The Millet Seed Farm

Grow your own fresh figs! Trees for sale starting at $25. These Chicago Hardy figs can be grown in pots and brought inside over winter or planted in the ground in a south facing location. After a couple of years trees bare dozens of delicious fruit with proper care. Contact me to purchase your trees at 319-471-0807 or [email protected].

Egyptian walking onions are probably my favorite perennial allium to date. The most versatile, reliable and productive providing green onions spring, fall and winter. Plus tasty Shallot bulbs in summer. All of these were harvested from one massive plant! A limited number of bulbils will before sale this August.

Hardy Iowa white peach trees for sale! $20 each or $15 each when you buy four or more! These trees have gorgeous pink blooms in spring and are loaded with small tasty peaches that are great fresh, frozen, or dried! Contact me to purchase your peach trees today. 319-471-0807 or [email protected]

The praying mantis hatch begins! I saved this egg sack found on a ginger stalk from the fall harvest. I tied it to a volunteer red bud in the low tunnel with hope that this day would arrive.

Friends and CSA folks, stop by for some early spinach on the house! Just give me a text to let me know you are swinging by. I still have a few CSA shares available too so let me know if you would like to join! Happy spring...

Hey folks! Now is a great time to start thinking about signing up for a CSA. The Millet Seed has shares available for the 2019 season. Visit the website or contact me to learn more about the farm and to sign up for a share. A link to themilletseed.com can be found in the bio. Thank you and stay warm!

A wonderful display of foraged mushrooms and home grown ginger. I am ready for mushroom ginger tea and gravy to keep me warm during these cold winter days.

Timeline Photos

CSA members were treated to neighborhood wild plums last week, as well as seedless concord grapes from our neighbor. Loving the bounty of fruit this year!

2018 WFAN Annual Conference - WFAN

Wren works for the Women, Food and Agriculture Network and their awesome annual conference is in Des Moines November 2nd and 3rd. The theme this year is Stepping into Action: Changing Foodscapes through Individual and Community Power. If you're a women involved in food/agriculture at any level, please attend! Registration costs increase after August 20th, so the earlier the better. Feel free to contact Wren if you have questions.

wfan.org   Conference Statement WFAN’s mission is to engage women in building an ecological and just food and agricultural system through individual and community power. Our members work every day to fulfill a vision for a food system that supports farmers, eaters, and the environment. This two-day annual...

Come Pick!

Super exciting, it's time for blueberries at Blueyah Organic U-Pick Blueberry Farm in Oxford. We just finished our last batch of frozen berries from our picking last year and are pumped to be going to stock up. Contact them soon to pick-up a time to go out!

blueyahblueberryfarm.com Check out our calendar and contact us to set up a berry-picking time.

Experimenting with planting sweet potatoes into a bed with a pea cover crop! 6 rows of peas planted per bed in early spring. All rows terminated after three weeks except the outside rows nearest the paths (this clears a nice space for the single row of sweet potatoes which are planted in mid to late May). When the peas got large they flopped towards the paths where they rest in ‘peas’ after they were cut down with a diamond hoe in mid June. The goal is to keep living plants in the ground for as much of the season as possible to keep the soil biology thriving, build organic matter, and fix nitrogen. I hope to try this with rye and vetch as well! #covercrop #notill

The beets are ready! Right out our front door. #foodnotlawns

Over wintered cilantro left in the tomato beds are filling in the paths beautifully! Attracting wonderful insects and providing a huge crop of coriander. #cilantrolove

Any ideas about what may be causing these pepper flowers to abort? This is happening to all of the plants in the tunnel. The plants are not as vibrant green as usual either.

Broccoli coming soon! Thank you Wren for finally convincing me that broccoli is worth the effort by growing it for us last year.

Full vent on the new cat tunnel. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to grow tomatoes, ginger, and peppers under cover like the pros. I am an amateur. It was great to have for spring starts but I am already regretting having this hunk of plastic out here in the heat!

Last week was our first CSA pickup. It feels great to start the season off with a bounty of fresh greens and spring mushrooms!

Hey folks! Wren’s been brewing a bunch of water and coconut water kefir and now has a bunch of extra water kefir grains to share. Let us know if you’d like some.

Come visit us at the Back Yard Abundance plant sale this Saturday, April 28, from 9-11:30 at the Robert A. Lee Recreation Center.

About Us

Two exciting positions are open with Field to Family in Johnson Co., Program Associate and Food Hub Manager. Applications due April 20th. A great opportunity to be involved in making a more vibrant and sustainable local food network!

fieldtofamily.org OUR MISSION: Field to Family works to create a more local, healthy and sustainable regional food system. We envision a region where people eat with the seasons, where farmers make a living, and our…

Wren helps plant our favorite leeks, King Richard. It is feeling like spring!

Waiting for spring! I finally broke down and gave the starts some supplemental heat on these chilly nights. These cool weather starts are double covered (under row cover in a hoop house). Extra blankets on top of the row cover keep it about 12 degrees above the outside temperature with out any extra heat.

Farm Life Isn't Nearly As Idyllic As It Looks On Instagram—But I Still Wouldn’t Trade It For Anything

A good and honest article written by friend and fellow farmer Adrian at Jupiter Ridge Mushrooms & Veg.

rodalesorganiclife.com Those idyllic photos don't tell the whole story—here's what you don't see.

ginger.

The last transplants of the season are in the ground! This is two of the four rows. Perfect conditions for plugging spinach into the no till beds. I will admit I do not love transplanting spinach and will continue to work on ways to improve.

Joe's long cayenne. I have a bad feeling about how this is going to end. I can already feel my hands getting warm through my gloves!

Looking for a fun Sunday activity? Check out this great farm crawl, hosted by Johnson Co. Women, Land & Legacy. Three farms will be on the route where women are at the helm and the day will conclude with ice cream at Dan & Debbbie's creamery.

More details at http://www.jcswcd.org/event-2639929

Edible Classroom Equinox Celebration - 9/16/2017 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

The Millet Seed farm has been invited to hang-out with Backyard Abundance this Saturday for their edible classroom equinox celebration! Stop by and munch on garden produce, get pollinator seed, learn about cover crops and help plant them in the garden beds, and say hello to Jon!

backyardabundance.org Environmental presentations, classes, and events hosted by Backyard Abundance and partners.

Practical Farmers of Iowa

Hey folks. We had a great field day back in July with Practical Farmers of Iowa. Read a re-cap of the event at the link below if you're interested in hearing more on how the farm operates, from finances to seeding.

If you missed the excellent field day at The Millet Seed Farm on earning a living with urban farming, you can get the details in our blog. Says farmer Jon Yagla, “CSA makes sense for us because we already want to grow a diversity of food for ourselves, and I just needed to scale up to do the CSA. We also have a lot of support in this community, so CSA made sense."

The Millet Seed Farm's cover photo

New farm truck at work! Thanks Steve Thirtieth Century Bicycle for parting with this beauty.

Grateful for these terrific CSA pick-up photos from amazing photographer Kierra Zapff!

The Millet Seed Farm's cover photo

Timeline Photos