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About Abbe Hills Farm
Laura Krouse purchased the 72-acre farm near Mt. Vernon, Iowa, in 1988 from Jeri and Barb Neal. The first improvements were a driveway, then the big shed. The big pond near Laura's house was also built in 1988 during the major drought of that year. The smaller shed, the wetland near the road, and Laura's house have all been built since 1996. Laura grows corn, hay, oats, and the garden on the 54 acres of the farm that are crop ground. The rest of the land is buildings and driveways, natural area, pond, wetland, and restored prairie.
Laura started Abbe Hills Farm CSA in 1996 with the encouragement of 10 enthusiastic families. As it has grown, the CSA has become a critical component in the profitability and sustainability of the farm, and is Laura's favorite enterprise. In 2008, after 20 years at Cornell College, Laura quit her full-time job as a biology teacher to work full-time on the farm, and now depends on the farm for nearly all of her yearly income.
In 2011, about 13 acres of the 72-acre farm will be garden crops, and the harvest of those crops will be divided into shares for about 200 area families. Laura and her team of college and high school students will grow over 100 varieties of crops, and have vegetables for shareholder families for 20 weeks from early June until the end of October.
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Abbe Hills Garden is “nearly organic,” using synthetic insecticides carefully and infrequently, primarily on members of the cucumber family, and never on the parts of the plants that we eat. We fertilize with cover crops, compost, and organic fertilizers. Noble Bee, from Amana, keeps beehives on the farm to help us with pollination, and we manage the gardens, fields, and natural areas to provide plenty of food and habitat for the honeybees and our many native pollinators. We also manage the landscape to promote the welfare of the beneficial insects who are the natural enemies to many of our insect pests.
We have a trickle irrigation system fed from the pond to help out if/when the weather turns dry, and also a walk-in cooler to keep things fresh from harvest until you arrive to pick them up.
Over 100 Golden Comet hens live in a mobile henhouse that rotates around their pasture. They produce tasty, healthy brown eggs to sell year round, plus wonderful chicken manure for the compost pile. The 2010 chicken pasture will be the site of the 2011 sweet corn patch, and since it's already been weeded and fertilized by the chickens, it should be FANTASTIC.
Of course, there are almost always kittens.