I was walking through the timber earlier this week, crunching through fallen leaves and breathing in the heady scents of autumn, when a small movement caught my eye.

A flash of golden light.

It was a single ash leaf, caught in a spider’s web, flicking in the light breeze and catching the low afternoon sun. More than 100 yards away, it looked like a tiny light bulb flickering on and off.

It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how much farther I could see.

The leaves are dropping in earnest now, and some of the trees are already completely bare. Places that were hidden behind dense green foliage just a few weeks ago have opened up. I can see deeper into the woods, across the little draws and between the trunks of trees that have spent the past six months keeping their woodland secrets.

Even the sounds seem to carry farther. If I stand still for a moment, I can hear things I wouldn't have noticed a month ago. The train passing a couple of miles away. The school bus on the road, picking up the neighbor kids in the early morning darkness.

It’s a curious thing about autumn. Just as the landscape is losing much of what made it beautiful through the growing season, it reveals scenes that have been there all along.

I’ve been thinking that something similar happens on the farm about this time of year.

The relentless schedule of summer has finally begun to loosen its grip. The last Bounty Boxes have been delivered, the summer crops are mostly out, and although we’re still harvesting, planting and preparing for winter, the days aren’t quite so tightly choreographed.

There’s finally a little space to lift our heads and look around.

And perhaps, for the first time in months, see things from a different perspective.

This weekend we gathered the farm crew for our annual end-of-season review. Coffee, doughnuts and a chance to talk about what went well, what didn’t and what we’d like to change for next year.

Some of the responses were reassuringly familiar. Everyone loves garlic planting, especially when our veteran crew members return to join us. Transplanting was another favorite, mentioned by nearly everyone.

And apparently, the greatest innovation of the 2026 growing season may have been...sleds.

Yes, sleds. Those humble plastic things normally associated with winter fun have become one of our favorite farm tools. Instead of lugging heavy harvest crates through the fields, we can pull them along behind us. Simple, effective, and much appreciated by the crew.

There was also remarkable agreement about the worst job of the season: clearing out rotting cole crops. Apparently, hauling the slimy remains of failed cabbage and broccoli plants out of the fields doesn’t rank high on anyone’s list of rewarding farm experiences. Imagine that.

But what struck me most wasn’t which jobs they liked or disliked. It was how often they mentioned the small changes we’d made to improve our daily routines. Things we’d figured out through trial and error, then incorporated into the way we work.

We spent a lot of this season dealing with things we couldn’t control. But listening to the crew reminded me how much we can change. Sometimes it’s a different tool, a better routine or a suggestion from someone who sees the work from a different angle.

And sometimes the simplest changes make the biggest difference.

It may not be obvious, but there’s a certain urgency to all this reflection, because farmers like us have notoriously selective memories.

By the end of October, we’re usually suffering from a condition I call FALL-zeimers. The exhaustion of the growing season has fully matured, the regular schedule that kept us oriented and focused has disappeared, and we’re lucky if we can remember what day of the week it is.

Unfortunately, the details of the season’s less successful decisions are also beginning to fade. And this is particularly dangerous because just about the time the first snowflakes fly...the seed catalogs start arriving.

That’s when Farmers Delusional Syndrome (coined by our friends at Genuine Faux Farm) really starts to take hold.

The siren song of new varieties, with gorgeous color photos, compelling names and descriptions reminiscent of those old Saturday morning commercials for kids’ breakfast cereals. It’s like the JC Penney Christmas catalog has arrived, and suddenly we’re dog-earing pages and making wish lists.

Well yeah, we’d have room for that...and this one looks really cool...and we could add another rotation of those...and surely we’ll have time to plant, cultivate and harvest fifteen new varieties of flowers!

Yep. Farmers Delusional Syndrome at its finest.

Which is why it’s so important to take a good, hard look at this season while we can still remember what actually happened.

Before the seed catalogs work their nefarious magic

There are plenty of things about this growing season that I’d be perfectly happy to forget. The endless rain, the failed crops, the frustration of working so hard for so little return.

But there are also things I want to remember. The small improvements that made our work easier. The enthusiasm of the crew when we tackled a big project together and saw it through to completion. The crops that surprised us by thriving when so many others struggled.

And maybe that’s the real value of this liminal space between one growing season and the next. Not just remembering what went wrong, but figuring out what deserves to be carried forward, what needs to change and what we’re finally ready to leave behind.

The view through the timber won’t stay this open forever. Before long, winter will be past, the trees will leaf out, the fields will demand our attention, and we’ll be right back in the thick of it.

For now, I’m going to take a deep breath and enjoy the clearer view. And maybe make a few more notes before the seed catalogs arrive.

🌱 A quick note from the farm

Our VegEmail program has shifted to its fall/winter schedule! We’re now offering farm-fresh vegetables, greens, pantry favorites and more for pickup every other Wednesday in Des Moines, Knoxville or right here at the farm.

It’s a different rhythm for the colder months, but we’re still growing and harvesting, and we’d love to share the good stuff with you.

Get VegEmail here

Earlier this week, we found ourselves harvesting every last usable leaf from our aging kale and chard plantings, trying to gather enough greens to include in our Bounty Boxes. They weren’t the beautiful, generous bunches we normally take pride in delivering. They were what we had.

And that’s been the story of far too much of the second half of this growing season.

It’s not that we haven’t worked hard enough, planned carefully enough or cared enough. Believe me, there’s been no shortage of any of those things.

But no matter how much effort we put in, the numbers don't always add up to success.

And lately, I've found myself asking a question I don't particularly want to answer.

What if we fail?

There’s a peculiar kind of responsibility that comes with growing food for other people.

Our Bounty Box members commit to us months before the growing season begins. They trust us to turn their investment into twenty weeks of fresh, beautiful, chemical-free vegetables. Our VegEmail customers count on us to have good food available week after week, all year long.

And we take those commitments seriously.

This season, despite all our planning, experience and hard work, we’ve watched one crop after another struggle or fail. We’ve replanted, rescued, adjusted and improvised. We’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort trying to produce what should have been a relatively ordinary harvest.

And sometimes, it simply hasn’t been enough.

Most of our customers have been wonderfully understanding. Several have gone out of their way to offer encouragement and assure us that they know this is part of what a farm membership is. But I’ve also heard a couple of disappointed little “ohs” when members opened their Bounty Boxes recently.

Those are hard to hear.

Not because anyone was unkind or unreasonable, but because I understand their disappointment. I’m disappointed, too.

And underneath all the recent frustration and exhaustion is something I find considerably harder to acknowledge.

I feel like I’ve failed.

Intellectually, I know we’ve done everything we reasonably could in light of the conditions this season. I know I don’t control the weather. I know I shouldn’t take it personally.

But when I’m standing in the fourth straight day of rain, pulling the scanty crop of fall carrots that survived an earlier deluge, each one makes a wet sluurrpp as it comes out of the swampy bed. Nearly every one is rotten at the bottom.

Or when we grab a couple of rain-free hours to try to finish harvesting the popcorn. This poor crop was flattened three separate times by storms this season, and yet some of it struggled back to its feet. Now, more than half the ears we find are so waterlogged that the kernels are sprouting right on the cob.

This feels like failure.

And then, just as I feel like I’m hanging on by my fingernails, the sun sets.

Back in March, I wrote about a little practice a friend introduced me to. Whenever I notice something special, I stop what I’m doing, raise my pointer finger in the air and declare, “DELIGHT!”

At the time, the meadowlarks were returning, the first spring crops were going into the ground and the growing season was full of possibilities.

Six months later, I’m rediscovering just how valuable that little practice can be, when I remember to do it.

Fall sunsets are a special breed, with their golden glow rimming the crests of the hills and an intense play of colors creeping across the sky. Purple and orange. Deep blue and magenta.

My breath slows and deepens. My shoulders drop. I raise my index finger above my head and whisper...

DELIGHT.

Or as Danielle and I were harvesting flowers a day early, ahead of a rainy forecast. Sliding in the field, the mud sucking at our boots and we look up to see our 6 foot-tall celosia plants, crested with fabulous spikes of magenta blooms fluttering with the wings of multiple monarch butterflies, taking advantage of a little late-afternoon nectar before roosting for the night…DELIGHT.

A flock of geese calls to one another as they rise out of the fields to skim over the tree-tops. When they fly low enough overhead, we hear the soft buzz of their wings moving through the air…DELIGHT.

The lettuce beds that we planted in challenging conditions and then spent extra time and effort to cover them with fabric to protect from the late summer sun and the marauding gangs of deer. When we peeked underneath the covers earlier this week, they were beautiful, lush and colorful, twice the size of their counterparts in the field that we didn’t cover…DELIGHT!

And the best part about that last one? Those beautiful heads of lettuce will soon be headed out in Bounty Boxes and VegEmail orders. Getting beautiful, healthy, chemical-free food into the hands of our members and customers, especially in a tough year...

DELIGHT!

Back in March, when I first wrote about the practice of “delight”, I had no idea how much I would need it before the season was over.

Those moments don’t change the reality of what we’ve lost this year. They don’t solve our financial challenges or make the decisions ahead any easier.

But they remind me that there’s still so much about this farm, and this life we’ve built around it, that inspires me.

I don’t know yet what the final accounting of this season will look like, but it isn’t likely to be pretty. And I certainly don’t have all the answers to that uncomfortable question about failure.

But I’m going to hold on to every DELIGHT I can find and see if, together, they can outshine the failures.

We can spend months planning a crop. We order the seeds, start the transplants, prepare the soil, plant, weed, irrigate, trellis, prune, protect and generally fuss over those plants for weeks or months.

And sometimes, after all of that, we harvest exactly nothing.

You can’t magically manifest a crop into existence just because customers are counting on it. Believe me, there have been plenty of times this season when I’ve tried wished I could.

This wasn’t the plan.

Now, to be fair, plenty has gone according to plan. We are harvesting and delivering beautiful vegetables every week. But if you look back over the past few posts, you'll probably notice that the things that haven't gone according to plan have become something of a recurring theme. Unfortunately, I'm beginning to think it may be the unofficial motto of our 2026 growing season.

And August didn't exactly give us a reprieve. More than six inches of rain in a month that averages around four, more crop losses, and some of those newly planted fall crops are already gone.

There are few do-overs at this point.

If a fall crop fails in August, you often can’t just plant another one and harvest it in October. The shortening days and approaching cold close that window. The crop that failed last week is the veg that doesn’t exist in the VegEmail store in November.

After last year's banner fruit production, 2026 has not been a good fruit year on the farm. The watermelons all died. The apples took a sabbatical, as did the yellow peaches that were the stars of last year. But it looked like we might have a nice crop of white peaches…until they started dropping from the trees, dotted with brown rot. Even peaches that looked good on the outside were flat-tasting at best and rotting inside at worst. A year of ongoing excessive rain just isn’t what most food crops want…maybe we should look into rice production??

We did just harvest a decent crop of pears this week, but that’s pretty much it for our tree fruit harvest for the year. The blackberries, however, are having a banner year, and our new plot of red raspberries is producing its first small crop... so it looks like we can put some of our raspberry jam flavors back into rotation.

One of the benefits of being an overly diversified farm is that there is always something having a good season when other crops fail.

If you’ve been with us for a bit, you’ve undoubtedly noticed the development of a new dahlia enterprise on the farm. There is just something magical about the diversity of those amazing blooms that caused me to fall hard for them. This year, after more than 5 years of growing and developing our beloved dahlia crop, we lost more than 95% of our 700+ dahlia plantings over the course of the season due to the excessively wet conditions. I was just beside myself over it. We had spent so much time and money developing this crop over the years, the level of loss was sickening.

My kneejerk reaction under the weight of disappointment was,

“That’s it! We’re quitting dahlias!”

