Gale Woods Farm is part of a large park district in the region and is home to the district’s educational farm programs. The newly-expanded education center/barn houses all the farm animals–chickens, pigs, turkeys, cattle, sheep–as well as teaching space and a small farm store, where they sell farm-raised vegetables, eggs and meat. Thousands of school kids come through each year to learn about how farms produce food, as well as basic kitchen skills and wool crafts with wool from Gale Woods’ sheep.

Mel’s part of the farm–the vegetable growing operation–works with a group of 14- and 15-year old Youth Farmers from the Minneapolis metro area. The Youth Farmers spend 22 hours a week for 10 weeks over the summer learning how to grow vegetables and receiving leadership training.

While we were there Mel showed me her large chicken tractor, the Henabago. A chicken tractor is not a tractor per se, but a mobile chicken coop that allows the hens to be moved across pasture over the span of many weeks.

As they move through each patch of pasture they fertilize, eat bugs and lightly till the surface of the soil. The Henabago is out of commission for the winter, but usually houses about 50 chickens.

Nearby is the Gale Woods turkey pen, holding about 35 Bronze-Breasted and Eastern White turkeys. As we were watching them, we noticed a smaller bird on the far side of the pen, but outside of it. Looking more closely we realized that this was a wild turkey, not a farm-raised turkey.

Although stymied by the electric fence, this turkey wasn’t trying escape from the pen, but trying to get into it–not a wise move for a turkey a few weeks before Thanksgiving.

Back in Mel’s vegetable fields I admired her brilliantly-shaded Red Russian kale and enjoyed some of her amazingly sweet spinach.

Cold weather brings out sugars in greens like spinach as the plants try to protect themselves. Minnesota-grown spinach is an experience unto itself–I’ve never tasted spinach this deliciously sweet!

After a thorough discussion of cover cropping tactics for weed suppression, we went home to feast on kale and half a dozen winter root vegetables that Mel and her band of Youth Farmers had grown.

Mel eating spinach

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 2x4s 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.