Hello 2025 Growing Season!
- Ashley
- 6 days ago
- 6 min read
Hello friends!
I'm excited to announce that I'm coming back to Root + Sprout for the 2025 growing season! After taking last year off, I found I really missed having something for myself outside of motherhood. I've always been drawn to the garden, and although I had a small garden last year, I missed seeing the friendly faces at pickup and being out in the garden on a regular basis.
Garden Updates
On the garden front, I've taken inventory and have been busy purchasing seeds that will be started early in our home and direct sowed into the garden once it's drier and warmer. I've been planting tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli and cauliflower. Everything has sprouted up except for the bell peppers. We also tried a variety of purple cauliflower this year which had poor germination, so I may try a second planting to see how it goes if I have enough room to do so. Generally, we also start onions, celery and cabbage, but we will source these pre-started seedlings out due to space constraints this year.
In the next few weeks, I'll start garden mapping. Garden mapping is exactly what it sounds like, drawing a map of your garden and where you plan to plant everything. It's important to map for crop rotation and disease prevention purposes. Not every crop gets rotated as much as they should in the spaces that we have, but we really try our best to move around crops like broccoli, onions and tomatoes that are especially prone to disease and bugs that survive in the soil. Most years, things don't end up going exactly where I think they will according to the map because I've run out of room, or totally forgot about something, so we tuck it in somewhere else. The garden map serves as a loose guide to get us started at the very least! Lot's of items that you saw in 2023 will make an appearance once again this year, while other's that were not so popular...ahem okra...will not be taking up space in the garden this year! If you have any suggestions of things that you'd like to see, please feel free to reply to this email or send me a message via Instagram.
Life Updates
Aubrey is nearly four years old now which feels like such a testament to how quickly time flies by. She is in pre-school at Montessori Smile in Brandon two days a week where her learning has been exploding. She knows all of the continents, days of the week, months of the year, can confidently count to 30, is doing simple math equations on her fingers and is always making up a cool song! She's also a strong swimmer and is enjoying a mini Cross-fit class at Rocked Community Fitness that she loves. This spring I've taken on the role of garden mentor, at her school. We've started some tomato, pepper and eggplant seeds to plant in their school garden this summer which all of the kids are very excited about! We will hopefully be doing some fundraisers selling some veggies from their garden later this summer so keep a look out for that. Over spring break, we visited the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair. Aubrey loved cheering for the jumping horses, getting her face painted, and enjoyed watching the magic show and Doodles the Clown. We were two very tired girls after a full day of exploring and cheering.
Calan and I are still running NRG Signs out of Virden. He is busy, busy as always and continues to put out good work into the surrounding communities. He is going to Cross-fit classes and loving it just as much as Aubrey loves her classes. He dreams about going back to triathalon every once and awhile, but the training is very intense and takes up so much time.
I am still doing the bookkeeping for NRG Signs and it keeps me busy. When Aubrey is at school twice a week, I get to work in silence without interruption which is so nice! I've been puttering around in our yard and can't wait to get into our flower beds, fertilize our lawn and get the sprinkler....sprinklering! I also cut my hair into a pixie cut (thank you Haley)! It's been an adjustment, but it feels really nice and I'm looking forward to feeling cool all summer!
My parents are still farming and we go out once or twice a week to help out with the cattle and catch up on weekly chores where it's useful to have two people on a task. We are almost done calving (down to the last five as I write this email). The last five always seem to string out forever, but it's nice to see the end is in sight. Once the last cow calves, my dad can go back to sleeping through the night. Currently, he wakes up every two hours to check the "maternity ward" which gets exhausting after awhile a few months. Calving is one of my favorite times of the year! Birth and new life is just so magical, and you can't beat those cute baby calf faces and their little "moo's"! Aubrey is not super interested in the new calves this year, but she does enjoys it when they run around or sniff her hand.
2025 CSA
This growing season I'll once again be offering two CSA share options - a full share option and a half share option. I'll quickly define and outline the benefits of purchasing a CSA for those of you who haven't participated in a CSA before (you can also read more in depth about it here). A CSA share ensures that you get produce every week. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), directly connects consumers (you), and producers (me), to help create a more transparent and profitable local food system. The process of participating in a CSA is simple:
Consumers purchase a CSA share at the beginning of the season.
Farmers use the up-front payments to cover the cost of seed, tools and other inputs at the start of the season.
Consumers receive regular distributions of vegetables, meat or other farm products.
Here's some benefits of purchasing a CSA farm share:
High quality, fresh, nutritious food that's harvested within a few days or hours of pickup
Pesticide and chemical free produce generally at a lower cost than the grocery store
A direct connection to your farmer - ask questions and see if our farming practices align with your values
Introduction to new foods/varieties - CSA's offer what is plentiful and in season, which is a great way to get introduced to new crops you may not have tasted otherwise. Don't worry though, if you really don't like something, we always have a basket of items you can exchange at pickup.
Participating in a CSA means that you know the plot of land on which the food was grown. If eating and supporting the local food system, then joining a CSA is something to think about.
To purchase your CSA for the 2025 season, tap here! If cost is a barrier, PLEASE reach out so we can chat and set up a payment plan. Our website provider does not allow us to set up payments plans, so it's something we have to do the old fashion way through conversation.
Okay, so that feels like a lot to absorb, so let's put some important details in bullet points:
There's two CSA options this season
12 Week Half Share - $210
12 Week Full Share - $350
Pickups will be on Tuesday's from 4:30-5:30 pm at my home in Brandon, MB - my address will be disclosed at check out and again through follow up emails
Once you've purchased a CSA option, you'll receive a terms and conditions document for your review with more details
You'll receive an email from me prior to our first pickup date so everyone is on the same page
If you've never been apart of our CSA and you're worried that you won't enjoy some of the items in your bag, I always have a basket of items that you're able to switch items out for!
It's worth noting that I'll also have extra's and add-on's available in our online market, however, they may be sparse and some crops may not be available at all because we always fill our CSA customer bags first.
As always, if you have any questions, concerns or thoughts, please reply!
I so look forward to seeing you all this growing season!
Ashley
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