In my blog posting from last Spring, I talked about the plans we had for the farm for the 2024 growing season. As is typically true for farming endeavors, some of our plans worked out and others did not. Here is a run down on what went well, what didn’t, and what we hope to accomplish during the upcoming 2025 growing season.

We had good success raising statice and other everlastings but sales were not as great as I hoped. Sales of bouquets of dried statice at the West Bend farmers market were sluggish. There are not as many crafters and folks interested in natural decor as I had thought. I am reconsidering whether to grow these next year. But one big surprise was the robust sales of fresh zinnias. People loved them. I grew a patch of them on a whim and almost didn’t bother to harvest them for sales at the farmer’s market. But people seemed to love them. They are colorful, keep well in bouquets, and their price-point at $5 for a generously sized bunch were favorable compared to the price of bouquets of more exotic flowers, which ran to as much as $15 a bunch. I will definitely plant more zinnias in 2025!

Home-raised turkeys for the Thanksgiving table were a goal last year. I am happy to report this went well. We raised enough turkeys to have one for our family Thanksgiving and also enough for the freezer (ground turkey and turkey pieces). The temperament of turkeys is much calmer than that of the chickens and geese I have raised for a number of years. The butchering experience was not my favorite part, but it went quickly and humanely. The turkeys were raised in a pastured, out-door setting and had a much better life than those raised at factory farms. I kept several hens for overwintering and am hoping to get a limited quantity of turkey eggs, starting soon. We will likely raise several turkeys for the table again this year.

The U-pick pumpkin patch planned for Fall 2024 did not work because we had very unpredictable rainfall last year—extremely wet in Spring and then drought like conditions later in the summer. We got enough pumpkins for our own use, but not to open for public sales. I will try this again in the coming year. I plan to do a better job with mulching and other cultivation practices to make the pumpkin patch more resilient.  

We did plant baby honeyberry bushes and Paw Paw trees. Both were still alive at the end of the growing season. We will see how they look in Spring when trees and bushes leaf out. Assuming they survive their first winter, both will take several years to bear fruit and the Paw Paw trees are a big experiment. They are not typically grown in southeastern Wisconsin, but are supposedly hardy in our Zone 5 climate. These so-called "Indiana Bananas" are a native tree species, resistant to most pests, and a great favorite of wildlife. They are also a delicacy typically only available at local farmers markets because of their perishable nature. So, stay tuned for whether the Paw Paw seedlings make it through their first year on the farm. I will report back in a future blog post. 

As for new things for 2025, I am planning the garden now. A few early ideas:

• I grew a limited number of cayenne pepper plants last year, as I always do for personal use. They didn’t do great but I got enough yield to make dried cayenne pepper flakes, (I’ll share the recipe in a future post). The dried pepper flakes met with rave reviews from family and friends, and I gave away or used all that I was able to grow. So, this year, I plan to double down on growing hot peppers and if I get enough, will also sell them off the farm and at the farmer’s market. These were a big hit!

• I also plan to double down on the Bottle Gourds. I found a buyer for them who makes bird houses and they are interested in getting more next year. These are tricky to grow because they are native to tropical regions and have a very long growing season. If we have a hot summer and if I get them started in the greenhouse early enough, I hope to have good success.

• Ornamental, multicolor dent corn— I have grown this in small quantities in the past but hope to scale it up. These items pair well with pumpkins as fall decorations and the Bloody Butcher dent corn makes a wonderfully flavorful ground corn meal.

  Once I get my head into the seed catalogs, I am sure more ideas will come…….

Signing off for now,

Smiley