vHOHENTHANER continued from page 7 of vegetables on the one acre of farm ground he rented. He raised tomatoes, peppers, squash, cabbage, radishes, carrots, kale, beets, green beans, sweet corn, cucumbers, pumpkins, potatoes, onions, watermelons, cantaloupes and more. “After cultivation I probably had an acre to farm which is quite a bit for one person,” Hohenthaner said. “It was a really big garden and I was the only employee.” Hohenthaner has learned to value his time off but soon realized it was easy for a job like farming to take over. There was always something to do so he set specific days and hours for work and guarded his time for relaxation. Along with the daily chores in the garden like planting, weeding and eventually harvesting a crop, Hohenthaner completed all the work for the business side of his farm as well as delivery. He does have his own gardening equipment and the people he worked for also had a lot of equipment he was able to borrow. “I could easily double or triple the garden size and be able to handle a bigger work load and more subscribers by dedicating more time to the project,” Hohenthaner said. When Hohenthaner started his project, he decided to follow Organic Certification practices for his acre although becoming certified is not part of his plan. He didn’t use any chemicals this year and wanted to set a baseline for the type of vegetables he would possibly grow. He had some vegetables he tried which had insect issues but he didn’t spray them and the plants died. Now, Hohenthaner know he needs to figure out some type of intervention for those issues. Although there are intervention practices out there like insect netting and organically certified chemicals and sprays, he stayed pretty much natural this year. The crop plan for this past season started in a greenhouse onsite where Hohenthaner carefully grew his own seedlings for planting. Vegetables which are only planted once in a season like tomato and pepper seeds were planted in February indoors, eventually moved to the greenhouse and in early May the plants were placed in the field after the last frost. Vegetables like lettuce, carrots and beets were planted every other week throughout the season. His last planting of carrots and radishes was just a little under a month ago. Hohenthaner said it is a succession throughout the season and at times difficult to decide what to plan for, so a grower plants a lot and waits to see what comes up. He also admits he was not super-efficient with his beds and could have gotten more out of his acreage. Now that he has been through the season, he has ideas for the future about planting using some space saving techniques. A ton of compost was hauled to Hohenthaner’s site and he spread the rich fertilizer across the planting area. Another tool he made use of was fish emulsion fertilizer which is an organic by-product of the fish industry. It is very beneficial when sprayed on leafy vegetables, allowing the plants to be stronger and also be able to resist pests. Along with the weekly garden box, Hohenthaner created a newsletter for his customers. He would talk about the vegetables in the box, offer recipes and ways to cook them or explain a strange vegetable and how to use it. His biggest challenge came when he added kale to the box of vegetables. “People didn’t know how to use it and I can sit down and eat it in one serving,” Hohenthaner said. Hohenthaner’s diet is vegetable-rich and that type of food is important to him. He has been a vegetarian in the past but obviously he’s not now as he works at a meat market. The last delivery will have a questionnaire for customers so Hohenthaner can get feedback and see how the customers felt about the summer service. It will help him evaluate how successful Al’s Local was and what direction to go next year. “I definitely want to expand next year and was very satisfied with how this year went,” Hohenthaner said. “I enjoyed the delivery area in Yankton and am considering moving closer to Yankton, trying to find land to rent or even, possibly purchase land.” This year was a very smooth process and the crops he grew were plentiful but looking to the future, he realizes he could grow more. He did do some watering in his acreage the first couple months but otherwise it was an ideal growing year. He also liked being able to take a break from the garden and work at another job. Over the winter months Hohenthaner will pick up more fulltime work and mull over next year’s growing season. He has a lot of questions to think about and is looking for any new perspectives. “The seasonality of growing vegetables makes it easier to travel and take time off,” Hohenthaner said. “In my ‘spare’ time I like to rock climb and run.” Maybe Hohenthaner will get to do those things now. n Call or Stop By For All Your Heating and Cooling Needs! 2018 Broadway, Yankton 605-665-4348 M-F 8am-5pm Saturday 8am-Noon We Stock Filters Brad Haas HISVOICEvNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018v15