There was a weird relief saying it out loud, and then I realized…we were quitting dahlias. They were an exciting and obsession-inspiring part of our bouquet business... but they were also an enormous time hog, consuming resources that conflicted with other, more critical parts of our farm production. It was a wonderful adventure for a while, but it pulled my attention away from places that needed it more. We aren’t getting out of the flower business, but we are refocusing on flowers that better fit our overall production schedule.

Sometimes the hardest part of farming isn't figuring out how to make something grow. It's figuring out when to stop trying.

And then, in the middle of one particularly frustrating week, when I felt bowed under the weight of the farm, I received a text from one of our regular VegEmail customers.

She had picked up her order that Saturday and stayed for a few minutes to visit. She’d had a difficult week herself, and we talked for a bit before she headed home.

Later, she sent me this:

The irony wasn’t lost on me. I wasn’t feeling particularly sparkly that week.

But her message was a reminder that what we see and experience from inside the farm isn’t necessarily what others see and experience from outside it.

I've spent a lot of this season looking at what didn't go according to plan. The crops that failed. The things we didn’t get done. The dahlias we're letting go. All the things I thought we'd have figured out and handled by now that simply haven’t happened.

Maybe that’s not the whole measure of a season.

This wasn’t the plan.

But perhaps there are things we’re growing here that were never on the plan at all.

Peri is nearly five months old and has grown into a spitfire delight of a pup. Our current daily training is focused on short off-leash sessions during our walks and practicing responding to “Come!” She’s a smart little girl and knows that quick response to this command usually produces a treat, however she is also “nose deaf” so when her sniffer is distracted by something, her ears no longer work. Not surprising for a curious pup at liberty, so we continue to practice. There are a lot of rules for a dog on our farm and there is much trust to be earned before she gets to free-range as Sky does.

Why is it important for a dog on our farm to know and obey the rules? Because we grow food in our fields and it is critical that our animals understand and respect that they don’t belong where food is grown. It’s easy for an excited dog to damage A LOT of leafy greens or knock down brittle fruiting plants like peppers or ground cherries, which results in a loss of those crops for our members and customers. The dogs have to know that those areas are off limits so we practice…and…practice and practice. Without that, there is no way for a dog to know what is acceptable behavior. We have to trust that they'll remember the rules, even when there aren't treats waiting or we're nowhere nearby.

In many ways, training a puppy isn't all that different from training our farm crew on food safety and best practices. There are so many little things that the average person doesn’t think about, (like not handing a field crate over the top of a tote of freshly harvested salad mix)…but we are handling people’s food and so we train and practice (though with fewer treats than the puppy gets) on how we handle our crops, tools and ourselves in our environment.

Somewhere between teaching a puppy to stay out of the lettuce and teaching a crew member not to pass a harvest crate over freshly washed greens, I realized something.

“Trust is one of the few things we grow that never appears on a harvest list.”

You can’t weigh it.
You can’t bunch it.
You can’t wash it.

But every season depends on it.

Every time someone signs up for a Bounty Box months before the harvest, they’re trusting us.

Every time someone orders through VegEmail without knowing exactly which squash they’ll get, they’re trusting us.

Every bouquet, every jar of jam, every head of lettuce begins with that simple act of trust.

Of course, trust only gets you so far when you're farming in Iowa. We know that we can trust in the weather to do radical and unexpected things…even though we wish it wouldn’t.
In the past two weeks we have been under Excessive Heat Warnings for multiple days as well as Air Quality Alerts originating from the wildfires in Canada.

Oddly the summer squash and cucumbers don’t stop growing in those conditions, so we work through them though with much consideration for farm crew health and safety. I keep threatening to get a T-shirt that says Water Nag on the front and Bossy on the back as I am constantly nagging the crew about water breaks, especially on these hot days.
The most recent heatwave finally broke last Monday night with a raucous summer storm, complete with high winds and 2.50 inches of rain. The power lines in our area weren’t up tot he challenge and our power was out for about 17 hours as we prepared for Tuesday’s Bounty Box delivery. It made for an interesting harvest day. We loaded in and out of the walk in cooler via flashlight, strung hundreds of feet of extension cords to generators, and sent out the newsletter hours late. Farming doesn't stop just because the power does.

The storm was also rough on a number of our crops, shredding greens, heavily damaging peach trees and laying our popcorn down flat. Most of the greens will recover, some peach trees will recover, the worst will be replaced. The popcorn was my biggest worry, but after nearly a week, much of it is trying to stand back up again. The yield will certainly be affected and it will be a pain to harvest as it’s no longer in straight rows, I’m hopeful that there will be some popcorn to harvest this fall.

And speaking of fall, even though we’re at the height of mid-summer and it’s currently 95 degrees, it is time to put fall crops in the ground. It’s a bit of a conundrum this time of year…fall crops tend to be those that flourish in cool weather and many will not germinate if the temperatures are above a certain threshold. So it can be challenging to get the plants to survive and grow through late summer heat waves. Challenge accepted! In the past 2 weeks we’ve sown and transplanted most of our successions of leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi, radishes, turnips, beets and carrots. There are still a handful more to go, but we are well on our way. I’d love to tell you that I expect the weather will settle down for the rest of the season. But after more than twenty years of farming here, I’ve learned not to make promises on behalf of Iowa weather.

One final thought…

This month has reminded me that trust is something we grow in many ways. We earn it by caring for the land, by training our crew well, by adapting to whatever the weather throws our way, and by treating food safety as a daily responsibility-not a response to the news cycle.

We appreciate the trust you place in us. We never take it for granted.

For farmers, especially those of us who grow veg, fruit and flowers, it is entirely possible to do everything “right” and still fail. We can be good stewards of the land and water, plant responsibly, work from before dawn until well after dusk, take good care of our crew, and provide excellent service to our customers. Yet all it takes is one turn in the weather and months of work can be damaged or destroyed. This translates to not getting paid for all that work, effort and expense. It’s absolutely demoralizing.

When this happens to commodity farms (corn, soybeans, wheat, ect) there are government insurance programs to recover some of the lost income, but small produce farms have nothing but their wits and very often, amazing customers. This is also why our farm subscriptions (Bounty Box and BLOOMS) are so important to us. They are a way for us to diversify our risk and for customers to share a bit of it, in exchange for having top priority for our fresh produce and flowers.

Our growing season started out quite well, a little drier than we like, but we can irrigate. Then the rains and severe storms came. We were pretty lucky, we were only hailed on three times, with fairly small sized hail, but have you seen what even small hail can do to head lettuce or other leafy greens? It’s a disaster…it’s not called Swiss Chard because it’s supposed to be full of holes!

Then there was the rain, and rain…and rain. We had a whole season’s worth of rain in a few weeks. It just wouldn’t stop. We are on fairly high ground (for Iowa) so we didn’t flood, but the soil stayed saturated for weeks on end. And vegetables don’t like that one bit. Imagine your feet staying wet for 6 weeks and you can see why the plants get grumpy about it…some get grumpy enough to die.

Is our season a total loss? Absolutely not, there’s a long list of fabulous crops to come and we’re working hard to maximize what we have, but I wanted to take the opportunity to share some of the challenges we face.

Farmers are nothing if not optimists, putting seeds and baby plants in the ground believing that, somehow, all the pieces will come together into a harvest. But optimism only gets you so far.

So far we’ve lost about half of our broccoli and cauliflower and over half of our dahlias. The peas gave up early and there won’t be any watermelon this year and no full-size cantaloupe…though our mini cantaloupes are looking promising. I’m expecting to lose at least some of our onions and shallots and probably some of the potatoes, but now maybe less than I first feared.

It won’t be a fruit year either as the hail damaged most of the young fruit. These are crops that we have already invested half a season’s worth of time and effort all for a lost opportunity. Could it be worse? Absolutely! We know many farmers who had much worse damage than we did. Stronger winds, larger hail, more rain. But dead crops are dead crops. The details don’t matter much. It’s discouraging to say the least.

Now that we have started to dry out a bit, we can dig in to some serious rescue weeding. This happens when we lose control of a crop due to weather or other factors. Step one of rescue weeding is deciding if the crop is worth saving…and sometimes it’s not. If we determine that it is worth it, we take a deep breath, grab our best patience (and some snacks) and dive in. This is the least efficient method of weeding because often it means pulling each individual “big” weed out by hand rather then using a tool to kill thousands of tiny weeds at once. It takes much more time and labor and NO ONE enjoys it. Luckily, this time around, we didn’t “lose it” in too many areas and a couple of afternoons got us mostly caught up.

So now we get back to the regular work of growing. The popcorn is shooting up like crazy! The garlic is nearly ready to harvest and potatoes will start coming out for fresh harvest soon. The summer squash and cucumbers started rolling in last week and we’re harvesting the first of our cabbages and green beans this week.

Bouquet season started a little later than some years, but we are fully into flower season now and Danielle is creating some floral masterpieces!

The tomatoes and peppers are a little slow but they are setting fruit and putting on some decent growth.

Crazily enough, we just sowed the bulk of the fall crops this past week. It’s always a bit of a challenge to sow cool weather crops in July, as they won’t germinate well in high temperatures. So to meet their needs, we tuck the seeded flats into my parents’ cool, basement until the seeds germinate and then they move out to the high tunnels to grow. It’s supposed to be in the mid 90’s all week, so they are going to have a rude awakening when they move out of the basement. (Kind of like some people I know!)
It’s hard to believe it’s that time for fall crops already, but September will be here before we know it!

Peri the puppy is growing almost as fast as the popcorn! She is now sleeping through the nights and is pleased to go out on our dawn walks around the farm. She doesn’t get to free-range yet, as she hasn’t learned all the rules of the farm AND she is a tiny, hyper-speed 4-legged vacuum whenever she finds a mulberry tree. No one wants to see the aftermath of a puppy who gorged on fallen mulberries! So until she learns the rules and mulberry season has passed, she remains on a leash or long tether as she explores her world.

Last month we talked about hosting tours on the farm and this week we finished the last of our tour hosting with a field day for Practical Farmers of Iowa. While we are active members with PFI, it’s been a number of years since we hosted a field day with them and despite the hot forecast, it turned out to be a delightful day. It’s always fun to see the different interests and dynamics of groups when they visit and most often the attendees at a PFI event are already doing some kind of farming or associated activity or they aspire to do so. They come invested. They ask thoughtful, challenging questions, and every visit reminds us how important PFI has been in the story of our farm.

The VegEmail store has now been open for about two months and we're continuing to make small improvements. We had hoped to have the shipping side (BGF Pantry) open by now, but summer vegetables have a way of rearranging priorities. It'll happen—it’s just taking a little longer than planned.

The season is in full swing now. The weather will do what it will, and we'll keep doing what farmers have always done - plant, tend, adapt, and hope.

This past Sunday we “opened the gates” at the farm and welcomed our first public tour since we retired our Farm Crawl event back in 2019.

Coordinated and co-hosted by our friends at Mint ’n More, the afternoon brought together longtime farm supporters, sparkling new customers, and folks we were meeting for the very first time. It was one of those perfect spring days to wander the farm, tasting as we went, talking about what we grow and why we grow it, and finishing the afternoon with farm-fresh snacks shared under open skies.

Hosting events on a working farm is always a little complicated. We have to pause the regular, daily work of the farm to get ready for guests. There are weeds we meant to pull, projects half-finished, and a thousand little reminders that farms are living, working places rather than polished backdrops.

But honestly, it’s also incredibly reenergizing.

When you spend every day in a place, it becomes easy to see only the unfinished tasks. I look across the fields and notice weeds, areas that still need mulching, beds waiting to be planted, or infrastructure projects lagging behind schedule.

Visitors experience something entirely different

.They see lush green hills rolling toward the horizon, rows of tidy vegetables stretching nearly out of sight, flowers in bloom, all accompanied by the layered soundtrack of birdsong that has become so familiar to us we sometimes forget to stop and hear it.

Seeing the farm through fresh eyes is a good reminder this time of year, when spring’s endless to-do list threatens to swallow us whole.

