It may be one of the hardest things that Donna Warhover has ever done, but the rewards are worth it.
Warhover was one of the speakers in Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center presenting topics on Thursday afternoons.
Warhover got her start with farming when she lived in a condominium with her husband in Robins. As she was working at Goodwill of the Heartland, Warhover had an idea about farming and running a community farm that would seek input and assistance from adults with disabilities.
She and her husband closed on the farm outside of Mount Vernon in 2013, and have kept working with volunteers and adults with disabilities every Friday at the farm.
Warhover said that in the very beginning, she started with her crops under grow lights in the basement of her location.
“By the third year, we realized, we can’t keep gardening in this fashion,” Warhover said.
That’s when the couple started work on their first greenhouse, which would allow more crops to be grown in different seasons.
As the community supported agriculture (CSA) kept in customers, Warhover said the next hurdle became how much work she was putting into her executive assistant job with Goodwill of the Heartland or pivoting to farming full-time, as she couldn’t continue to do both the way she was doing.
“I was faced with either the decision to stop farming or stop my executive assistant job,” Warhover said. “That was a scary, scary prospect, especially as our farm at the moment only had traditional growing seasons. I needed a way to expand our growing season.”
Warhover said that’s when the couple’s first high tunnel was constructed, allowing protection of crops from certain elements.
Warhover said she works on making sure she is planting plants that are beneficials – that is, attract insects that help eradicate another insect’s proliferation in an adjacent crop. She plants some flowers near her cucumbers and zuchinnis to keep the aphid infestations down.
The couple later learned the importance of different ways to mitigate weeds in their crops.
Warhover started with a John Deere tractor, but found much of the equipment was too heavy or cumbersome for her to replace on her own.
“I’d have to wait for my husband to get home to switch a piece of equipment from the tractor, and that just wasn’t going to work for us,” Warhover said. “I started looking into quick attach equipment, and that’s the one thing I advise to any new farmers – the importance of having the right equipment for your farm.”
One of the other lessons Warhover has learned – sometimes staggering the start of your growing season helps keep some of the pests away.
“I’ve staggered my season on zucchini by two weeks compared to other growers, and by doing so, I miss a few of the infestations of pests they see,” Warhover said.
Other pests – like deer – have required different solutions.
Other lessons learned – customers and their appetites can be very tricky to plan for, and it’s better to have a diverse crops than relying on just one. During the pandemic, many people were more concerned with where their food was coming from, and her customer base definitely grew.
Warhover said the pandemic and the natural disasters of 2020 – a hail storm with straight line winds and then the later derecho, was a very, very trying time to be a farmer.
“Mother Nature always has the last word,” Warhover said.
Warhover said in 2023, while she will be running a CSA, she will be running a six week spring share of crops, and then working with a partner, Buffalo Ridge Orchard, to offer different crops to customers in the summer.
“Our focus this year will be on larger quantities of food, but fewer varieties of food because of those partnerships,” Warhover said.
There will be Saturday’s farmer’s markets at the farm from 9 a.m. to noon in May, and traditional Thursday 4 to 6 p.m. farmer’s market hours from May through October.
There will also be the breakfast on the farms 9 a.m. to noon on the second Saturdays of each month, and dinners at the farm every third Thursday from 4-7 p.m.
Classes will also be offered this spring and summer on the farm on different topics.
“One of the most constant lessons I’ve ever learned from farming has been the constant change,” Warhover said. “No two years have ever been the same on the farm.”
Warhover answered questions on how she’s handled soil nutrients.
“We have soil testing before every year, and they let us know what we’re going to need to add to the soil to help our products grow,” Warhover said.
The CSA is not a certified organic, but they strive as much as possible to be organic.
In her 10 years growing, she has definitely seen the impact of climate change, with warmer or weird weather in springs that make growing seasons harder to predict.
The adult speakers program has a speaker on a different topic every Thursday afternoon at the Lester Buresh Center, with the talks beginning at 1 p.m.
Lessons learned on CSA farming
February 2, 2023
Donna Warhover speaks about the lessons she and her husband have learned about farming since starting her CSA farm in Mount Vernon.
About the Contributor
Nathan Countryman, Editor
Nathan Countryman is the Editor of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun.