When studying abroad in France (click here) and Spain, Sarah Woutat developed a love for organic farming after working on farms in both countries. The love was so strong, she retired from her New York City life working for an environmental publishing business and returned to farming.
After an apprenticeship at Fort Hill Farm in Connecticut, she returned home to her native state of Minnesota to run Uproot Farm.
Uproot Farm is a small vegetable farm just one hour north of the Twin Cities. This farm turns a profit on just five acres. The farm sells community supported agriculture, or CSA, shares to people in nearby Cambridge, Minn. as well as Minneapolis. When a person buys into a CSA, they’re guaranteed a certain amount of the farm’s harvest and the farm receives financial support up front....
...While high tunnels may look like greenhouses, growers manage them quite
differently. In high tunnels, plants are grown directly in the ground.
High tunnels don’t use heaters and lights. Opening and closing the high
tunnel regulates the sun’s heat. Right after it was built in September,
she planted a crop of spinach.Her first crop yielded 126 pounds. The following spring she planted and harvested several vegetables, including tomatoes, carrots, beets, spinach, salad mix and radishes.
“She was very happy with the spinach crop that she harvested in the fall of 2011, just two months after the seasonal high tunnel was set up,” Bork said....