Sometimes we need to share a space to fully appreciate it again.

And speaking of things demanding our attention…

Earlier this month, because apparently we weren’t busy enough already, we got a puppy.

Meet Peri - short for Periwinkle, because we are committed to the “blue-themed dog names” tradition around here. My sister has taken to calling her Princess Periwinkle, which honestly is more fitting that she might guess.

Peri is a 12 week-old Jack Russell Terrier/Australian Shepherd cross and she is a ridiculous delight: smart, fearless, wildly enthusiastic, and almost impossibly cute. Which is fortunate, because it’s been seven years since we had a puppy and apparently we had forgotten what that actually means for daily life.

Sky, our resident Blue Heeler/Australian Shepherd farm dog (and supervisor of all things), doesn’t agree that this was a good addition. I didn’t know a dog could communicate such profound disdain with a single facial expression, but Sky is proving otherwise. Thankfully, she does seem to be softening a bit.

The cats remain unconvinced.

Fortunately for them, both cats are currently larger than Peri, so we’re encouraging them to teach her important life lessons while they still can.

Meanwhile, spring planting has fully shifted into high gear.

The crew has been hard at work all month prepping beds and planting baby plants from one end of the farm to the other. Watching the season come together always reminds me a bit of a massive embroidery project: beds prepared and then stitched into the landscape in rows and patterns of endless greens, reds, golds, and purples

.Direct sowing is certainly faster and easier in many cases, but there’s something magical about transplanting season. One morning a bed is bare soil and by afternoon an “instant garden” stretches across the field - tiny plants lined up with all their future potential tucked into them.

We’re now nearing the end of our main-season transplanting push, including the truly enormous task of planting more than 700 tomato plants, which the crew finally wrapped up yesterday.

There may or may not have been actual cheering involved.

Now we just have to get the 600+ dahlias planted!

THE VEGEMAIL STORE IS OPEN!!

At long last - and after many months of work - our new online VegEmail store is finally live

This new system is designed to make local shopping easier and more flexible, bringing together weekly VegEmail ordering along with pantry goods and other farm offerings all in one place.

The order cycle opens Mondays at 5pm and closes Thursdays at noon for Saturday pickup between 10am-noon in Des Moines, Knoxville, or on-farm.

We’re also hoping to launch the shipping-available side of the store, BGF Pantry, within the next few weeks.

Honestly, this project has occupied a huge portion of our winter and spring “off-season” hours, so it feels incredibly satisfying to finally open the digital gates alongside the farm gates this spring.

Important Dates

June 2 – Bounty Box deliveries begin
June 13 – BLOOMS season begins
(BLOOMS members, watch your email for updates!)

The season is fully underway now.

The gates are open. The tomatoes are planted. The fresh crops keep coming. The birds are singing. And one tiny puppy is attempting to be in the center of absolutely all of it.

It’s a beautiful, exhausting, joy-filled season to be sharing.

Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

Just two weeks ago, on April 15th, I harvested asparagus.

Not just one or two tentative spears, but enough to signal something more significant: we’ve crossed over. The age of asparagus has begun.

There are few vegetables that mark a season as clearly as asparagus. It arrives without apology, demanding daily attention, asking to be harvested before it slips past its prime. It doesn’t wait for us to be ready. It simply is.

And with it comes everything else that is spring on a vegetable farm.

A Riot of Life

The fields are loud now.

Bobolinks bubbling overhead, competing with dickcissels, assorted sparrows, bluebirds, and brown thrashers. At ground level, pheasants call from the hedgerow, quail dart through the grasses, and wild tom turkeys put on a burlesque-level show for all the world (and the lady turkeys) to see. In the evenings, the chorus frogs, owls and nighthawks take over, filling the dark hours with their ethereal call-and-response.

It’s no longer a quiet season. It’s a layered orchestration that would put most symphonies to shame.

Even the air feels alive. The last of the fruit trees are blooming, their fragrance drifting across the farm, wrapped in the unmistakable buzz of bees at work It’s one of those moments that feels almost too full to take in all at once.

And then there are the June bugs.

They’ve returned too. I won’t pretend to be delighted by all of spring’s arrivals.

What We’re Tending

Spring transplanting has begun in earnest.

Seedlings that we’ve been tending for months are finally moving out into the tunnels and fields. Flats are being emptied, beds are being filled, and the steady rhythm steady rhythm (aka: a bit of a mad rush) of planting has taken hold.

The potatoes are in the ground.

It always feels like a milestone—tucking those seed pieces into the soil, trusting the process to carry them forward, safe underground for months before we see the results

.Oyster mushroom season has also begun, which means a bit of foraging has returned to the mix. It’s an excellent excuse to wander the timber every day or two, peering at fallen logs and whatever else catches my attention. It’s another reminder that not everything we harvest is planned and planted.

And happily, amid all of this, the crew is starting to trickle back in. A few familiar faces, a couple of new ones, and the beginnings of the shared rhythm that carries us through the growing season.

The Work Meets the Table

As the pace of the farm picks up, so does the way we connect that work to your table.

Our new VegEmail store is officially open, something we’ve been working toward for quite a while. It’s designed to make ordering simpler and more flexible—bringing together VegEmail, pantry goods, and farm offerings in one place

.

We’re also shifting back into our Saturday VegEmail schedule, beginning in May. The move back to weekends always feels like another seasonal marker—longer days, fuller tables, and a bit more time to linger.

The Bounty Box membership for 2026 is now full, which is both humbling and energizing. Thank you to everyone who has chosen to join us for another season - we’re truly grateful to be your farmers. (A reminder that balance payments are due April 30.)

Our BLOOMS subscriptions have also sold out, which means a summer full of flowers is already in the works. (Balance payments for BLOOMS are due May 15.)

It’s a lot all at once—but that’s spring.

Important Dates

April 30 – Bounty Box balance payments due
April 30 – BLOOMS sign-ups close
May 2 – Saturday VegEmail deliveries begin
May 15 – BLOOMS payments due
June 2 – Bounty Box deliveries begin
June 13 - BLOOMS season begins

The Season Has Shifted

There’s a moment every year when the switch flips—from preparing for the season to suddenly being in it.

This is that moment.

Asparagus needs harvesting. Seedlings need planting. Bees are working. Birds are calling. The days are getting longer but there’s still not time to get it all done.

The season doesn’t ask if we’re ready.

It just roars up and expects us to jump in and keep up!

Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

Two weeks ago, as I walked across the fallow ground of our El Norte plot, I heard a familiar cry overhead — “kill-dee, kill-dee.” The killdeer had returned.

Two days later, as the sun crept over the horizon, I stepped outside and heard another welcome sound: a bright trill of birdsong from the top of a fence post, winding over the rolling pasture hills.

The meadowlarks were back.

The calendar and weather forecasts can say whatever they like, but for me these two birds mark the true beginning of spring. Soon come the first shoots of green pushing through leaf litter, followed by budding trees and early blossoms. This time of year is such a riot of life and delight.

Speaking of delight…

Over the past six months I’ve been practicing a small habit introduced to me by a friend. Whenever I notice something special — anything at all — I stop what I’m doing, raise my pointer finger in the air, and say out loud:

“DELIGHT!”

Then I pause for a moment to appreciate whatever it is. A butterfly. The first meadowlark. The first ripe tomato of summer.

Often it makes me laugh out loud because I’m so delighted.

This simple practice has increased my joy in the big and small things around me and reminds me to keep looking for delights — because they really are everywhere.

Give it a try. You won’t be sorry.

Spring Activity Picks Up

The other unmistakable sign that spring has arrived is the rapid increase in farm activity.

Over the past month we’ve cleared spent crops from the high tunnels and begun sowing and transplanting spring crops. Fields have been composted, and we’ve started tilling, cultivating, and planting the earliest seeds.

Just this past week we sowed the first plantings of arugula, beets, carrots, choi, peas, salad mix, and turnips.

We’re a little ahead of our usual planting schedule for these crops, but the unusually dry conditions gave us a window and we decided to take advantage of it. Now we’re hoping the forecast rains arrive soon to give those seeds the moisture they need to begin growing.

Seedlings Everywhere

Meanwhile, the sunroom is packed with baby transplants.

In fact, it’s so full that the hardiest seedlings have already moved out to the small high tunnel to start learning how to be “big plants” and to make room for more tiny seedlings inside.

This is the time of year when the rush truly begins.

Because of our limited indoor space, we grow seedlings on shelves, which means every flat gets moved several times a day for watering and light. Plants are constantly moving in and out — tucked in on cold nights and set free again when daytime temperatures rise.

Tunnels open in the morning and close again in the evening like putting the farm to bed.

It’s a bit manic. There are certainly smarter systems out there, but for now this is the rhythm we know and the spring dance is on!

A Dry Start

As I mentioned earlier, the dry conditions this spring are concerning. Our area is already classified as being in Moderate Drought, which is not how we like to begin a growing season.

After last year’s excessive rains, though, the drought somehow feels a little less daunting.

Still, we had a sharp reminder last weekend of just how dry things are. A prescribed burn on a neighboring property got out of control during an unseasonably hot and windy day. Flames spread quickly through winter-dry grasses and timber.

It was a long and frightening day and night.

Thankfully, after hours of effort from family, neighbors, friends, and especially two local fire departments, the fire was brought under control before threatening buildings or livestock.

It was a sobering reminder to always respect changing weather conditions.

Bounty Box Sign-Ups Closing Soon

There are just a few days left before we close sign-ups on April 5th for our 2026 Bounty Box membership.

If you’re familiar with CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) or farm memberships, you know the basics: members sign up before the season begins and then receive a weekly box of fresh produce throughout the growing season.

But what you may not realize is what happens on the farm the moment someone clicks that “Submit” button on the order form.

That single action tells us something important: another household is counting on us.

It shapes our planting plans, our harvest schedules, and the scale of what we grow.

We thought it might be fun to give you a little peek behind the scenes…

Get Bounty Box info here

Flowers, Too

Our 2026 BLOOMS bouquet subscriptions are also open.

From June through August, subscribers receive six (or twelve) abundant bouquets timed with Saturday VegEmail pickups — making it easy to bring fresh, local beauty into your home all summer long.

Get BLOOMS info here

One More Month of Winter VegEmail

VegEmail continues every other Wednesday through the end of April (4–6pm in Des Moines and Knoxville).

Then, starting May 2, we return to our weekly Saturday deliveries from 10am–noon.

If you’d like easy access to farm-fresh food without the crowds or guesswork, be sure to join our email list so you receive the weekly order forms.

Join the email list!

Important Dates

April 3 – Bounty Box sign-ups close
April 30 – Bounty Box balance payments due
April 30 – BLOOMS sign-ups close
May 2 – Saturday VegEmail deliveries begin
May 30 – BLOOMS payments due
June 2 – Bounty Box deliveries begin

The season is picking up speed now. Seeds are going in the ground, seedlings are stretching toward the light, and the meadowlarks are keeping watch from the fence posts.

There is plenty of work ahead — and plenty of delight to be found along the way.

That’s about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.

Leave a comment

Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

It’s back.

I began drafting this newsletter last week when it was 68°, the pond ice had disappeared, and robins were stitching the yard with purposeful hops. Then winter swung again — an inch of snow, a glaze of freezing rain, a rattle of sleet against the windows. I suspect the pond has reclaimed its thin shell of ice, at least for now.

A few mornings ago, as the sun came up outside my office window, I noticed movement in the dried grass. One robin. Then five. Then what felt like a small gathering, working with deep concentration. Worm hunters. Which means something important: the frost had lifted enough for life to move again.

It feels early. Too early.

The warmth was welcome in my bones, but it made my farmer heart uneasy. We are already dry. Fruit trees and perennials are vulnerable to these false springs. Warm days wake things up. Cold nights can undo them.

This is the tension of the season — between freeze and thaw. Between short-term comfort and long-term resilience. Between what feels good now and what will sustain us later.

Farming lives in that tension.

Taking the Open Windows

We don’t waste warmth when it shows up.

The brief stretch of mild days let me finish clearing the last of the fabric mulch from fall. With that done, I can complete compost applications before spring planting begins. It’s not glamorous work, but compost is long-game farming — feeding soil so soil can feed us.

One warm-ish, windy afternoon I shelled the last of the popcorn crop. Wind is a gift when you’re winnowing corn to separate the chaff, so you take it when it comes. We even managed repairs on the big high tunnel roof — a job that requires calm air and decent temperatures. My dad had rented a manlift for another project and generously shared it with us. Sometimes progress depends on good timing and borrowed equipment.

Reciprocity doesn’t just happen between farmer and land, farm and customer. It happens between generations, neighbors, and whoever shows up with an extra set of hands (or a manlift).

High Tunnels & Hurry-Up Greens

Inside the high tunnels, the crops are responding to the temperature swings in their own way.

These are cool-season plants. When they feel warmth, they assume spring has arrived and begin preparing to flower and set seed. Normally we expect that shift in mid-March. This year, it started weeks earlier.

Many varieties are still excellent — sweet, tender, vibrant. But this will be the final harvest window for several crops. Once quality drops below our standards, they return to the compost pile to continue feeding the soil.

It’s never easy to watch crops “retire” sooner than planned. But compost is not failure. It’s continuity.

Seeds, Sowing & The In-Between Gap

Sowing seeds for the 2026 crops began right on schedule the first week of February. The nursery is glowing with trays of young seedlings — onions, greens, the earliest succession crops — all steady and promising.

Every seed for the season has been ordered, delivered, and stocked. That quiet administrative work of winter — spreadsheets, inventory, planning — is largely behind us.

But seedlings take time. They won’t be ready for transplant into the tunnels for a few more weeks. Which means we’ll experience a small production gap — a stretch where some winter crops are finishing and spring crops aren’t quite ready.

We don’t love those gaps. But farming is rarely seamless. We plan carefully. The weather revises. We adjust.

Between freeze and thaw, we wait and tend.

VegEmail & Building Something New

VegEmail continues every other Wednesday through winter (4–6pm in Des Moines and Knoxville).

During our January pause from deliveries, much of our focus went into something we’ve been wanting to build for a long time: a new online store.

When it launches (we’re close — just not quite there), it will house VegEmail order cycles as well as a permanent shop featuring Bounty Box memberships, pantry goods, fibers, and other shelf-stable items. One place for the full ecosystem of what we grow and make.

It’s taken more behind-the-scenes work than we anticipated, but we’re excited to share it soon.

Twenty Years of the Box

This year marks the 20th anniversary of our CSA — what we now call the Bounty Box.

That realization stopped me. 20 years!

When we started our CSA in 2006, there were many CSA farms scattered across Iowa. The landscape has shifted dramatically since then. Some farms have closed, others changed direction and many new farms have sprouted up. Through droughts, floods, market shifts, and pandemics, we’re still here.

Twenty seasons of trusting the land to provide.
Twenty seasons of inviting folks to join us at the table.

So this season we celebrate our members!

The Bounty Box remains the heart of our farm — 20 weeks of connection, shared abundance, and delicious chemical-free vegetables harvested at their peak. Memberships for 2026 are now open.

If you’ve ever thought about joining, this will be a fun year to dig in.

I want a Bounty Box Membership!

Flowers, Too

Our 2026 BLOOMS bouquet subscriptions are also open. June through August, six (or 12) abundant bouquets timed with VegEmail pickups.

After twenty+ years of vegetables, it still feels like a small miracle to add flowers to the mix — feeding our bodies, feeding our souls.

I want a BLOOMS subscription

Important Dates

• VegEmail continues bi-weekly through April

• April 30 – Bounty Box balance payments due

• April 30 – BLOOMS subscription payments due

The weather will swing again. It always does.

But seeds are sprouting. Compost is curing. Tunnels are turning over. And robins are still working the yard.

Between freeze and thaw, the work continues.

And we’re grateful you’re part of it.

Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

🥕 Love the farmers market food, hate the fuss?
If you’re a Central Iowan looking for year-round, farm-fresh, chemical-free food without the crowds, guesswork, or farmers market chaos, our VegEmail program is for you.

Every week (or every 2 weeks in the winter), we send you an order form with what’s fresh, and you pick exactly what you want.
✅ No subscriptions
✅ No commitment
✅ Just good food, from people you trust

Pick-up is easy—every other Wednesday, 4-6pm in downtown Des Moines, Knoxville, or right here on the farm. Plus, Des Moines customers can also grab Ebersole Cattle Co meats and eggs, Lost Lake Farm LLC cheeses, and CottageScapes Bakery goodies—all from one pick-up point.

Sign up at www.bluegatefarmfresh.com for food you can feel good about.

Is a monthly newsletter not enough for you? Follow us:

Website: www.bluegatefarmfresh.com

Facebook: Blue Gate Farm

Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh

Bounty Box members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.

That’s about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.

Leave a comment

Exciting Starts and Quiet Work

January on the farm is always a bit deceptive. Standing outside, it looks like a pause—a deep breath after the long growing season. The fields are quiet, the work slows just enough to breathe, and yet the season ahead feels very present. There’s a flurry of activity just out of sight, both below the frozen soil and throughout the farm… seeds stocked and primed for sowing, winter greens still growing under plastic, and plans taking shape that will carry us months into the future. It’s not fast or flashy work, but it’s essential.

This time of year always invites reflection for me—about why we do this work at all, and what it asks of us in return. Farming is, at its core, an ongoing relationship: with the land, with the people who care for it, and with the community that eats what it produces. Reciprocity isn’t a lofty idea here—it’s practical. We take, we give back. We plan carefully. We pay attention. We try again.

Care looks different in January. It shows up in protecting crops through cold nights, in pacing winter harvests around weather windows, in taking a pause where we can so we don’t burn out before the season even begins. It also shows up in tending our relationships—checking in and planning improvements with the crew, making space for rest, and preparing thoughtfully for the year ahead so we can show up fully for the land and the people who trust us with their food.

So while the fields may look dormant, a lot is happening here. This month has been about setting the table: for another growing season, for the return of VegEmail, for new ways to connect through food and the farm. Yet underneath it all is the same intention we carry every year—the ongoing work of growing food in a way that honors the land, the people who tend it, and the community it feeds.

Winter Growing, Weather Windows & High Tunnel Choreography

While the fields rest under snow, the high tunnels continue to anchor our winter work. We’re still producing, still harvesting—but winter harvesting is a game of patience and planning. In our unheated high tunnels, crops can only be harvested when temperatures inside the tunnels rise above freezing, which means watching forecasts closely and jumping on narrow weather windows when they appear.

It’s slower, more deliberate work, and it asks a lot of flexibility from everyone involved. But those cold-season greens are worth it, and we’re grateful to still be pulling food from the soil in January.

Learning Season: Practical Farmers of Iowa

January is also conference season, and we were glad to attend the Practical Farmers of Iowa Conference this month. These gatherings are grounding in the best way—part education, part community, part reminder that farming is both deeply personal and profoundly shared.

We always come home with new ideas, renewed energy, and a longer list of things we’d like to try. It’s a good way to reset our perspective before the pace of the season picks up again.

VegEmail Is BACK (and on a New Day!)

After taking most of January off from VegEmail deliveries, we’re excited to say that VegEmail resumes on Wednesday, January 28, now on a bi-weekly Wednesday schedule. Here’s the link to that order form if you’re interested. It closes on Sunday at 10pm for pick up Wed 1/28 from 4-6pm.

That January pause gave us space to reset—and to focus on some big behind-the-scenes projects (more on that below). A calendar graphic is included so you can see delivery dates through April at a glance.

VegEmail remains our choose-your-own, no-commitment way to connect with the farm year-round. You decide what you want, when you want it, and we take care of the growing.

🛒 A New Online Store Is on the Way

One of our biggest January projects has been building a new online store that will support VegEmail order cycles and offer a permanently open shop for Bounty Box memberships, pantry goods, fibers, and other shelf-stable farm offerings.

This has been a long-time goal, and we’re excited to finally be close. Our hope is to make ordering simpler, clearer, and more flexible—for you and for us. We’re aiming to have it up and running within the next month and will share more details as soon as it’s ready.

📅Important Upcoming Dates:

Here are a few upcoming events and milestones to keep on your radar:

• January 28 - Bi-weekly VegEmail deliveries resume

• April 30 - Bounty Box Membership balance payments due

✨ THE BOX is open! ✨

2026 Bounty Box memberships are now available.

The Bounty Box is our 20-week farm share (June–October) and the heart of how we connect our farm to our community. Your membership supports our growing season and brings you fresh, local, chemical-free produce each week — grown with care and harvested in season.

What members love:
Opening the box each week and celebrating what the land has offered — crisp greens, sturdy roots, fragrant herbs from well-cared-for soil. Meals follow the season, vegetables become the star, and cooking feels both grounding and generous.

The details:
• 20 weeks of produce (8–12 items weekly)
• Enough for an average family of four
• Pick-up in downtown Des Moines, Knoxville, or on the farm
• Membership: $700 (payment due April 30)
• Optional add-ons available (Herbs, Jams and Seasonings)

If this sounds like a good fit for your table, we’d love to grow for you.

Questions? Just reply — we’re always happy to help.

P.S. Bounty Box memberships are limited and filled on a first-come basis. If joining has been on your “maybe someday” list, this is a good time to take a look.

I want a Bounty Box Membership!

🥕 Love the farmers market food, hate the fuss?
If you’re a Central Iowan looking for year-round, farm-fresh, chemical-free food without the crowds, guesswork, or farmers market chaos, our VegEmail program is for you.

Every week (or every 2 weeks in the winter), we send you an order form with what’s fresh, and you pick exactly what you want.
✅ No subscriptions
✅ No commitment
✅ Just good food, from people you trust

Pick-up is easy—every other Wednesday, 4-6pm in downtown Des Moines, Knoxville, or right here on the farm. Plus, Des Moines customers can also grab Ebersole Cattle Co meats and eggs, Lost Lake Farm LLC cheeses, and CottageScapes Bakery goodies—all from one pick-up point.

Sign up at www.bluegatefarmfresh.com for food you can feel good about.

Is a monthly newsletter not enough for you? Follow us:

Website: www.bluegatefarmfresh.com

Facebook: Blue Gate Farm

Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh

Bounty Box members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.

January feels like a threshold—quiet, full of intention, and pointed toward what’s coming. We’re grateful to step into the new year with plans taking shape, food still growing, and a community that makes all of it meaningful.

That’s about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.
Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

December arrived with snow on its boots this year, stomping across the farm and asking us not-so-gently —to slow down.

After a long, full season of growing, harvesting, packing, delivering, and occasionally sprinting, the landscape (and our bodies) have shifted into a different gear. The fields are tucked in, the barn sounds different under a blanket of snow, and the rhythm of the days has softened.

Earlier this week we wrapped up our final VegEmail delivery of 2025. As always, it feels both satisfying and a little bittersweet. These winter deliveries stretch us in different ways—cold fingers, creative logistics, and the constant dance of keeping things fresh despite the freeze—but they also remind us how lucky we are to stay connected to you through the darker months.

With that delivery complete, VegEmail is now officially on winter break. We’ll be back in late January, likely with a new delivery day (more details to follow). January will be quieter here, though the farm never really sleeps. We’ll be focusing more on office work, marketing, reorganizing, planning for some exciting upgrades —and getting ready to start sowing seeds.

December also gave us a chance to pause and celebrate the people who make all of this possible. We gathered for a farm crew holiday party, complete with tasty snacks, laughter, and the kind of easy camaraderie that only comes after months of working side-by-side in the dirt. Watching this group of humans care for the farm, each other, and the work itself continues to be one of my greatest joys.

Care and connection showed up in other ways too. Earlier this month we continued our Share the Bounty effort, donating potatoes to local food pantries. With help from our VegEmail community, we were able to move another 230 pounds of potatoes into kitchens beyond our own. That makes a grand total of nearly 500 pounds donated this fall—a reminder that even small actions can make a big impact when we do them together.

As the year winds down, we’re also quietly looking ahead. Bounty Box veteran sign-ups are underway, and once again we’re humbled by the number of folks who choose to return season after season. (A little farm trivia, our longest standing members have been with us since 2008 and 2009!) Your trust in us, year after year, never goes unnoticed.

Mostly, though, December has been about gratitude. For snow that nourishes the soil. For quiet mornings. For full coolers and empty fields. For a community that shows up with curiosity, generosity, and care. We are so thankful for you.

From all of us here at the farm, we wish you a warm, restful, joy-filled holiday season. May your tables be full, your days unhurried, and your winter just the right balance of stillness and sparkle.

✨ Bounty Box Renewals ✨

More than half of our veteran members have already renewed, and we’re now over 58% full for next season.

Members from the 2025 season, your spot is still being held — and you can still lock in 2025 pricing — but only until January 5.

⏰ After that:
• Prices increase
• Unclaimed shares open to our waiting list

💵 No payment due now.

🌱 Renew Your Share Now (available for 2025 Bounty Box members only)

Renew my Bounty Box Membership

If you weren’t a Bounty Box member in 2025 but you want to join us for the 2026 season, contact us now to get on our waiting list. Your time is coming soon…on January 6th to be exact!

📅Important Upcoming Dates:

Here are a few upcoming events and milestones to keep on your radar:

• January 6 - Bounty Box membership opens to the waiting list

• January 27 (some time that week) - Bi-weekly VegEmail deliveries resume

🥕 Love the farmers market food, hate the fuss?
If you’re a Central Iowan looking for year-round, farm-fresh, chemical-free food without the crowds, guesswork, or farmers market chaos, our VegEmail program is for you.

Every week, we send you an order form with what’s fresh, and you pick exactly what you want.
✅ No subscriptions
✅ No commitment
✅ Just good food, from people you trust

Pick-up is easy—every other Tuesday, 4-6pm in downtown Des Moines, Knoxville, or right here on the farm. Plus, Des Moines customers can also grab Ebersole Cattle Co meats and eggs, Lost Lake Farm LLC cheeses, and CottageScapes Bakery goodies—all from one pick-up point.

Sign up at www.bluegatefarmfresh.com for food you can feel good about.

Is a monthly newsletter not enough for you? Follow us:

Website: www.bluegatefarmfresh.com

Facebook: Blue Gate Farm

Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh

Bounty Box members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.

That’s about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.
Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

On Thursday, as is tradition for many of us, our family gathered at my parents’ cabin on the farm to celebrate Thanksgiving. The table was loaded with homemade goodness sourced from (mostly) near and (some) far. We’re privileged to share such bounty, surrounded by loved ones.

But as I thought about the day—the traditions and the foods—it occurred to me that we’re at the table with more than our family and friends. Where did the foods of our feast originate? And what are we doing with the nourishment and energy we glean from them? Are we returning any of that energy to its source, or are we assuming our consumption is the end of the story?

It is all well and good to give thanks; saying the words matters. Recognizing when we have what we need (or more) is good for us, mentally and physically. But it isn’t just about us. “Thank you” is a lovely sentiment, but sentiments do little for the earth. We have one world, and we’re skilled at harvesting its bounty—what are we giving back to the origin of everything that sustains us?

I’ve been ruminating lately on reciprocity and connection. They’re concepts I feel at my core, though they can get buried under the daily to-dos. But I recently reread Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry, and those ideas have been sitting a bit closer to the surface. (If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it—and all of Kimmerer’s books.)

On the farm, we try to honor our responsibility for the stewardship of the land in our care. Could we do more? Absolutely.

We work to replace what we take from the soil, plant trees and native plants where we can, and leave (or create) natural areas to shelter the animals, insects, and soil life that keep this place humming. We don’t always succeed; our efforts often feel too small. But we keep at it, because we are inextricably connected to this place. “Thanks” is good. Action is better.

Caring for our communities is just as important—though, honestly, sometimes the land is easier. In years past we’ve donated eggs or produce to our local food bank. This month we tried something new. We committed to “Share the Bounty” by donating 100 pounds of potatoes to local food pantries, then invited our VegEmail customers to add to that total. Thanks to their generosity, on November 18th we delivered 245 pounds of potatoes to food banks in Des Moines and Knoxville. We plan to do it again in December. Connection fuels reciprocity; reciprocity fuels connection. It’s a cycle worth tending and together we can make a bigger difference in our communities and on the land.

Meanwhile, winter weather has finally made its grand entrance. Our long, mild fall meant we were still harvesting cold-hardy crops the week of Thanksgiving. Snow and single-digit lows put a sharp end to that, but it was lovely while it lasted—and our walk-in is full of storage crops thanks to the extra time.

We hustled ahead of the cold to finish two of the biggest fall tasks: getting the garlic in and the dahlias out. Thanks to our farm crew plus several veteran members, we planted and mulched about 2,000 row feet of garlic in one afternoon. A huge thanks to everyone who pitched in!

The dahlias were a slower, two-person operation with just Danielle and me. It took us about two weeks to dig, wash, divide, label, and store more than 600 plants. It’s a massive job, and no one should ask how I feel about dahlias while we’re in the middle of it. But when those blooms open next summer, when a customer gasps at Danielle’s bouquets, or someone shares photos of their flowers from the tubers they bought from us, it will all be worth it.

We’re still harvesting and delivering VegEmail orders every two weeks through the end of the year. Cold weather means adapting: the packing barn gets divided in half with a wall of used high-tunnel plastic so we can heat one side above freezing. We still wear our insulated Carhartts, but it becomes workable. We also switch the walk-in cooler to a heating unit to keep it just above freezing. Counterintuitive, yes. Effective, also yes. On the coldest days, the walk-in is the warmest place on the farm.

Speaking of VegEmail, the order form is open for the December 2 delivery. (Orders close tonight—Sunday—at 10 p.m.) We’ve added some fun new gift sets this year to make holiday gifting (or pantry stocking) a little easier, with a bit of a price break to sweeten the deal.

After this week, there’s one more delivery in December (12/16), and then we’re taking most of January off. Deliveries resume Tuesday, Jan 27. Here’s the full winter schedule:

✨ Bounty Box Renewals ✨

We are excited to announce that the winner of our first annual Bounty Box member renewal drawing for the Thanksgiving Bounty Box was Mary T! Mary picked up her box at the November 18th VegEmail delivery and we suspect she put it to good use. Huge thanks to Mary and all our veteran members who have already signed up for the 2026 Bounty Box season. We’re already more than half full for the coming season!

Are you a 2025 Bounty Box veteran that missed the early sign ups last month?

No worries, we’re still holding a spot for you. Veteran members have until January 5th to claim their place for the 2026 season. On January 6th we will release any remaining membership spots to our waiting list.

💵 No payment due now.
But if you’d like to check it off your list early, payments can be made anytime before April 30, 2026. Details on the sign up form.

🌱 Renew Your 2026 Share Now (available for 2025 Bounty Box members only) Use this button instead of the QR code on the card you received at the final delivery, that code has expired.

Renew my Bounty Box Membership

If you weren’t a Bounty Box member in 2025 but you want to join us for the 2026 season, contact us now to get on our waiting list. Your time is coming soon…on January 6th to be exact!

📅Important Upcoming Dates:

Here are a few upcoming events and milestones to keep on your radar:

• Dec. 2 - VegEmail delivery 4-6pm

• Dec. 16 - VegEmail delivery 4-6pm (final delivery until late January)

• Jan. 27 - Bi-weekly VegEmail deliveries resume

🥕 Love the farmers market food, hate the fuss?
If you’re a Central Iowan looking for year-round, farm-fresh, chemical-free food without the crowds, guesswork, or farmers market chaos, our VegEmail program is for you.

Every week, we send you an order form with what’s fresh, and you pick exactly what you want.
✅ No subscriptions
✅ No commitment
✅ Just good food, from people you trust

Pick-up is easy—every other Tuesday, 4-6pm in downtown Des Moines, Knoxville, or right here on the farm. Plus, Des Moines customers can also grab Ebersole Cattle Co meats and eggs, Lost Lake Farm LLC cheeses, and CottageScapes Bakery goodies—all from one pick-up point.

Sign up at www.bluegatefarmfresh.com for food you can feel good about.

Winter gives us plenty to do, but it also reminds us to look up, look around, and stay connected. We’re grateful for this community—your support feeds far more than our work; it feeds the land and the wider circle we’re all part of. If you’d like to join us for the next VegEmail delivery, or help us “Share the Bounty” again in December, you can sign up for our email list here.

Is a monthly newsletter not enough for you? Follow us:

Website: www.bluegatefarmfresh.com

Facebook: Blue Gate Farm

Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh

Bounty Box members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.

That’s about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.
Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

It finally happened — the frost arrived in the pre-dawn hours of October 23, a couple of weeks later than our usual Oct. 10. It wasn’t even a hard frost, just enough to make the edges of things sparkle until the first rays of sun melted it away. We didn’t lose much — just a few cold-sensitive flowers (mostly finished anyway). Even the peppers shrugged it off and kept right on producing. The first frost always feels a bit magical, both in its beauty and in the way it flips the seasonal calendar.

Everything slows down — just a bit. The last butterflies move through the cool air like they’re swimming, searching for what few blooms remain. The bees linger on those same blossoms until the later sunrise finally warms them. The wind sounds different now, whispering through baring branches as leaves drift softly to the ground.

But the most magical change this time of year is the sweet glory of frost-kissed vegetables. As temperatures drop, plants convert starches to sugars to protect themselves from the cold — which also gives them amazing sweetness and crispness. Frost turns kale, carrots, and other hardy crops into entirely new versions of themselves. If you’ve never tasted cold-grown produce, find some and treat yourself. You’ll understand why vegetables farmers and adventurous home gardeners talk about it with such reverence.

End of Season, Not End of Work

Things did slow a bit mid-month as we wrapped up our Bounty Box (CSA/membership) season. It’s always amazing how fast 20 weeks fly by! Huge thanks to our members for joining us on that veggie adventure. Our younger crew members headed back to school right after the last delivery, which worked out well timing-wise, though we miss them terribly.

Clearing spent crops is always a big fall task, and this year’s tomato plot was the biggest hurdle — over 600 plants, all hand-pulled and hauled away. Each one felt like wrestling a muddy, uncooperative 50-pound dog into a bath. Messy, exhausting, and endless… until it’s not. Once the plants were cleared, we picked up dropped fruit and cleaned up the fabric mulch. Thankfully, our crew came back for a half day to help us slog through the mess — and we couldn’t have done it without them.

We also had a big assist from the folks at Mint ‘n More Foundation, who spent an afternoon helping us pull tomato posts and clean up the remaining beds. What a team! With their help, the task is nearly complete, we just have to pull and store all the fabric . It would be much easier to use disposable plastic, but I just can’t stomach that kind of waste — so we stick with reusable materials, even if it takes extra effort.

Tucking in for Winter

With the tomatoes out, farm manager Danielle and I returned to harvesting, cultivating, and clearing other spent crops — basil, peppers, and flowers from the high tunnels. Once cleaned, the beds were amended and replanted with winter crops. As of this week, all high tunnel beds are done. Whew! Now we wait as the new plantings of chard, kale, lettuce, Napa, misome, tatsoi, and salad mix settle in for their cool-season growth

Next up: row cover installation on field crops we want to protect for late harvests — greens, radishes, cabbages, and turnips. We finally caught a calm weather window to get the supports and fabric installed. Each piece of row cover stretches about 100 feet long, and a stray gust can easily turn a farm manager into a kite! Big thanks to our farm-friend Megan (the leader of the Mint ‘n More gang), who helps us out on Thursdays. An extra set of hands on tasks like this is a huge boon.

