116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
My Biz: Community support ‘backbone’ for CSA farmers
Field day showcases 10 acres of veggies near Coggon
T.D. Holub talks about his Garden Oasis Farm, a community assisted agriculture operation, during a field day at the farm near Coggon. He and his wife, Sarah, started the farm 11 years ago with a half-acre and now plant and harvest more than 40 types of vegetables on 10 acres. (Savannah Blake/The Gazette)
Grace Matus and her father, Bill Matus, of Central City, check out the tomato plants growing in one of the greenhouses during a June 29 field day at Garden Oasis Farm near Coggon. The community assisted agriculture farm has 80 to 120 shareholders who receive fresh produce from the farm during the growing season. (Savannah Blake/The Gazette)
BUCHANAN COUNTY — Garden Oasis Farm started in 2013 as a community supported agriculture farm, or CSA, with half an acre.
The farm now has 10 acres filled with produce, which owners T.D. and Sarah Holub showed off to the public June 30 during a Practical Farmers of Iowa hands-on field day.
A CSA is a business model where community members buy shares and, in return, receive boxes of fresh produce during the growing season.
When the Holubs started, their CSA had 20 members. It now has 80 to 120 members, a “sweet spot” for the size of the farm, T.D. Holub said during the field day.
“We have that pool of customers that are familiar with our products,” he said. “We send an email out to them” when produce is ready and when CSA signups open. “So it gives us that customer pool, but it really is the backbone of the farm.”
By having shares purchased in advance, the Holubs can gauge how many much seed, fertilizer and other supplies to buy before the growing season on their farm, which is near Coggon but in Buchanan County.
The Holubs plant and sell more than 40 types of vegetables, allowing CSA shareholders to receive 8 to 12 items per delivery. They also sell pasture-raised chickens.
Shares cost $300 to $845, depending on the frequency of pickups, the delivery option chosen and whether fall/winter storage is requested by the buyers.
Shareholders can pick up fresh produce at the Garden Oasis Farm on Thursday and Friday afternoons or at a drop point in Independence on Thursday afternoons. Home delivery is offered on Fridays to customers in Cedar Rapids, Solon, North Liberty, Coralville and Iowa City.
Lettuce is the most popular vegetable the farm produces, followed by carrots and broccoli, Holub said.
But it’s kale — the curly-leafed cultivar that’s descended from cabbage — that is Holub’s favorite produce to harvest.
“You can just take off six leaves, bunch it real quick, and you can do hundreds of bunches in a few hours,” Holub said.
Visitors take turns riding a water wheel transplanter and during a Practical Farmers of Iowa field day June 30 at Garden Oasis Farm near Coggon. (Savannah Blake/The Gazette)
Freshly picked garlic sits on a table for people to check out during a June 30 Practical Farmers of Iowa field day at Garden Oasis Farm near Coggon. (Savannah Blake/The Gazette)
Seedlings are displayed June 30 during a hands-on field day at the Garden Oasis Farm near Coggon. (Savannah Blake/The Gazette)
T.D. Holub talks about some of the equipment used to harvest vegetables during a June 30 field day at his Garden Oasis Farm near Coggon. (Savannah Blake/The Gazette)
Maycnn Holub (left), 5, and Ada Marie Edwards-Lehman, 3, talk about their favorite vegetables during a June 30 field day at the Garden Oasis Farm near Coggon. Maycnn’s parents operate the Garden Oasis Farm and Ada Marie’s parents operate Wild Wood Farm in Solon. Both farms are community assisted agriculture properties. (Savannah Blake/The Gazette)
Ajay Nair (left) of Iowa State University and Kate Edwards of Solon check out one of the greenhouses on the Garden Oasis Farm during a June 30 Practical Farmers of Iowa field day at the farm near Coggon. (Savannah Blake/The Gazette)
”It’s a nice, easy thing to do that looks really nice, and it’s just kind of relaxing, for some odd reason. The combination of the sound, the crunch, I don’t know,” he said with a laugh.
