Today, in just a few hours, we were able to run the drip irrigation to the young red raspberry plants. With a simple attachment on the back of the tractor, the irrigation was laid, tied off, and plugged into a water source. What a relief it was to hear the water fill up the tape and see droplets emerge from the emitters. Just a few hours with the irrigation on is equivalent to a cool two-inches of soaking rain. The plants are definitely taking in a nice cold drink of water on a hot day like today.

Next, the plan is to put down the wood chip mulch around the berries, on top of the drip tape. This will help to eliminate soil surface evaporation and keep weeds down to a minimum. As visible as the irrigation is right now, in a few short days, it won’t even be seen, quietly feeding the roots of the plants whenever the weather turns hot and those occasions where weeks pass with no rain.

To see video of it planting strawberries this year, click here. As you can see from the video, a lot of the back-breaking work was now replaced by two people sitting in relatively comfortable steel seats, plant trays, and rotating plant holders… all of which were pulled over the ground by a tractor at a pretty good clip. Planting strawberries at almost a rate of a plant per second, we were amazed and thankful for how well it worked. No one can ever truly appreciate planting strawberries with the mechanical transplanter until they plant the same amount by hand!

We were able to put in several different varieties that ripen at different times… so now, you can look forward to a longer strawberry season here at KellerBerryFarm. There’s a lot of other miscellaneous things left to do before we are completely done with the expansion projects for this year. Installing the drip irrigation and laying down mulch are to name a few, but as far as planting… we are almost done. Strawberries were our last crop to plant! Cherries, elderberries, aronia berries, and raspberries are all done. It has been a great Spring thus far. We appreciate your support and inquiries about the farm. If you have any questions or comments you can email us through our website, leave comments here on the blog, or check us out on Facebook… and don’t forget to “Like” us.

Enjoy the year!

Since KellerBerryFarm is young and growing, we are looking forward to another year of fulfilled expansion projects. In addition to the farm’s growth, it is also undergoing some reconstruction to future and current areas. So, this newsletter will discuss a little bit more about what is going on with the farm this year and what our customers can look forward to for the seasons ahead.

Berry Expansions
As in seasons past, the berry crops continue to expand at the start of every year to keep up with demands. This spring an acre of red raspberries will be added to the existing raspberry area. Rows will be set spaciously apart for all of our customers to easily access during the raspberry season. In addition to this, the strawberry patch will be renovated. We are moving the strawberries to a larger area where they can be easily accessed and conveniently harvested by all. This new area will be considerably larger than the current area and will give us the ability to readily expand in keeping up with demands. As a result of this expansion, KellerBerryFarm will not be offering strawberries this 2012 season. Future strawberry seasons will not only keep up with the rising demand for strawberries, but will also have a longer season because of the planting of several different strawberries varieties.

There will also be a small area of bush cherries being planted this year. This area will be smaller because we want to see how the public responds to them. They are sweet, juicy, and delicious! We love them and believe you will too. They can be eaten fresh, baked in pies, or made into jellies and jams. Your feedback is important to us! There will also be expansions to our elderberry and aronia berry areas as well.

Reconstruction Projects
Aside from the reconstruction to the strawberry area, KellerBerryFarm is also upgrading our parking lot. Since the farm opened in 2010, we’ve quickly outgrown our “little” parking lot. The rising demand for fresh, locally grown food has caused us to reconsider our approach on how we move the farm forward. The parking lot is one such example. The new area will be more spacious and conveniently located near all of our berry varieties. In addition to this, it will provide overflow room to expand to during those peak season times.   

The Wrap Up
In a nutshell, the farm is growing and we couldn’t be more excited! We appreciate all of our customer’s support over the last two years. It is this support and demand that helps navigate us into the future. One such benefit is the understanding of what people want. To keep up with our customer’s wants, KellerBerryFarm has been testing a plot of blueberries. The trials for these varieties have been looking good and we are looking at starting larger expansions for blueberries next year!

Of course there are other exciting developments going on here at the farm but we will keep you posted as the year moves along. Keep following us here on the blog, our website, or facebook to find out the latest information about KellerBerryFarm.

Think Spring!!!

Though the berries are now dormant and ready for winter, we have been working on restructuring the farm to be more efficient and customer friendly, with generous areas to pick berries from. This has entailed cutting down trees, enlarging the parking lot area, moving some berry varieties, and overall preparing to give our customers the best experience when coming to the farm. We also have some exciting new developments, on the farm,  that will be discussed throughout this next year.

