our farm story
Pete and I came to farming in a roundabout way through my career in entomology. While I was finishing up my M.S in biology, I got a job on a farm, thinking that getting to know farming would help me get into the integrated pest management world to help farmers manage their pests. After two summers on the farm, I spent a summer scouting pests on large commercial blueberry and blackberry farms in Western Oregon. Then, I worked in a native pollinator research lab, studying native pollinators on farms with and without pollinator habitat. I took a deep dive into bumble bee metabolomics, and I learned how to manage mason bees on a large scale. This was really when I developed my farm dream, because I wanted to put into practice all that I had learned in a way that I hadn’t seen done, and to spend my days growing things and sharing them with others.
We started our beekeeping business in 2018, with the plan to raise mason bees and sell cocoons and native bee houses, along with the honey from our three hives. I quickly learned that raising mason bees in Northern Minnesota is much different than Western Oregon, so although I still raise mason bees, honey bees became a much larger business focus. We spent the last three years managing a dozen hives at three different apiaries and running our business out of our tiny Lakeside home.
In 2020 we had the opportunity to purchase our farm, formerly Talmadge Farms, complete with an old farmhouse, greenhouses, a high tunnel, and three open fields for crops and pollinator plants. We will be able to keep all of our honey bee hives here too, which will save the time and planning required traveling to beekeep, always forgetting something, etc… !
We are excited to be able to develop this land to really provide for everyone - insects, humans, and other wildlife. We will be growing dozens of native perennials in our greenhouse, from seed collected from many local sources, to sell to gardeners across the Northland. We will be installing several gardens of our own for insect conservation - mixes to target beneficials, milkweed patch, firefly habitat, native pollinator nesting sites (bare ground), just to name a few. We will be planting the field edges with native and northern hardy nut and berry trees and shrubs, and adding diversity to our woods to be more productive and resilient to climate change. We will grow a range of fruits and veggies in the least impactful way possible, and along the way, we will be bringing people out to see what we are doing, learn, and join our efforts, because ultimately we all need to do our part to provide for the little critters and maintain our rich, resilient ecosystem.