During the hands-on field day, Holub walked about 25 visitors through the farm’s processes, from planting to harvesting.
He led the group through the operation’s greenhouses and demonstrated the farm’s vacuum seeder and rinse conveyor.
And he hooked up a tractor to a hay rack to haul visitors to a nearby field to demonstrate tilling and a water wheel transplanter.
Innovators
Among the field day visitors was Ajay Nair, a professor and chairman of the Department of Horticulture at Iowa State University.
Nair told The Gazette his visits to farms allow him to connect with and learn from growers.
“It's a good way to learn new things (and know) what is happening,” he said. “Farmers are innovators, and I think of them as people who come up with solutions in a very easy and practical manner.”
Iowa State maintains a directory for CSAs in Iowa through its Extension and Outreach offices in all 99 Iowa counties. Iowa State is also the only public university in Iowa with a College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Dan Fillius, who works at the Polk County extension office in Altoona, said he was visiting the Great Oasis Farm to “see something worth sharing.”
Holub, for example, is known for his innovations with machinery, Fillius said.
“Every farmer that I visit,” he said, “there's always something. some little tidbit that is really great to share.”
Comments: (319) 265-6828; cleo.westin@thegazette.com
Know a business that should be considered for a “My Biz” feature? Let us know by emailing mary.sharp@thegazette.com.
Garden Oasis Farm
Owners: T.D. and Sarah Holub
Address: 3262 York Ave., Coggon
Phone: (319) 435-8588
Email: gofarmveggies@gmail.com
Website: tdnguy.com/community-supported-agriculture/
CSA farms
Here is a list of the community supported agriculture farms in Eastern Iowa. A directory of Iowa CSAs, maintained by Iowa State University, is online at https://www.extension.iastate.edu/ffed/iowa-csa-directory
Buchanan County
— Garden Oasis Farm, Coggon; vegetables, herbs, free-range eggs, pastured chicken.
Benton County
— Pheasant Run Farm, Van Horne; flowers.
Cedar County
— Echollective Farm, Mechanicsville; vegetables, mushrooms, flowers.
Clayton County
— Jupiter Ridge Farm, Garber; vegetables, mushrooms, herbs.
— Phelps Farm, Guttenberg; vegetables, herbs, pumpkins.
— Turkey River Farm, Elkport; vegetables, mushrooms, pastured pork, maple syrup.
Johnson County
— Bountiful Harvest CSA, Solon; vegetables, fruits, milk, cheese, eggs.
— Iowa Grown Market, Solon; fruits, vegetables, flowers, herbs, fungi.
— Local Harvest CSA, Solon; vegetables, eggs, artisan breads, coffee, fruit and jam, chickens, turkeys, pork and lamb.
— Millet Seed Farm, Iowa City; fruits, vegetables.
— Trowel & Error Farm, Iowa City; vegetables, fruits.
— Wild Woods Farm, Solon; vegetables.
Keokuk County
— Rolling Prairie Acres, Sigourney; vegetables, fruit, herbs, honey, jams jellies, 100 varieties of garlic.
Linn County
— Buffalo Ridge Orchard, Central City; apples, vegetables.
— Cultivate Hope Urban Farm, Cedar Rapids, vegetables.
— Kroul Farms, Mount Vernon; vegetables.
— Over the Moon Farm and Flowers, Coggon; flowers, beef, pork, pasture-raised chicken and turkey.
Poweshiek County
— Compass Plant CSA, Grinnell; vegetables, apples, pastured pork and chicken, eggs, artisan bread.
Tama County
— Mad Acre Farms, Gladbrook; vegetables, fruits.
Winneshiek County
— Humble Hands Harvest, Decorah; vegetables, grass-finished lamb, pastured pork
— Patchwork Green Farm, Decorah; vegetables, herbs.
— Sweet Season Farm, Decorah; vegetables.
Daily Newsletters