By Liz Lyon It’s six o’clock on a Saturday morning as the Gwenyn Hill Farm van makes its way into the Brookfield Central High School parking lot. Over the next hour and a half, the lot will fill up with vendor stands and, later on, with folks of all ages on the lookout for what’s...
Fall Frolic for CSA Members
By Liz Lyon On September 19, 2021, Gwenyn Hill Farm CSA members and their families gathered at the farm for our annual Fall Frolic celebration. The weather was hot and sunny: perfect for one last summer hurrah before we head into autumn and the last few weeks of our CSA season. Alexis and Braden grilled...
Wheat with Flavor
July 20, 2021 By Linda Halley There was a time when wheat was “king” in Wisconsin, and our humble state produced more wheat than any other. A weekend road trip revealed that wheat is not just a minor crop here in the state, it is nearly nonexistent. But from 1840 – 1860 every farmer grew...
Hope Springs Eternal
March 30, 2020 By Laurel Blomquist “There was no time to lose, no time to waste in rest or play. The life of the earth comes up with a rush in the springtime.” –Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy If there’s one thing that everyone can agree on right now, it’s this: we live in strange...
Artisan Grain Collaborative
by Alyssa Hartman | The Artisan Grain Collaborative (AGC) is a value chain network of farmers, processors, end-users and advocates working to diversify the landscape in the Upper Midwest. They build connections between the people who grow and use grains and strengthen the narrative and value chain for staple crops as an essential component of...
Till the Cows Come Home
July 1, 2020 By Linda Halley Origin: A longstanding colloquial expression found in print as early as 1593. Exact origin unknown. Meaning: A long, but indefinite time. Explanation: Cows are notoriously languid creatures and make their way home at their own unhurried pace. Milestone: After 30 years, the cows came home to Gwenyn Hill. There...
Gwenyn means Honeybee
April 21, 2021 By Linda Halley Quentin Stedman has kept bees at Gwenyn Hill since 2018, our second year into transitioning the farm to organic. We knew that as we developed the farm, establishing prairies, orchards, gardens, and pastures, our crops would benefit from an abundance of pollinators. We also knew that Gwenyn Hill Farm...
Grassroots
By Linda Halley | “Inputs” Definition: In farmer-speak, Inputs are anything added to a farm for agricultural purposes that does not come directly from the farm itself. Think seeds (purchased, not saved), or minerals added to livestock feed. I have to keep a lengthy list of every input I use at Gwenyn Hill for annual...
Big Little Farm Dreams
by Alexis Champagne | Like many of you reading this, I streamed the Biggest Little Farm on Amazon Prime and fell in love with what agriculture could look like. That’s just it though, what it could be – not necessarily what it is now. My name is Alexis Champagne and I am one of the...
Thank You
by Linda Halley | Having felt robbed by the pandemic of Thanksgiving, and fearing Christmas was shaping up to be the same, I settled down to a deep winter dinner, made by me, for me. On the longest night of the year, though alone in the house, I would feel surrounded by my friends who...
Lunchtime for the Herd
by Charlie Tennessen | Serving lunch to ninety dairy cows is no simple undertaking. Every day, rain or shine, Gwenyn Hill Farm’s Land & Livestock Manager Ryan Heinen loads up about two tons of forage onto a wagon and takes it out to the pasture where the herd eagerly waits for their meal. The feed...
The First Half of 2020
By Laurel Blomquist | 2020 is certainly an exceptional year so far. We’ve all been feeling the effects of these stressful times, and 2020 is destined to go down in history, though most of it has yet to be written. From my perspective from the vegetable fields of Gwenyn Hill, 2020 has turned out to...
Being Essential
By Linda Halley | These days, more often than not, phone calls start with, “How are you doing?” and it is not meant rhetorically. We actually share meaningful information about our lives in the COVID-19 era. While what is happening around the world seems completely unreal, socially distanced interactions with friends, family, neighbors, customers, and...
Laying the Foundation for Local Food: How UW-Madison’s Seed to Kitchen Collaborative Supports & Informs Our Regional Foodshed, Part Two
by Dylan Bruce and Jenyne Loarca | Why a decentralized seed system with context-relevant data is so important The process of selecting, breeding, and trialing a new vegetable variety is a substantial investment, often taking 8 -15 years before that variety is ready for release. Still, a plant breeder might not know how their variety...
Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food
by Linda Halley and Ryan Heinen | Know your farmer, know your food! I was amazed, some years back, when I found that easy-to-remember slogan on the header of a USDA web page. The behemoth federal agency never seemed to even notice the kinds of farmers one can “know.” It made me, as a grower...
Deep Winter Inspiration About our Food System
By Linda Halley with Birke Baehr | Nearly a decade ago I ran across a TED talk that brightened my day like no other. Like most TED talks it was informative and well presented. What was unique was that the speaker was only 11 years old and he was talking about the food system. He was...
Organic Plants for Nourishment
by Lexie Goldberg | Nourishment is a word that circles around my head and heart constantly. Each and every day, our conscious and subconscious thoughts and actions either nourish our bodies and minds, or deplete them. A huge aspect of nourishment and self-care is the food we choose to eat. Our food choices and our...
Cooking for Brain Health
by Susan Speidell | When was the last time you had an opportunity to take a cooking class that focused on brain health? As soon as I saw the invitation to attend a cooking class led by Dr. Rose Kumar, I knew it had my name all over it! Who doesn’t love a cooking class,...
Fertilizers at Gwenyn Hill Farm
By Laurel Blomquist | On May 28, 2019, Gwenyn Hill Farm was visited by an inspector from MOSA, or Midwest Organic Services Association. Annually, we are carefully evaluated by our inspector for organic certification. The inspector checks out the fields as well as the areas where we wash and pack our produce before selling it....
Why the Chickens Crossed Bryn Drive
By Ryan Heinen | With the warmer spring weather we moved our young flock of 115 laying hens from the brooding pen in the machine shed to their permanent home in the lower level of the granary. The new coop includes multiple roosting bars, nest boxes and lots of room. It has access to a...
Maple Water
By Linda Halley | Gwenyn Hill Farm is blessed with maples; mostly red, some sugar, and an occasional silver maple. Ryan Heinen, Gwenyn Hill’s Land and Livestock Manager, and I put out a few taps this past week, We located them in easy-to-reach places along the road and in my yard. Sap runs best when...
Links of Interest
by Linda Halley | It was nearly a year ago when Gwenyn Hill posted its first blog. It felt a little like speaking up into the night sky. How far would the words travel? Would anyone hear (or read) them? Nevertheless, we posted, and committed to continue posting regularly. Some posts are of the mundane variety,...
How I Would Use This Week’s Share, Part II
by Laurel Blomquist, Head Gardener | Fall is officially in full swing, and the sheer variety of vegetables may have some of you scratching your heads. This post was so popular during the summer that I thought I would do it again for fall. The first thing I would do is check to see which vegetables...
The Culinary Connection
by Laurel Blomquist, Head Gardener | A lot of people ask me how I got into farming. It’s not exactly a glamorous profession. I was certainly not encouraged to pursue it by my grandparents, who operated a farm while I was growing up. In 2009, I was in my second year of culinary school at Madison...
Why Buy Organic?
By Laurel Blomquist | What’s the difference between vegetables that are certified organic and those that aren’t? Why does it matter? Why should you choose organic? Check out this video to see how conventional pesticides differ from IPM (Integrated Pest Management) used in certified organic systems: Although many people associate organic farming with eliminating harmful...