Middle Way Farm

Well, friends, its been three years and almost one month since I made my decision to scale down Middle Way Farm and to stop full time farming. Its spring again, and the time has come for another momentous decision. I have decided that I will be closing Middle Way Farm altogether and giving up my lease at the Lacina farm by the end of the summer. I will not be holding an annual plant sale this year and over the next few months I will be gradually harvesting my last crops, cleaning out spaces I’ve used for the last almost decade and half, and selling off most of my remaining tools, equipment, and supplies.

I will be posting a complete list of what’s available for sale in the coming weeks as I find time to catalog and price everything. More immediately I have a couple pallets of Vermont Compost Fort Vee potting soil (45 quart bags - $25 each) and manure compost (40 quart bags - $17.50 per) that I purchased back in December when I was still considering farming part time in 2026 that I am hoping to get into some other growers hands sooner rather than later. ~30-35 bags of each available. Minimum 5 bags (can be a mix).

I also have some sweet potato slips ordered that I would like to mostly sell off. They are Beauregard from Kansas State University Horticulture, and will ship no later than first week of June (I’m 75% sure that’s true given their past track record). Should have at least 425 available. Minimum order 25 slips, $.50 each. Orders over 25 I can drop the price.

Please feel free to inquire directly with me before I post the full listing of tools, equipment, and supplies available. Happy to entertain offerings or answer questions before I have that list out. I was hoping I would have it done by now :)

I will also be closing my Facebook and Instagram accounts for Middle Way Farm, probably as soon as I can wrap up any sales through here. I will still be using social media for my role with Grinnell Farm to Table but that’s the only engagement I’ll have going forward. Please, if we don’t know each other in person but we’ve interacted here and you don’t want to lose touch, reach out for my email and phone.

Continued in comments…

One of the most improbable “wins” of my years farming is today harvesting about 100 pound of carrots before the freeze this weekend (out of a plot that ideally would have yielded 5-10x that) that were never weeded or cared for past germination. I think I mowed them once but I’m not even sure I did that! Looking at the field the carrots that survived are just discernible in patches among a sea of weeds.

Similarly these potatoes, which yielded about as expected under normal conditions (125 lb per 100 foot row) had minimal care (one cultivation/mounding, no irrigation) and were planted from free leftover seed from other growers.

Finally the cover cropped fields show the effect of self seeded legume hairy vetch in smothering out weeds after winter rye was harvest for straw, while another field without the vetch is a sea of foxtail grass weeds.

I share these examples not to suggest that growing this way is ideal or “how we should be doing it” but it’s always interesting and useful to observe what happens as a result of neglect or giving up. There are lessons within both successes and failures. There are sometimes limited wins within failures. I’m very happy to have enough carrots for our family the whole winter and some to share.