Farm fresh: Organic farmers share businesses at CC Senior Center

By Kate Hayden, khayden@charlescitypress.com

Two area farms are giving local community members a new way to access their daily fruits and vegetables.

Loyd Johnson of Bloomin Wooley Acres, along with Stephen and Nellie Kraus of Whistling Thistle Farmstead, met with Charles City Senior Center members on Thursday to introduce their services as a wholesale and direct-sale farm for produce.

The farm collaboration is trying to reach more of the smaller, local communities to offer their services, Johnson said.

“I consider it very important to raise a vegetable that’s fresh, and I market it a few miles away,” Johnson said. “First stop is in Nashua –– that’s local.”

Bloomin Wooley Acres have also been selling in Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Coralville, but this year they are expanding to more rural communities, including Marble Rock, Rockford, Greene and Clarksville. The goal is to engage residents in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), which offers weekly deliveries starting in May.

Residents can purchase a CSA share from either farm and expect deliveries of lettuce, radishes, carrots, tomatoes and other produce for up to 30 weeks during the season.

“We’re saying, don’t stop gardening –– raise a tomato plant, raise a couple pepper plants where you live. But let us help you out, let us supplement what you can grow yourself,” Johnson said. “Give us the opportunity to provide healthy, fresh, organically grown, safe … and sustainable practices.”

Bloomin Wooley Acres raises produce on five of the 12 acres on the farm using covered high tunnels that extend the growing season, earlier in spring and later into the fall.

“As early as next week, I’ll be planting lettuce and kale and more green onions,” Johnson said.

Whistling Thistle’s foundation started in Wisconsin four years ago when Nellie and Stephen Kaus met, Nellie said. After interning for other farms for three years, the Kauses accepted an offer by Stephen’s family to farm on family land in Shell Rock.

“We thought, that would be a really great opportunity for us. It’s land that’s already in the family and it’s something that we could utilize,” Nellie said.

The couple is in their second year as a business, and has a huge variety of vegetables, annual fruits and some culinary herbs, Nellie said. As well as the CSA collaboration with Johnson’s farm, Whistling Thistle sells it’s own CSA shares to the local community through an on-property farm stand.

The farm doesn’t have a minimum order requirement, she said.

“We’re going to try to avoid that, because our main mission is to make it accessible to people,” Nellie said. “If there’s one member in a town, we want to still make it work for them.”

The farm offers on-farm pickup but also delivers within a 30 mile radius of the farm.

“We’re trying to cater to neighboring towns,” Nellie said. “A handful of other farmers are going to some of the bigger cities, which we want to sell to as well, but one of our passions is to just make good food available to all people, and we’ve noticed that some of the small towns nearby … those towns, we want to really make sure they know that good produce is available to them as well. That’s a niche that we’re trying to fill.”

“We’re totally building this farm up from the ground. It’s been really exciting,” she added.

Both farms can be reached at www.whistlingthistlefarm.com and bloominwooleyacres@gmail.com.