Rory here, posting from Minnesota. For the past week I’ve been driving across the country as part of the big move. Right now I’m in Minneapolis, MN visiting my good friend Mel, a CSA farmer here.
Her friend, Red Kirkman, worked with her this season on her farm and also started his own farm this year with his wife Nina.
Fox & Fawn Farm, a 10 acre farm with about 1 acre currently in production, has 16 CSA members and supplies two local restaurants with beautiful produce. Red gave Mel and me the full tour and fed us a delicious lunch while I peppered him with questions about their operation.
I was particularly curious about their packing shed–the design, the plumbing setup, the tables and counters he built, and the cost of the whole thing. As we at Langwater Farm start thinking about the setup and design of our packing area, I want see what works and what doesn’t and get plenty of ideas from other farmers. 
The work tables that Red constructed out of 2×4s and hardware cloth were very functional, easy to build, and excellent for wet harvest bins. He built the counters (some made of finer mesh hardware cloth) around wash sinks that he found used or free and plumbed the sinks so that they can drain back onto the farm and the water can be used again.
Red also turned the basement of the farmhouse into a multi-room root cellar. They grew a ton of potatoes this year and wanted a good place to store them for the winter and for planting again next spring.
In one room of the root cellar they had lots of yellow onions hanging for drying. Some of these onions were amazingly large– I’ve never seen onions this big!
Henry, Red and Nina’s energetic 10-month-old puppy, was great company as we walked through the fields checking out their beautiful kale, leeks and cabbages. Red and Nina are planning to expand their CSA next year and put in more perennial crops (like asparagus and strawberries) and fruit trees as well.
Visiting farms and talking with other small farmers this fall has been fascinating and we are so grateful that small farmers are so generous with their time and their knowledge!
If you are a MN resident and would like to get in contact with Fox & Fawn to join their CSA or ask a question, please call them at 952-353-1762.
I like the root cellar… will Langwater have one too? And giant onions to store!?
Miss you lots!
Does Fox & Fawn have a website? I heard they are a great local farm, we live in MN. I would love to be one of their CSA members but your blog is all I found on Google when I tried to search for them. Any direction you can give would be great! Thanks.
I would love to be one of your CSA members. Please let me know the process to applying. Thank you. Brent Marmo