Garlic Days

It’s also garlic-planting season. Every year we plant around 150 pounds of seed garlic, saved from our own harvests. But after 18 seasons, our seed stock started showing signs of viral weakness, so this year we replaced it entirely — a big investment, but a necessary one. We sourced some beautiful fresh seed stock from trusted growers, including our friends at Coyote Run Farm, who provided our original stock years ago.

Each head is broken into individual cloves, sorted for size, and planted accordingly — the biggest cloves for next year’s crop, smaller ones closer together for early green garlic. We spent a rainy day prepping all the seed, so now it’s ready for planting and mulching. Hopefully, we’ll get it in next week.

Shifting Gears

November brings a change in rhythm as we shift to bi-weekly VegEmail deliveries. Starting November 4, we’ll be at SingleSpeed Brewing Co. in Des Moines and the Grand Theater in Knoxville from 4–6 p.m. every other Tuesday.

The new order form is live now and closes Sunday, November 2 at 10 p.m. So go vote — and then pick up your farm-fresh goods! Here’s the link to the order form if you’re local.

Looking Ahead

It’s hard to believe we roll into November this week. The month always brings reflection — on the season behind us and the holidays ahead. We are so thankful for the privilege to care for this land and feed the incredible people who support its beauty and bounty.

We’ve got some fun plans brewing for this next VegEmail cycle, including our first foray into Black Friday offerings — though in true Blue Gate fashion, we’re calling it Blue Friday. Stay tuned!

✨ Early Renewal for Current Members ✨

Did you have a 2025 Bounty Box membership? If so, this is an exclusive offer for you!

In celebration of you—and your commitment to local food—we’re doing something new this year!

Current Bounty Box members get early access to 2026 membership: your chance to secure your spot and lock in 2025 pricing before rates increase.

And because we love a good thank-you, renew by midnight, November 9, and you’ll receive this exclusive early renewal package:

🦃 Entry into a drawing for a free Thanksgiving Bounty Box (pick up on 11/18)
📘 A digital copy of our 20th Anniversary Herb Book

This one-time reward package is only available during early renewal—don’t miss out!

💵 No payment is due now.
But if you’d like to check it off your list early, payments can be made anytime before April 30, 2026.

🌱 Renew Your 2026 Share Now (available for 2025 Bounty Box members only) Use this button instead of the QR code on the card you received at the final delivery, that code has expired.

Renew my Bounty Box Membership

If you weren’t a Bounty Box member in 2025 but you want to join us for 2026 contact us now to get on our waiting list. Your time is coming soon!

📅Important Upcoming Dates:

Here are a few upcoming events and milestones to keep on your radar:

• Nov. 4 – Fall VegEmail schedule begins (delivery every other Tuesday, 4–6pm)

• Nov. 18 - VegEmail delivery 4-6pm

• Dec. 2 - VegEmail delivery 4-6pm

• Dec. 16 - VegEmail delivery 4-6pm

• Jan. 27 - Bi-weekly VegEmail deliveries resume

🥕 Love the farmers market food, hate the fuss?
If you’re a Central Iowan looking for year-round, farm-fresh, chemical-free food without the crowds, guesswork, or farmers market chaos, our VegEmail program is for you.

Every week, we send you an order form with what’s fresh, and you pick exactly what you want.
✅ No subscriptions
✅ No commitment
✅ Just good food, from people you trust

Pick-up is easy—Tuesday evenings in downtown Des Moines, Knoxville, or right here on the farm. Plus, Des Moines customers can also grab Ebersole Cattle Co meats and eggs, Lost Lake Farm LLC cheeses, and CottageScapes Bakery goodies—all from one pick-up point.

Sign up at www.bluegatefarmfresh.com and let the good food find you.

Thank you for being a valued member of the Blue Gate Farm community. Your support and participation sustains our commitment to providing fresh, local, chemical-free products and our passion for stewardship of the land.

Is a monthly newsletter not enough for you? Follow us:

Website: www.bluegatefarmfresh.com

Facebook: Blue Gate Farm

Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh

Bounty Box members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.

That’s about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.
Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

As I sit in our northwest-facing office at dawn, I watch the glow of the unseen sun creep over the hills. Canada geese call overhead, their guttural honks layered with the steady hum of combines working the fields around us.

The colors of the neighborhood are shifting day by day—summer’s vibrant green softening into the grey-green that will soon soon give way to a wider pallet. The walnut trees, always first in the fall fashion parade, have already waltzed through their autumn costume change and are dropping their golden leaves to the timber floor, sometimes revealing an already scarlet Virginia creeper draping their bare branches. It’s a wondrous time to be out in nature, and a reminder that change is always just around the corner—on the farm as much as in the timber.

As September unfolded, the farm shifted into that in-between season, caught between the last flush of summer and the first whispers of fall. Our tomato plants, confused by early cool weather, decided to ripen everything at once, especially the cherries. One harvest day found nearly every crate in the barn brimming, the kind of abundance that feels both triumphant and more than a little overwhelming. The Salsa (or Sauce) Box became our annual way of embracing this glut, sending as many tomatoes out to our members’ kitchens as possible with encouragement to cook, can, and savor the fleeting season. And fleeting it was, as short a tomato season as I can recall.

This is a time of many farewells on a vegetable farm, summer squash, melons, and cucumbers reached the end of their run and were cleared from the fields. It’s always a bittersweet goodbye to those crops we’ve tended since spring, but there’s also relief in closing the chapter on beds of tired, bedraggled plants. In their place, we tucked in a tapestry of fall crops—cabbage, chard, kale and choi, plus baby greens bound for the high tunnels later this season. Some beds germinated quickly, others struggled in the dry soil, reminding us that fall has its own set of challenges even in a year when summer rains seemed endless.

Even as we celebrated nature earlier in this post, as always, there is the challenge of trying to grow food that is delicious to us and to our neighborhood wildlife. Like we mentioned last month the deer discovered our choi transplants and polished off nearly the entire bed in a single night, setting us back weeks on an already delayed crop. More recently it was our newly transplanted head lettuce. Fabric row cover now doubles as both future frost protection and current deer deterrent, and while it isn’t perfect, it gives us (and the lettuce) a fighting chance. Farming is always a negotiation—with weather, with weeds, with pests—and September offered plenty of all three.

But there are always bright spots to celebrate. Cooler nights brought out the sweetness in our greens and (perhaps) in our attitudes. The mid-season crops hit their strides and we had the best cucumber year we’ve ever had (a real accomplishment on a chemical-free farm). We also had record-breaking peach crops in both our yellow and Native White Iowa peaches and from our elderly Wealthy apple tree. Several of our young apples trees produced respectable crops as did one of our Asian Pear trees. A bounty of fruit is always worth celebrating!

As always, the farm crew were the real superstars through the long days of harvesting, cultivating and hand-weeding. At the end of August we sent our younger crew members back to school with full hearts and a celebratory lunch, complete with kazoos. Danielle and I felt their absence immediately, especially during a marathon tomato harvest that stretched well into the afternoon the first day we were on our own. The unexpected boon was the crew’s return for part time hours for the next month or so. I can’t tell you how happy we are to have them!

Just last week we finally crossed a long-overdue task off the list. Back in August of 2019, a tornado tore through the farm, damaging our house, packing barn, trees, and high tunnels. In the months that followed we tackled the critical repairs, but some of the smaller projects were pushed off for “later.” Well, last weekend “later” finally arrived. With the help of skilled farm friends, handy non-farm friends and our crew, we gave our small high tunnel new baseboards and a shiny new cover. It was a long time coming—and deeply satisfying to see it done.

So September left us in that familiar farmer’s headspace: tired but grateful, aware of the struggles but surrounded by small joys, moving steadily into fall even as we look back on summer’s last burst of color and flavor.

📅Important Upcoming Dates:

Here are a few upcoming events and milestones to keep on your radar:

• Oct. 11–12 – Pierce’s Pumpkin Festival

• Oct. 14 – Final CSA delivery (Week #20!)

• Oct. 25 – Final Saturday VegEmail delivery

• Nov. 4 – Fall VegEmail schedule begins (delivery every other Tuesday, 4–6pm)

🥕 Love the farmers market food, hate the fuss?
If you’re a Central Iowan looking for year-round, farm-fresh, chemical-free food without the crowds, guesswork, or farmers market chaos, our VegEmail program is for you.

Every week, we send you an order form with what’s fresh, and you pick exactly what you want.
✅ No subscriptions
✅ No commitment
✅ Just good food, from people you trust

Pick-up is easy—Saturday mornings in downtown or southside Des Moines, Knoxville, or right here on the farm. Plus, SingleSpeed customers can also grab Ebersole Cattle Co meats and eggs, Lost Lake Farm LLC cheeses, and CottageScapes Bakery goodies—all from one pick-up point.

Sign up at www.bluegatefarmfresh.com and let the good food find you.

Thank you for being a valued member of the Blue Gate Farm community. Your support and participation sustains our commitment to providing fresh, local, chemical-free products and our passion for stewardship of the land.

Is a monthly newsletter not enough for you? Follow us:

Website: www.bluegatefarmfresh.com

Facebook: Blue Gate Farm

Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh.

Bounty Box members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.

That’s about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.
Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

Leave a comment

August has been a month of extremes—abundance and setbacks, sunshine and storms, weeds and wonder. That’s farming in a nutshell, and we wouldn’t trade it (well, maybe the weeds).

Well, it’s still technically an August newsletter as long as I get it published today, right? The past month has flown by amid sowing, planting, weeding, cultivating, harvesting, delivering, mowing, jamming, and just general life on the farm.

Fields in Flux

A month ago, I was feeling pretty proud of how things looked. The fields were clean, the crops that hadn’t minded the rain were thriving, and it felt like all our cultivation and weeding had paid off. Then the rains kept coming. We lost the ability to cultivate, and before long we lost control altogether (as if we ever really had it?). By the second week in August, weeds were winning the battle.

Still, some crops came through beautifully—potatoes and onions were harvested in time, beans and cucumbers kept right on performing, and other crops held their own. But our window for fall transplanting and direct seeding kept slipping away. By the time we finally got them in, we were weeks behind. Now, we wait and see what the season allows.

The Beauty and the Mess

So what do you do when your fields are looking rough? Welcome visits from both a photographer and a videographer, of course! The crew’s faces said it all when I shared the news that they were coming. It felt a little like showing the world our basket of dirty laundry. But this is the real side of vegetable farming in a wet year—the weeds, the crop losses, the frustrations, and yes, the feelings of failure.

And yet, it hasn’t all been grim. We pulled a record-breaking potato harvest. Our Haven Peach tree outdid itself, with fruit tipping the scales at a pound apiece. The White Iowa Native Peach trees are also ripening beautifully. Beans, cucumbers, and summer squash rolled in for weeks before pests got the upper hand. Peppers are now coming in fast, and tomatoes are producing despite the stress of too much rain. It looks like their season may end early, but for now they are pumping out the fruits. The popcorn seems to have set well and is just now starting to dry down. And milkweed plants across the farm (including our Hairy Balls) are covered with more monarch caterpillars than we’re seen since moving to the farm

New Challenges (and Deer Drama)

AS I mentioned above, we did manage to get the fall crops transplanted, even if much later than we’d planned. But just when we thought we were making progress, some new “neighbors” showed up. One morning after a big transplanting push, we came out to find the deer had discovered the choi bed overnight—and eaten nearly every plant. They’d left that plot alone for months, but somehow knew the buffet had opened. We re-sowed, but the crop is now weeks behind, so it’s another wait-and-see game.

