poetry that we truly live..." ~Henry Beston - Herbs and the Earth
Our farm...
Our 120 acre farm sits on a ridge 1000 ft. above sea level in the driftless region of southwestern Wisconsin. Sweet Earth is just a stone's throw from the Kickapoo and Wisconsin Rivers at Wauzeka.The landscape is rich in hills and valleys, rivers and bluffs, woods and wildlife. Our farm has almost 40 acres of woods that produce ramps, fiddleheads and morel mushrooms in the Spring, and Elderberry and wild plums later in the season The air is clean and the vistas are awe inspiring.
"We've farmed organically for over thirty years because organic practices are life asserting ... for the earth, the environment, for people, and for the food we grow." ~Farmer Renee
Just how do we grow that great stuff?
We work towards a living and balanced soil.To build health and vitality into what we grow, we use seaweed blends, compost, plant teas, biodynamics, and love for what we do. About ten years ago, we became seed savers and heirloom growers. We start our own plants, some with the seed we've saved from plants harvested on the farm in earlier seasons. We blend our own fluffy and delicious looking soil mix to start our seedlings in the greenhouse and when the transplants are ready, "out they go" to the field.
The food you'll love to eat...
We love heirlooms because it ties us to the history of growing food. We especially love heirloom tomatoes... in every color of the rainbow...pink, purple, green, black, yellow, gold orange and, of course, tomato red. At least one variety of every color is grown on the farm each year and harvested vine ripened. Produce is always harvested at its peak for best nutrition and flavor. We vine ripen those tomatoes and melons, and we deliver the energy of garden freshness. Back to Top
The farmer...
Sweet Earth's farmer is a woman (farmess is not a word). Hopefully this is not so surprising. The earliest agriculturalists were women, and even now, in many parts of the world, women are the ones who plant, tend and harvest. "I'm in good company."
I started out studying nutrition in the style of Adele Davis...ahhh!...life unfolds...along came this farm...and I've been Farmer Renee, farming organically for the past thirty years.
Through those years I returned to school to study the science of agriculture. But the most important lessons, too profound for textbooks, came through those two great teachers, nature and farm life itself. There's been no shortage of work, worry, or passion for this chosen life as farmer.
"We've farmed organically for over thirty years because organic practices are life asserting ... for the earth, the environment, for people, and for the food we grow." ~Farmer Renee
This farmer's family...
My children grew up on the farm and worked alongside me as I farmed with horses, plowed, made hay, milked cows and then, when I began growing veggies in 1988. Now, it's my visiting grandchildren that ride the transplanter, dig fingerling potatoes and eat cherry tomatoes off the vine.
THE GOOD NEWS: (in agriculture)...young people...experience the basic social experience that comes from recognition that in cultivating the earth and caring for animals and plants, one must rely on the work of others who cultivated before you, and that you do not necessarily reap what you have planted, but that others may benefit from your work. ~ Trauger Groh Farms of Tomorrow Revisited
AND THE BAD NEWS: In a recent survey of Iowa farmers, over 50% advised their children against farming for an occupation. The IOWA STATE FARM AND RURAL LIFE POLL / Spring 2004