About Abbe Hills
Laura started Abbe Hills Garden 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 2010,
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.
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 a constructed 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. A few layer chickens provide tasty, healthy eggs for Laura’s family with a few extra to sell year round, plus wonderful chicken manure for the compost pile. Of course, there are almost always kittens.
Roland Krouse
Dora Bopp
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Living