The Final Winter Distribution and Beyond

On Wed. Feb. 15th 2012 Hollow Pumpkin C.S.A. made it's final distribution of shares in the first of what we hope will be many years of our experimental season extension harvest here in Southern Illinois. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the great folks who joined up to participate in this experience. For us, it is all about feeding the community in the most nutritious, organic, healthy, environmentally friendly and cost effective way. It is all about our members and keeping the farm alive to serve the community.

Southern Illinois is unique in many ways. It is not California, where the weather is perfect for growing almost year round and, it is not the east coast where the Community Supported Agricultural movement in America began. The mid-west has been slow in hopping aboard this endeavor, though, we are the most bountiful region of America in many ways. And Southern Illinois sits in a slightly precarious position in the region where it comes to weather and soil and mentality. It is fun watching this area grow and spread it's agricultural wings beyond the conventional practices of our predecessors which has been so deeply ingrained into this region's psyche. It is a slow yet necessary process. This process cannot be achieved by any one entity alone.

Hollow Pumpkin farm would like to thank the Neighborhood Co-op Grocery in Carbondale Illinois for allowing us to use their wonderful healthy environment to distribute our C.S.A. shares during this winter harvest as well as our summer and fall harvests. All of the employees at the C0-0p have been extremely helpful and friendly and the folks in the produce department are the best! Hats off to Francis Murphy and Kristin Pass for having a great vision for this regions local and healthy food movement.

Steve and I will now turn our attention to the spring, summer and fall. We are looking, once again, to increase our membership, this year to 35-40 members. Steve has been busy planting seeds and cleaning up the fields, mending fences and planning, when possible, for improvements as we go forward into Hollow Pumpkin's 35th year as a farm and 4th year as a C.S.A.

Half Way Through the Experiment

Happy new year to everyone. We are at our half way point in our season extension experiment. So far so good. The weather has been unusually warm for January in good old Southern Illinois - at least during the day time. Most of the produce we have been distributing in our Winter/Spring share bags has been produce from the Fall such as oriental greens: Bok choy tat soi and senposai. There has been napa cabbage, chard, broccoli, turnips, fennel, parsley and, of course, sweet potatoes. Most of these items can be stored for a while. Sweet potatoes need to be stored at 50 degree temperature or higher and should be stored in a crate or a paper bag, never plastic. The greens, broccoli, cabbage and turnips will keep in the refrigerator.

For the next three distributions we may be adding kale, and we hope carrots. If the warmth holds out the carrots may size enough. It is a wait and see moment folks. there are veggies Steve planted but have refused to size like beets, and there are things we planted that just did not work out, like parsnips and items we usually plant but did not have time to this past year like leeks. We will try for next fall, winter an spring to bring some of those things back.

We are learning, bit by bit, what to do and what not to do so we are pleased that the experiment is working so far. We encourage feed back from our brave Winter/Spring section participants! We also want to thank them for allowing us the opportunity to learn and grow and hopefully serve the Southern Illinois community all year round in the future! Well, at least most of the year.

Here is to a very prosperous and healthy new year to everyone! Happy eating.

Growing Winter Crops in Southern Illinois

Hello to everyone from Hollow Pumpkin Farm/C.S.A. We have finally unveiled our Winter/Spring section of the C.S.A. You may go to the Details and News page and view the information.

If you have ever noticed when you walk into the Neighborhood Co-op in Carbondale, Illinios during the winter months you do not see many local vegetables being sold. The reason for that is it is difficult to grow a consistent and large enough crop here in the winter time. Many if not most farmers down here have not attempted to grow winter vegetables, for the most part, because of the challenges it brings. With the high tunnel grants that have recently been awarded, many farmers here in Southern Illinois have begun to extend their seasons. Hollow Pumpkin Farm is one of many farms that was awarded this grant and so we will have extra covered space to experiment with. It is still an experiment with many challenges ahead. Growing winter vegetables here in Southern Illinois, even with greenhouses, is tricky business and requires a bit more work than during our primary growing season. Timing, frosts, covers, heat, intensive mulch and bringing water to the green houses are but a few of the issues.

We have built our Winter/Spring section of our C.S.A. around these issues. Instead of a weekly distribution we will be distributing every other week but giving you a share that will have enough vegetables to cover the week in between the distribution week. Vegetables grow a bit slower in the winter, even in the greenhouse, so we left a weeks gap in between distributions to let the plants have more growth time. Many of the seasonal winter crops will be those that can be stored in your refrigerator for a period of time as well as cabbage which also stays well. (See Details and News page.) The bottom line will be that this first year will be an experiment and we will make any necessary adjustments for the following years to come.

What it means for Southern Illinois is that we will finally be seeing local seasonal produce in the winter. We wish all the farms and farmers, down here, lots of success in their winter production and season extension, and happy eating to all during the winter months!

Bougs Retuns to Watch Over The High Tunnel Project

Chris Long and Neth Hass came out today to begin putting up the front and back walls of the high tunnel greenhouse. Bougs, Chris's dog, came back to make sure everything was done correctly! Our buddy Phil lead the way on Saturday by helping to finish up the structure so the rest of our angels could work on the walls today.

The next step for us is putting up the plastic! That will be a great photo op. We will finish the high tunnel with digging the trenches for the drainage. This requires a back hoe, gravel and drainage pipe. Once that is complete our second high tunnel greenhouse will be ready for us to plant.

Steve has experience growing winter crops in our first greenhouse but we have only grown enough for us to eat over the lean winter months. So, even for a veteran like Steve, growing a larger amount and variety of winter veggies will be a new challenge as well as fun and we are excited and ready for it.


The thank yous today go out, once again, to Neth Hass and his expert carpentry skills and to Chris Long, who has ignored his heeling injured foot to come out and do a lot of physical work for us. Without them we would be lost.

We are looking forward to supplying Southern Illinois with very local, fresh organically grown cold season veggies. Stay tuned for more.


Our game plan for our Winter/Spring shares is: Our Summer/Fall distribution runs from June to November (thanksgiving) so we thought we'd give Steve a break in December and begin distribution of the Winter/Spring shares in January 2012. It will allow for 6 to 8 more weeks of great local organically grown veggies and herbs and will take us into March and perhaps April. Folks who are interested can join for the Winter/Spring shares as a stand alone section of Hollow Pumpkin C.S.A. or they can opt to combine it with the 24 week Summer/Fall section and receive 30 to 32 weeks of local, organically grown vegetables, herbs and fruit. Please see the detail page for more information.