Farm Happenings for June 27, 2020

Hello Members!

We are excited to be showered with all the final product of what you have cooked and stewed over. Remember to Like us on Facebook. Thanks for sharing the Sage tea, hukeri and nappa kimchi, with salads and bean soup! Wow we have a chefs apart of our CSA. So excited to see what you are all doing with the fresh produce. We have had positive reviews. This week we have little zucchini showing up, hopefully by next week we will have beets and others come into the full season!

We did want to apologize for some of you on the mix up of the Tiger eye beans. We look forward to seeing what you do for the CSA! We hope to be putting a fund together for a new tiller because our old one broke. So we will be doing a fundraiser hopefully. As farmers all the expenses come sooner then later.

Thanks for your support this season!

Mhonpaj’s Garden is a 9-acre certified organic vegetable farm owned by May Lee and her daughter Mhonpaj. With 5 acres in Stillwater and 4 acres in Marine on St. Crox, May and her family grow a variety of vegetables, bedding plants and herbs.
In 1980, May, her husband Chue, their children and May’s mother immigrated to the United States from Loas as refugees. They found work farming conventionally, but when May’s mother was diagnosed with cancer after working with pesticides in the United States, May knew she needed to start farming organically.
May’s daughter Mhonpaj was connected with the Minnesota Food Association (MFA) and learned about their New Immigrant Agriculture Program (now called the Farmer Education Program). The Lee’s were accepted into the three-year program, which gave them access to the MFA’s 60-acre certified organic incubator farm, Big River Farm, and connected them with a Hmong-speaking coordinator who helped them find resources and answer questions about organic farming. Together they resolved issues ranging from drip irrigation setup to product liability insurance to insect control.
In 2010, the Lee’s “graduated” from the MFA program and went on to become the first Hmong-owned certified-organic farm in Minnesota. May and her family now farm leased land along the St. Croix River.

In addition to farming, May spends lots of time educating other growers about organic practices through the MFA and as a Master Gardener volunteer for Ramsey County. She and her family also share their culinary heritage through cooking demonstrations and classes.

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