ten year anniversary | Fair Share Farm

In the beginning, our goal for Fair Share Farm was to have a 100 member CSA. It was our belief that a CSA of that size would sustain us economically as well as nourish us (we now know that number was a little low).

Ice storm—first week of January

Our second season was planned as another incremental step towards that 100 member goal. We were able to grow our CSA membership to 50, and were planting enough in the fields for 75. This approach allowed us a cushion to make sure we could provide for our members, and would leave us a surplus that we could sell at the Crossroads Farmers Market (our city distribution point).

CSA distribution table

Market table

The season was a good one. It started out slow, but we did have some excellent crops that year, including tomatoes, potatoes, beans and broccoli. We think that we may have been showing people that we at least knew something about vegetable production, and when we were on, things were as good as you could get.

Spring broccoli

Heirloom tomatoes

A wonderful crudite of June vegetables

Part of the reason for our success was the extra hands we had to help us. In 2004 Bill McKelvey earned the right to be called our first apprentice (once a week volunteer). While we were doing more learning than teaching back then, it was nonetheless instructive and proved to be the beginning of a wonderful friendship.

Another friend-to-be, Lori Watley began volunteering with us too. She helped us begin the orchard, and later returned as a full-time apprentice in 2009. The title of first FSF full-time apprentice goes to Amy Bousman. Currently a Kansas farmer and dairy maiden, we are happy to have been a help during her earlier years.

Bill helping sort potatoes for the Fall root cellar

Rebecca and Lori planting a fruit tree

Amy washing Chinese cabbage

Then there was the farm infrastructure. Afterall, what’s a farm without fences and a barn with a good roof. We had neither at the start of the year. Our landlord, Graff Properties, hired out a re-roofing of the barn and the work was completed in time for the season.

Roof work in the Spring

Packing room ready to go for the year

The fencing that I was referring to was the 3,750 linear feet of deer fence. After two years of electric fencing, hair bags, bobcat urine and Irish Spring soap, it was apparent that an 8 foot high physical barrier was the only thing that would keep the deer out of our fields.

The planning began in January, and in March we were cutting the black locust trees that would become the fence posts. Throughout the year we picked away at the project—laying out the fence, digging post holes every 25 feet, setting the posts with the members’ help, building gates, and finally hanging the fence. We could not farm without it.

Member Mark Flynn and brother-in-law Jeff Wilson working on posts—
Thanks for the help

Setting the posts with the members’ help

John and his deer fence spool

Among the other highlights of the year were the arrival of our two cats Momma and Sunny. The kitten Sunny arrived on Amy’s doorstep (RV step actually) and his constant meowing was soon met by that of his mom. We offered them some food, and they never left. They were a welcome addition to the farm, as Rebecca’s cat Luna had been laid to rest in February, and we were happy to have another mouser or two on the farm.

Sunny and Momma

We were able to take a real vacation that year, traveling to one of Rebecca’s favorite haunts—Mexico. Oaxaca City, Puerto Escondido, and Mexico City were our stops…the land of local coffee, chocolate and bananas. The people, countryside, food and culture were a wonderful retreat after three solid years of work.

Saturday wedding at Santo Domingo, Oaxaca City

Farm-raised Xmas gifts

Next up…abnormal weather, a growing CSA, a year of chickens and a new pond.

Since Fair Share Farm was first conceived it was always going to be a CSA farm. The concept of Community Supported Agriculture, and our experiences as both CSA members and apprentices had sealed the deal a long time previous. So 2004 was to be the year we would take on the responsibility of growing food for a community of local folks.

Step one was to generate membership. Through marketing the previous year at farmers markets, an article in the Kearney Courier, the KC Food Circle Expo, and word of mouth we were able to build a membership of 25 (our goal was 30). We held our first Core Group meeting at Fred and Carol Barth’s house along with member Kirk Day.

At the KC Food Circle Expo

Along with the vegetable growing, the infrastructure work continued. Our current packing room took shape as the barn received a makeover. The less than vertical north foundation wall was expertly replaced by a Menonite crew from Jamesport. John deftly felled the tree growing up the south side of the barn, and Rebecca and I re-built the lower barn so that it could house our cooler and wash area.

John dropping a tree

New wash area and packing room

The season started later than it does now, with the first share being handed out on Wednesday May 25, 2004. You can read all about it in our first Fair Share Farm CSA Newsletter. If you were around then you were lucky enough to get 2 pounds of sugar snap peas in your first share.

The first CSA farm work day

Our first distribution at the Crossroads Farmers Market

That bounty lightened up a bit as the season went on, however, as we learned just how wet and boggy some areas of our fields could get. The biggest loss of the season were the tomatoes and potatoes. Waterlogged from the start, and then eaten by the deer, the crop was meager. It is a tribute to those members who stuck with us after such disappointment, showing what supporting local agriculture means.

Soggy beds

Rain brings rainbows

Carrots have always seemed to thrive here

Late September share

We still had lots of ground to break in those days, and were still learning the craft of biological farming. We had yet to plant in the field up by the house. John had advised against it, as it was full of morning glory and cockelbur weeds. But we seeded brome grass and clover, and the wet summer helped this base vegetation flourish. We then started cutting beds and cover cropping with buckwheat.

The beds without the cover crop were lush too, with cockelbur weeds. We eventually got rid of them, without the use of herbicides, by balancing the mineral content of the soil and sticking with our cover cropping game plan. Today there is nary a cockel or a bur in that field.

Buckwheat flowering in distance and cockelbur crop in foreground

The winter was spent focusing on the house and more planning. These photos remind us that apparently we started our bathroom remodeling (yeeck!). It was finished by the following Spring.

Nothing but a memory now (yeah!)

With members Jessica and James—rounding up 2005 members in the Crossroads

So we worked and plotted our jump to 50 CSA members and enjoyed another winter on the farm. Next up—deer fences and full-time apprentices.