The cooler-than-average weather is a mixed blessing. It’s fabulous working weather and lessens the stress on our new fall crops but slows our heat-lovers like tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Basil is especially sensitive—anything under 53° can damage it. If you’ve got basil or other tender plants outside, it may be time to protect them or bring them in. We’re expecting another dip into the 40s later this week.

Celebrating Community

Weather challenges aside, August is also a month of celebration. For the second year in a row, we designated it Customer Appreciation Month, a chance to thank the amazing people who support our farm. The partnership between farmers and eaters is built on trust, respect, and joy, and we feel so grateful to share our work with our community.

Speaking of partnerships—we’re thrilled to announce a new VegEmail pick-up spot! Starting in September, our Des Moines-area customers will have a second location option at Mayalu Coffee on Fleur Drive. Regular VegEmail business will continue at SingleSpeed Brewing as usual, but Mayalu offers a convenient (and tasty) southside location. All VegEmail orders at Mayalu will need to be prepaid (since we won’t be there in person). And if you haven’t yet tried their Nepali-inspired pastries and delicious drinks, you are in for a treat.

A Seat at the Table

We’re also excited to collaborate locally with Hometown Market Catering for a Farm to Table Dinner on September 20th at the Countryside Event Center just south of Knoxville. The talented Jonith VanWardhuizen and her team are crafting dishes with our produce and other local ingredients—we can’t wait to taste what they create. Tickets are on sale now, but only through this week, so don’t wait if you’d like to join us.

Honoring Dedication

If you’ve been following us since our April Newsletter , you might remember we celebrated our farm manager, Danielle, as she started her 10th season with us! As a token of our appreciation, we offered her a choice of gifts for her own farm and she chose an antique Planet Jr. cultivator, much like the one she regularly uses here.

This isn’t something you can just buy off the shelf at Menards, so it took me a while to acquire the tool. But finally last week, I was able to connect with a friend who is my tool-enabler and brought Danielle’s cultivator to the farm for the “formal presentation”. It was only a small acknowledgement of all that Dan has done on the farm over the past decade but what fun it is to help start her tool collection for her own farm.

When I presented her with her new cultivator, I said, “Now you’ll be armed and dangerous!” Dan misheard me and thought I said, “farmed and dangerous.” Somehow, that version seemed more accurate, so from here forward we are officially Farmed and Dangerous!

Farewell (for Now) to the Crew

As summer winds down, so does the season with our younger farm crew members. This past week marked the end of regular hours as they head back to school. We couldn’t do this work without them—their energy, grit, and good humor make all the difference through many long days. We celebrated their efforts with a special crew lunch and a little kazoo gifting, because what’s a farm party without music?

As their hours will be limited moving forward, we are taking the opportunity to appreciate them for all they’ve done. Thank you, Josiah, Natellie, and Gabrielle—I can’t express enough how much we will miss you.

✨ That’s August in a nutshell: messy, abundant, unpredictable, and full of gratitude. Thanks for walking through it all with us.

🥕 Love the farmers market food, hate the fuss?
If you’re a Central Iowan looking for year-round, farm-fresh, chemical-free food without the crowds, guesswork, or farmers market chaos, our VegEmail program is for you.

Every week, we send you an order form with what’s fresh, and you pick exactly what you want.
✅ No subscriptions
✅ No commitment
✅ Just good food, from people you trust

Pick-up is easy—Saturday mornings in downtown or southside Des Moines, Knoxville, or right here on the farm. Plus, SingleSpeed customers can also grab Ebersole Cattle Co meats and eggs, Lost Lake Farm LLC cheeses, and CottageScapes Bakery goodies—all from one pick-up point.

Sign up at www.bluegatefarmfresh.com and let the good food find you.

Thank you for being a valued member of the Blue Gate Farm community. Your support and participation sustains our commitment to providing fresh, local, chemical-free products and our passion for stewardship of the land.

Is a monthly newsletter not enough for you? Follow us:

Website: www.bluegatefarmfresh.com

Facebook: Blue Gate Farm

Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh.

Bounty Box members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.

That's about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.
Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

Leave a comment

What’s up on the farm?

Precipitation in the past month- Rain: 4.7”

The original title for this post was going to be “Slather it on… Tis the Season.”
But then last weekend happened.

We were hosting a work day with friends from Genuine Faux Farm and Scattergood Friends School Farm—the “Gang of 4 Farms,” as we call ourselves. We rotate these gatherings throughout the season, and they’ve become one of the bright spots of our farming (and personal) lives. There’s nothing like a day of shared labor, laughter, and good food with people who get this crazy life.

It was a beautiful July day, not excessively hot or humid, with a light breeze. As our friends arrived, the potluck dishes were set down in the kitchen and we grabbed our tools for some perennial bed weeding. But the second we stepped outside, we heard it: that ascending whine and descending growl every chemical-free farmer dreads.

The spray plane.

And then we saw it—bright yellow, banking hard over our sunflowers before swooping back toward a neighbor’s field. Here in Iowa, it’s nothing unusual. Herbicides and fungicides are sprayed across millions of acres of corn and soybeans every summer. But “normal” doesn’t make it any easier to witness.

We’ve already filed one report with the pesticide bureau this season and are still waiting to learn what caused severe damage to our mature oaks and grapevines. The average wait for a pesticide complaint right now? Three months. Meanwhile, new classes of chemicals make the risk even higher. Some can re-volatilize and drift three to five miles from the application site—long after the plane is gone.

We didn’t smell anything this time (a telltale sign) and haven’t seen symptoms of drift, but the sound alone is enough to knot my stomach and send my blood pressure through the roof. That’s the reality and just one of the challenges of farming clean in a chemical world.

Now back to my intended post…

Slather it on…

Tis the Season

If you guessed the title was about sunscreen, moisturizer or even butter—nope. We’re talking about something far more delicious. But first, a little farm life update.

July is a wild ride here on the farm. We’re rotating through planting, harvesting, cultivating, and irrigating—sometimes all in the same day. This year, we decided to add a little mischief to the mix by arming the farm crew with squirt guns. Let me tell you, nothing cuts through a 90° afternoon like a full-blown water battle in the pepper rows. I can’t remember the last time I heard that much giggling while weeding!

Main season harvests are rolling in fast now. Garlic was first, and it’s hanging in the barn rafters to finish curing for storage. Then came the onions and shallots, which are looking fantastic—except for the sweet onions. They grew so big that after we hung them to dry, they literally dropped their tops and crashed to the ground like onion bombs. The shallots, saw the show and are keeping their heads for now, except for a few daredevils taking the leap. Guess it’s time to take them all down to clean and crate them up.

And then there are the potatoes. If you’ve been following us for a while, you know last year was… rough. Challenging weed control and catastrophic insect damage meant more than half our meager crop was lost. Honestly, I took it hard. I know I take the farming gig little too personally sometimes, but that failure hung heavy for months.

This year? Redemption is possible. We hooked up the potato plow last week, and have dug 3 out of 5 beds. And so far, all three early varieties have come in at record yields—with solid quality to boot. The only problem? Where on earth do we store all these spuds? A good problem, sure, but a problem nonetheless. Fingers crossed we dry out enough to finish the harvest and the last variety keeps the streak alive.

Meanwhile, the flowers are throwing their own party. Sunflowers are the clear showstoppers right now—towering, golden, and shining like sunshine on a stem. Danielle, our farm manager/bouquet wizard, has so many options for filling our BLOOMS subscriptions that it’s almost overwhelming. Happily, we also offer our Singular Sensation bouquets, so the sunflowers, snapdragons and dahlias get their time in the spotlight too. We hope all our bouquet subscribers/customers are enjoying the season as much as we are!

*******************************

Recipe Spotlight: Zucchini Slather

Now for that promised slather.

We’re deep into summer squash season—the kind of abundance that can feel overwhelming until you’ve got a few good tricks up your sleeve. Enter our latest farm kitchen obsession: Zucchini Slather.

It’s not quite a dip, not quite a sauce—more like a flavor-packed spread that wants to be on everything: pasta, eggs, pizza crust, crackers, bread. And it uses up a ton of summer squash. This recipe was born from two Smitten Kitchen favorites and a little Blue Gate Farm improvisation. And friends, it’s a keeper.

Even better? It freezes like a dream. Make a big batch now, and you’ll be thanking yourself in January.

👉 [Get the Recipe]

Fun Farm Fact: All zucchini are summer squash, but not all summer squash are zucchini. It’s like the whole squares-and-rectangles thing. Different shapes, colors, and stems—but they swap beautifully in recipes like this one.

Have a favorite squash tip or recipe? Hit reply or leave a comment—we’d love to try it!

Leave a comment

🥕 Love the farmers market food, hate the fuss?
If you’re a Central Iowan looking for year-round, farm-fresh, chemical-free food without the crowds, guesswork, or farmers market chaos, our VegEmail program is for you.

Every week, we send you an order form with what’s fresh, and you pick exactly what you want.
✅ No subscriptions
✅ No commitment
✅ Just good food, from people you trust

Pick-up is easy—Saturday mornings in downtown Des Moines, Knoxville, or right here on the farm. Plus, Des Moines customers can also grab Ebersole Cattle Co meats and eggs, Lost Lake Farm LLC cheeses, and CottageScapes Bakery goodies—all from one pick-up point.

Sign up at www.bluegatefarmfresh.com and let the good food find you.

Thank you for being a valued member of the Blue Gate Farm community. Your support sustains our commitment to providing fresh, local, chemical-free products and our passion for stewardship of the land.

Is a monthly newsletter not enough for you? Follow us:

Website: www.bluegatefarmfresh.com

Facebook: Blue Gate Farm

Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh.

Bounty Box members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.

That's about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.
Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

What’s up on the farm?

Precipitation in the past month- Rain: 5.33”

The theme this week? RAIN.
We were ready for a good soaker, and we got it—plus a little extra! Honestly, the weather’s been relatively kind to us this season (knock on wood). We’ve had enough moisture—along with timely irrigation—for the crops to come on nicely, and enough dry stretches to keep up with cultivation. So really, we can’t complain… but after this wet spell, it’s time to double down on the weed control.

And speaking of the weather (because what else do farmers talk about?), we’ve been working through some real scorchers. Mid-90s with high humidity isn’t ideal for working outdoors, but with enough water, shade, and popsicle breaks, our farm crew is powering through. To lighten the mood, farm manager, Danielle launched a Crazy Hat Contest this week. The prize? The winner gets to choose who gets sprayed with the hose.

Want to help decide the outcome? Leave a comment below with the number of your favorite hat!

Leave a comment

🌿 Crop Shift Ahead
With the summer heat comes a shift in the fields. We’re moving from tender spring greens toward deeper-flavored crops like garlic, fennel, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, and beets. While the tomatoes and peppers aren’t quite ready to harvest, they still need some regular TLC. The big task last week? Tomato pruning.

We’ve got more than 800 tomato plants this season, and pruning them is a process: You start with a bushy, lush green plant… and end up with something that looks more like a grapevine. It’s always a little alarming at the beginning! But this careful pruning helps improve airflow, reduce disease, and set us up for a much healthier crop down the line. With the full crew and a few good playlists, we got the whole patch done in just one afternoon!

🌼 Pollinators, Please!
Sometimes we take on projects just because they feel like the right thing to do. About 18 months ago, we took one of our growing beds—roughly 1,400 square feet—out of production and sowed it with native plants to help support our local pollinators.

It’s a long game. Many native perennials take more than a year to establish. Last year, in the middle of the drought, I worried we had a bust on our hands. But this summer? Those hardy plants are thriving, and the field is alive with butterflies, moths, beetles, bees, and other buzzing beauties.

Sure, we’re hoping they’ll help pollinate our vegetables and fruit trees (win-win), but more than that, we want the farm to be a good place—a refuge for people, plants, and pollinators alike.

Here are a few fun facts we love about pollinators:

• 🐝About 35% of the world's food crops are dependent on animal pollinators (USDA).

• 🌼 A summer squash flower needs 6–10 pollinator visits to be fully pollinated.

• 🦋 Some butterflies taste with their feet, which helps them find the right plants to lay eggs on (and helps pollinate flowers in the process!).

Have a favorite pollinator or pollinator plant? Hit reply or leave a comment—we’d love to hear!

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🥕 Want to eat like a farmers market insider?
If you’re a Central Iowan looking for year-round, farm-fresh, chemical-free food without the crowds, guesswork, or farmers market chaos, our VegEmail program is for you.

Every week, we send you an order form with what’s fresh, and you pick exactly what you want.
✅ No subscriptions
✅ No commitment
✅ Just good food, from people you trust

Pick-up is easy—Saturday mornings in downtown Des Moines, Knoxville, or right here on the farm. Plus, Des Moines customers can also grab Ebersole Cattle Co meats and eggs, Lost Lake Farm LLC cheeses, and CottageScapes Bakery goodies—all from one pick-up point.

Sign up at www.bluegatefarmfresh.com and let the good food find you.

Thank you for being a valued member of the Blue Gate Farm community. Your support sustains our commitment to providing fresh, local, chemical-free products and our passion for stewardship of the land.

Is a monthly newsletter not enough for you? Follow us:

Website: www.bluegatefarmfresh.com

Facebook: Blue Gate Farm

Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh.

Bounty Box members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.

That's about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.
Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

What’s up on the farm?

Precipitation in the past month- Rain: 2.40”

Just before the start of the season, our farm manager, Danielle, and I decided that our theme for this year would be “Celebrate everything!” We thought it might be a good tactic for keeping crew morale up and it’s rather a cheery way to approach life in general and farming in particular. On recent days when we were pushing harder than usual to get plants in the ground or to cultivate extra long beds, it was rewarding (if a bit silly) to get to the end and holler “WOOHOO, end of the bed! CELEBRATE EVERYTHING! The phrase is used liberally and it’s amazing what a lift it can provide.

The sentiment has taken an unexpected turn in connection to some of our less pleasant moments. The past two weeks there has been an explosion of black flies in our area. In the past we’ve occasionally been annoyed by them for a week or so, but this year it’s on a whole different magnitude. Imagine a cartoon bear surrounded by clouds of honeybees…it’s like that except our heads are enveloped by swarms of tiny biting flies. They seem particularly attracted to ears, noses and mouths, which just adds to the unpleasantness. The high point of our recent extra windy days was that it kept the black fly annoyance to a minimum. So as we’re battling the wind someone would call out, “WOOHOO, no flies, CELEBRATE EVERYTHING, dammit!”

LOL! So that’s our updated theme…celebrate everything, dammit!

Yesterday’s biggest celebration was specifically in regards to the weather. After nearly a month with a total of 0.10” of rain, in the past 24 hours, we’ve gotten 2.3”. The bonus is that it came with LOTS of severe weather warnings including “hail is approaching your location and is expected to impact your area in 15 minutes.” To my knowledge, nary a hailstone fell here on the farm, though neighbors not far to the north and south had pretty substantial hail. There are few things that strike fear in the heart of a vegetable and flower farmer (and all crop farmers, really) more than “HAIL.” So this was dually festive with much needed rain and no damaging weather. The crops and the farmer are absolutely celebrating everything!

We have been running pretty hard on the farm since the first of the month. The farm crew is all on board and we are prepping, planting, irrigating and cultivating fields as fast as we can. We have arrived at the time of the year we call “WHOMP it in!” As in, get those transplants in the ground as fast as you responsibly can, while still planting them securely, in a straight line and in the correct location (picky, picky, picky!) Then water them in, move to the next bed and repeat. The extended dry period gave us ample time to be caught up on cultivating all the sown and planted crops and we even got a full round of cover crops planted right before the big rain…you know the drill now…WOOHOO, celebrate everything! (the dammit is optional here).

VegEmail has returned to it’s summer schedule of weekly Saturday deliveries, so we are polishing up our harvesting game as the season moves into high gear.

The current VegEmail order form closes Thurs at noon for pick up in DM, Knoxville or on farm on Saturday from 10am-noon. Details and order here.

Do you want...

• High quality, chemical-free produce, harvested fresh for you?

• Year-round farmers market products without the fuss, crowds and uncertainty?

• Custom ordering the farm-fresh products you want most in amounts you choose?

Then our VegEmail program is for you! Saturday pick-up for VegEmail is available in Des Moines, Knoxville and on farm. If you aren't receiving the VegEmail order form and you would like to, or you want more information about it, you can find it at our website.

Blue Gate BLOOMS

Danielle (our farm manager/bouquet designer) gave me permission to open up a couple more bouquet subscription spots so you have another chance if you missed signing up earlier. Our BLOOMS subscription provides you with 3 months of glorious bouquets. You can find all the details here. BLOOMS season starts the first week of June, so it is just around the corner! Current BLOOMS members should have received an email from us this week. If you didn’t, please check your spam folder or reach out to us.

BGF Bounty Boxes

Our 2025 Bounty Box (CSA) season is SOLD OUT!

Thank you to all our 2025 members! Everyone is paid up and ready for the season to begin! We are planning for the first delivery to be Tuesday, June 3. Bounty Box members should receive an email from us later this week. If you don’t be sure to check your spam folder or let us know you didn’t get it.

If you want to get on our waiting list in case a spot opens up click here: 2025 Bounty Box Sign Up . You can also get more details on our website here: www.bluegatefarmfresh.com

Thank you for being a valued member of the Blue Gate Farm community. Your support sustains our commitment to providing fresh, local, chemical-free products and our passion for stewardship of the land.

Is a monthly newsletter not enough for you? Follow us:

Website: www.bluegatefarmfresh.com

Facebook: Blue Gate Farm

Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh.

Bounty Box members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.

That's about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.
Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

Thanks for reading Beyond the Blue Gate! Subscribe for free to receive fresh updates from the farm.

What’s up on the farm?

Precipitation in the past month- Rain: 2.35”

This is the place to find fresh news from the farm. We’d love it if you’d subscribe here for some extra farm content (it’s free)! We’ll continue to email out the link for the monthly newsletter if you prefer that option, though you may miss out on some posts in between. Regardless, it will remain a free subscription going forward.

April is a crazy time on a vegetable farm! We are running in twelve directions trying to be on top of all the things that need to happen. We are harvesting the last of the winter crops, prepping fields, sowing seeds, transplanting early crops, caring for baby plants, planting potatoes, delivering VegEmail orders, cultivating and trying to keep up with all the associated office work (of which there is an annoying amount!) If you want to torture a farmer, make them do office work on a beautiful April day!

Things are looking remarkably good on the farm right now. The pastures are green and lush and the air is filled with the scent of blooming trees, buzzing bees and the calls of returning birds. Our rains have come at just the right time and in a satisfying amount. This is huge after starting the past few seasons in drought conditions.

The asparagus harvest has begun, as you might have guessed from the photo above. So far we’ve brought in about 150 pounds in the first week of harvesting. We are on schedule for seeding and transplanting crops in the nursery, high tunnels and in the field. Our farm crew has started to return for limited hours until they finish school and winter jobs (and we are SO excited to have them back!!)

In a two week period we transplanted more than 6,000 alliums (onion family), 3200 row feet of potatoes, 1100 row feet of broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage and 2256 row feet of lettuces and early greens. There are also thousands of row feet of seeds tucked into the fields that are starting to germinate. And this is just the beginning!

In a post earlier this month, we announced that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the farm — but that's not the only milestone we're celebrating this season. May kicks off the start of the 10th season on the farm crew for our manager, Danielle!

"Dan" joined the farm crew in 2016 as a bright-eyed and willing worker. It didn’t take long for her to shine. After a few seasons, she stepped into the role of Crew Chief and began honing her incredible flower design skills. Over the past several years, she has taken on even greater leadership as our farm manager and bouquet designer.

Her creativity, artistic eye, and natural talent with flowers have been the heart and soul of our bouquet program. Paired with her hard-working, get-’er-done attitude, delightful sense of humor, and rock-solid dependability, Dan has become an absolutely irreplaceable part of the farm team.

I truly can't imagine running the farm without her. Happy 10th season, Dan — we hope you know just how much you are appreciated!

and speaking of our bouquet program…

Blue Gate BLOOMS

Are you ready for a mood boost? Blue Gate BLOOMS subscriptions are still open, but hurry - only 6 spots left! Starting in June, you’ll receive one-of-a-kind bouquets every other week (or every week, if you double up) at our Saturday VegEmail pick-up.

These aren’t just pretty posies—they’re mood-boosting miracles! Studies show that fresh flowers trigger genuine smiles and uplifts your spirits for days afterward, while living with blooms can meaningfully reduce daily stress. Six bouquets over three months equals near-constant color and calm in your home.

Danielle selects each stem to spark joy and positive energy—from the way the petals catch the light to the fragrance that fills a room. We grow sustainably (no synthetic pesticides or fertilizers) so you can feel good about every vase. Let us bring a little more peace, beauty, and farm-fresh connection into your life! More info and order here: Blue Gate BLOOMS

VegEmail

Do you want...

• High quality, chemical-free produce, harvested fresh for you?

• Year-round farmers market products without the fuss, crowds and uncertainty?

• Custom ordering the farm-fresh products you want most in amounts you choose?

We've got you covered! On May 3, VegEmail returns to our summer schedule of weekly Saturday deliveries in Des Moines, Knoxville and on farm. If you aren't receiving the VegEmail order form and you would like to, just fill out the form here: Get VegEmail!

BGF Bounty Boxes!

Our 2025 Bounty Box (CSA) season is SOLD OUT! Thank you to all our 2025 members!

Bounty Box members, your balance payment is due on April 30. You should have received an invoice earlier this month. If not, or if you have any questions, be sure to let us know!

If you want to get on our waiting list in case a spot opens up click here: 2025 Bounty Box Sign Up . You can also get more details on our website here: www.bluegatefarmfresh.com

Thank you for being a valued member of the Blue Gate Farm community. Your support sustains our commitment to providing fresh, local, chemical-free products and our passion for stewardship of the land.

Is a monthly newsletter not enough for you? Follow us:

Facebook: Blue Gate Farm

Instagram at bluegatefarmfresh.

Bounty Box members can also connect with other BGF members to share recipes or ask questions on our FB community page at Blue Gate Farm Community.

That's about it for now. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to let us know.
Best from the farm,
Jill & Sean (and the whole BGF crew)

Thanks for reading Beyond the Blue Gate! Subscribe for free to receive fresh updates from the farm.

Subscribe now

From our very beginning, we were fools. Way back in 2005, the official start of Blue Gate Farm was on April 1. Yep, that's right we moved to the farm on April Fool's Day…and to varying degrees that observance has tickled me every year since.

What a journey it’s been! Had I known, when we started, the challenges we would face, I’m not sure I could have done it, but here at the start of our 20th season I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. I could wax poetic about our experiences, or swear like a stagehand (truly) about some of the speed bumps but I’ll leave that for another day. Today, I mostly want to look at some fun photos and think back over the journey so far.

If you’ve ever taken a drawing or creative writing class, a common exercise in both is a speed challenge, a bit like speed dating, where you have an adrenalin-powered time limit to produce a fast result or experience, usually a simplified version of the full-featured version. The above timeline was rather like that for me, trying to distill the experience of a year down to one photo. Honestly, the easiest would have been to just pick one photo of each of our crops per year, but the farm is about SO much more than produce. Note the people; the family, friends, crew. See our fur-friends. Our efforts, our growth, our challenges, our celebrations. Notice there’s not a single photo of a weed…our farmer friends won’t miss that detail…but that’s not what the farm or this post is about.

So without further ado…I give you, 20 years of the farm.

I hope you are enjoying this as much as I am…probably not unless you’re my mom, but still…

One more and I’ll call it a day.

That’s it, thanks for coming along for the ride, today and for the past 20 years. Here’s to another couple of decades!