As we have recently turned from 2024 to 2025, we are taking this opportunity to reflect on the previous year and set new goals for the farm in the coming year. Let’s take a look at a few of the goals that we have set for 2025!
Markets
We sold at two different markets (Shenandoah Farmers’ Market & The Mill in Downtown Shenandoah). Through these markets we gained some new customers and made some valuable friendships with other vendors. This year, we are considering adding a couple more markets to our week along with a few special markets along the way.
CSA
Last year, we had five members of our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. It was a lot of fun connecting with these members and producing food for them and their families. We charged $200 per membership. We are excited to share that each member received $249 worth of produce over the season!
This year, we hope to grow our CSA. Soon we will be looking for new members to join for the upcoming season.
Seed Starting and Storage
We use our basement to start seeds and organize a lot of our garden stuff. We need to take time to sanitize everything we used last year, inventory what we have, order things we need, and get everything in its place. We hope to start some more plants this year, especially the tomatoes, which were a big seller at markets. We have already started on this, but it is a big project so there is still plenty to do.
Irrigation
Ever since we started our garden, watering has been a super-intensive part of our growing season. We have had to haul water in five gallon buckets from our house to the garden, which is a couple blocks away. Then we pour the water into a watering can and water each plant one by one. This coming year we are hoping to introduce drip tape irrigation to save us a lot of time and allow us more time to weed, harvest, and prepare the produce for the CSA and our markets.
Fruit
We have quite a few types of fruits established, but also neglected. These include: peach, pear, apple, grape, cherry, strawberry, and raspberries. This spring we plan to prioritize pruning and pampering these plants to see what harvest we can get from each. Without spraying pesticide on the trees, bugs can be a big issue, but hopefully not more than we can handle. We also want to get some more fruit trees planted this spring, as they take a few years to establish.
Grant
We are really excited to learn about a grant that wants to support small, local farming operations like us! We hope to apply for some grant money in order to support us at our markets and with our CSA. We have some ideas for what things we might benefit from, but are also in the process of consulting with some experts to try to put together the best proposal possible.
Garden Space
We do hope to add a little more garden space this year so we can plant more things! We plan to move our raspberries to the edge of the garden, but also want to have more space for some of the best-selling and fan-favorite items. We do this by using a broadfork, which is a manual way of tilling the soil without turning it completely over. It allows us to find the large rocks and other things in the soil and uproot the weeds.
Online Presence
One of the things that is probably hardest for us, but that we’d like to improve this year, is taking time to share more of what we are doing online. We are too busy doing the things to want to stop and record them to share, but we know that some of you really like to follow along with us and we appreciate your support. So we hope to post more to our website, facebook, and maybe even some YouTube videos. We also want to track all of our purchases through our website for an easier time managing and organizing the business finances.
We appreciate you taking time to follow along with us as we work to grow our farm. We appreciate it if you are able to help spread the word to those local to us so that we can continue to grow and reach people who are looking for what we are offering.
Tim, Kathryn, and family
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