INTRODUCTION
Barlow Roots Newsletter - 7/10/2025

Lots of photos in this weeks newsletter because there has been a lot going on! The crew finished our high tunnel a couple of weeks ago, we have been chipping away at cleaning things up and doing some dirt work to finish stuff up. The garden is flourishing! We have started picking tomatoes and cucumbers. We had an amazing 4th of July holiday with lots of good family time and fun. And WE HAD A BEAR. Read on for more details!

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Enjoy this weeks newsletter!

HOMESTEAD UPDATE
Selling Goats, Pigs Growing Fast, Lost a Duck

We moved along our oldest doe and the first goat we ever purchased in 2020 recently. She was a fantastic goat, the herd matriarch, sometimes a little crabby, but a great momma with fantastic milk production. She was however ready to be retired. As of now we have 3 does and their kids. We are planning to keep 2 of those does and one of the little babies (our only girl). The rest we will move along to greener pastures. We’ve found it best to manage our goat numbers pretty aggressively. Herds can grow quickly and it can be overwhelming.

I was looking at the pigs this morning and man they are growing fast! I need to jump in there with them one of these days and get a measurement on them to help me estimate their current weight. I do have one pig that is looking small, my hope is always to have consistent sizes but somehow there is always a little one! Hopefully he keeps up for the next couple of months and gets to a decent size. I am now feeding them 6 pounds of feed per day per pig. That is where they max out. Prior to this amount I was feeding the same lbs of feed per pig as months old they are… if that makes sense. So 3 months old, 3 lbs of feed. The pigs are also getting spoiled with food from the coop! I gave them 5 or 6 garbage bags full yesterday and it is basically gone today. A wide mixture of veggies and fruits, this week we had sweet corn which they love. We pick up this food from our coop after they pick through it and decide it isn’t good enough to sell. We also get trimmings from their kitchen there.

We lost a duck the other day. I am guessing it was to a fox. The busyness of summer can lead to forgotten chores and that was the case when we lost the duck. The boys forgot to put the chickens and ducks away and we woke up to a dead duck. Sadly whatever killed it didn’t eat any of it and it was too far gone for us to salvage, disappointing all around and a good reminder to our boys to get the birds closed up at night. Loss is just part of the deal with homesteading and animals. It is always disappointing.

As Espen was coming home from rabbit hunting in the garden a couple of nights ago he spotted a bear standing at the end of our driveway. The bear spotted him too and took off running the opposite direction towards our neighbors place. He came in out of breath to announce the news to us and of course we all went looking to see if we could spot it. No luck! I did see the bear on our security camera though! Sadly it was blocked by a tree. Here is the thing about bears, I am not afraid of the bears, I believe they are more likely to be afraid of me! What I don’t like is how destructive a bear could be on our property, looking for food in our animal food storage, tearing apart our bee hives or breaking our fruit trees. As cool as they are to see I hope this one keeps on moving and doesn’t come back! Here is the sketchy video of the bear: https://photos.app.goo.gl/xzE4zjHDrRaZrNre7

As for other homestead happenings. I had a good chunk of time to work on splitting wood the other day. Something that doesn’t often happen in the summer months. Our wood shed is feeling really full already. As is always the case, we should have built it bigger! I am unsure if I will build another one in the future or what the plan will be, for now we will just fill this one up! Projects on the list include: some major mowing and clean up with the brush mower around the place, a few bonfires, moving some compost piles, etc.

MARKET GARDENING
Tunnel is Up! Farmstand Stats for June

The tunnel is complete! It took the guys 4 full days to get it built, I couldn’t be more thankful to have them build it! They did a great job and I didn’t have to do it! Because of the grading we had to do, we still have a little site work left to complete. The greenhouse space needs some good dirt work and leveling before we can put down some weed fabric for the floor. One complicating factor is a large stump inside the greenhouse space. The stump WAS below grade but when we had to start digging to make the tunnel level it suddenly is in the way. I am unsure if it will go back below grade as we do dirt work or if I will need to get a stump grinder in there. The greenhouse space is currently a low priority project, but we will chip away at it as we have time. With the work being done in the area the garden beds were a bit neglected in the tunnel portion, we are working now to get those back in the mix and looking good.

The garden is growing well and I think we are on track to keep ourselves well stocked with greens through the summer. We’ve been able to get a few periodic rains as well which has been nice. Summer crops are trickling in, I wish they were coming faster but there are some things that run on their own schedule!

I thought I would provide a little farmstand update here as well. June was an interesting month for us in the stand. We some very wet days and some really hot days and I think both of these deterred people from coming to the stand. Overall, that made June a little bit of a down month compared to last year. It definitely wasn’t a significant difference.

Here are some sales stats for June:

• Top 5 sellers were: Chicken Eggs, Salad Mix, Radish Bunch, Super Salad, Spinach

  • Chicken Eggs: 134 Dozen

  • Salad Mix: 142 bags

  • Radish Bunch: 132 bunches

  • Super Salad: 78 bags

  • Spinach: 96 bags

• We had 419 individual sales at the stand

Some reminders on how we run our business. Ingrid is the main farmer, I assist where needed, help with projects and manage the tomatoes. I also do all the marketing. Ingrid is working typically 4 hours in the morning each day. Our main harvest days are Monday and Thursday and on those days we have 2 helpers come in to help wash and bag veggies and help with other tasks on the farm. The kids help, we don’t force them but we do pay the boys. They work 3-4 hours per week.

The farmstand is self serve. Customers pick out their items and then self checkout at our Square kiosk. It works excellent 98% of the time. 🙂 Once in awhile we will have a customer who struggles with it and lately we’ve had issues with it processing things too slowly! 85% of our sales are by card and the rest are cash. Our customers are very honest and we don’t have a problem with theft.

We sell our veggies as well as some products from local friends and creators. Other things we sell are honey, soaps, candles, jam, nut butter, chicken meat, and coffee. This year we also bought syrup in bulk and bottled it for the stand. That seems to be working well!

Our biggest sellers every year are tomatoes, salad mix and chicken eggs. We used to sell our own eggs but the demand is too great these days and we can’t legally have enough chickens to keep up! We also weren’t making much money on the eggs. These days we buy from a local Amish cooperative and that works excellent.

CLOSING
Family Update

We were so blessed with an awesome few weeks of family time. Espen also snuck in a trip to the BWCA with a local Christian camp and had a great time. We’ve been able to get out for some fishing, had some great fireworks and family time on the 4th of July. Spent plenty of time floating and swimming and boating at the lake and overall just loving all summer can throw at us. I just shared a bunch of photos with you from the fun!

Thank you as always for reading and for following along on this journey. As always I would love to hear from you. If you have questions or suggestions just reply to this email and I will be in touch.