KellerBerryFarm is now on Facebook, so feel free to “Like Us”, post comments, suggestions or share a story from your visit to the farm. Also we will be sending out our newsletters more on a quarterly basis. Important updates will be posted throughout the season and our newsletter group will continue to be notified when produce is ready. General updates/content will be posted on a regular basis.  

Thank you…

Happy New Year!

 While we try to get our newsletters out towards the beginning of each month, we have been a little busier than usual. The wind storm, which swept through several counties last month, tweaked our barn and greatly compromised its structure, as you can see from the picture here. Therefore the work of tearing it down was an immediate necessity. We were able to do the work ourselves and had it finished in under two weeks. In addition to the storm, the period of extremely hot temperatures made outside work difficult and stress on the plants inevitable. Due to all of this extra work, our farm will not be participating in the August 28th Farm Crawl hosted by Harvest from the Heart of Iowa, as previously planned.

For this newsletter, we wanted to give a progress report of sorts on some of the younger crops we’ve put in and to tell everyone about the produce we have available now here at the farm.

Aronia

Currently we have a large area of aronia berries. If you are not familiar with aronia berry, the berries are similar to the size and shape of blueberries. When eaten fresh, they are tart and astringent, but they are known for their versatility in delicious products like jams, syrups, juices, wines, and even BBQ sauces or salsas. All of these treats are considered an added value when you consider aronia’s health benefits. Aronia berries are rated with one of the highest levels of antioxidant content over any other berry recorded! One such antioxidant aronia berries contain is called “anthocyanins”. Studies suggest that berries high in anthocyanin content may promote a healthier lifestyle by helping to prevent or treat an array of disease like high blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes and more. Click here to read more about anthocyanins. There is a lot of buzz around aronia berries here in Iowa and the Midwest abroad due to the combination of health benefits and the versatility of products that can be made from the aronia berry. Our plants are growing well as you can see from the picture here, with a few starting to produce berries! Probably not enough to sell though this year.

Blueberry

Blueberries are an all-around berry being both delicious and nutritionally comprehensive. This year we put in a test plot of blueberries to analyze the needs and ability of growing this magnificent fruit.  While slower growing than aronia or elderberry, these plants have done very well this year. Other than the special accommodations that were given to adjusting the ground pH, watering is critical in growing blueberries. The hot dry spell we had last month did not affect the shallow fibrous roots of the blueberries, because we had installed an in ground irrigation system during the time of planting. As you can see from the picture here, they seem to be adapting well to the great Iowa soil.

Elderberry

Here on the farm, we have a half an acre of elderberries. They are delicious fresh or in pies, jellies, juices, and probably most notably, wine. Second only to aronia, elderberries are also loaded with antioxidants. The past few years, elderberries have gained more and more popularity with studies on its treatment of the flu virus (types A and B).  These studies suggest that elderberry anthocyanins may help in decreasing ones chances of contracting this virus and reduce the symptoms/duration of the flu cycle. Click here if you would like to read more about elderberries. As you can see here the plants are growing well, and we are impressed with how beautiful yet hardy they are.  

Lastly, we wanted everyone to know that our tomatoes, Gold Yukon potatoes, yellow squash, and zucchini are available to purchase. Please call or email if interested.

Thank you!

This is an update to let everyone know that we are sold out of our black raspberries for this season. Please check back for later produce including aronia berries, red raspberries, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and various squashes like acorn, butternut, spaghetti, and more.

Thank you and stay cool!

Hi everyone and welcome back to our newsletter. I wanted to first start-off by letting all of you know that our black raspberries are ready! This year we will be offering the black raspberries in a pre-picked arrangement only, so call or email us to place your order. Our pre-picked quarts are only $5.50. As you can see from the picture here, this variety is considered very large and has a rich raspberry flavor. With all of the interest in the raspberries, we are not expecting them to last long. So, if you want some, please place your order today!

In other news, we wanted to thank everyone that came out this year to pick strawberries at our farm. We had a great time meeting all of you and sharing stories. Overall it was a very good season with the weather cooperating and creating near ideal picking weather. About a week and a half after our strawberry season closed, we were able to harvest over 18lbs of cherries off of one bush. In May’s newsletter, we referenced these same bushes on how they must have been the official ushers of spring with all of their flowers. Well, here is a picture of what each one of those flowers produced!

We also wanted to make everyone aware that KellerBerryFarm will be participating in a “Farm Crawl” sponsored by Harvest from the Heart of Iowa on August 28^th from noon to 5pm. We will pass along more details as this time approaches, but it should be a fun time where the public can tour our farm, and all the farms on the route, taste, and buy farm grown products/produce. Mark it on your calendar and tell your family and friends.

Enjoy the summer!

Paul