Farm Chatter

Hello! This episode of our podcast represents a turning point in our business. We have learned it is good to periodically evaluate the areas where we invest our time, attention, effort and money. This is true not only for our business, but others. In fact, it is true for everyone in their daily lives. Some … Continue reading "191-Decisions and Improvements"

Hello friends, If you listened to Episode 189, you know that we are taking a short break to rest mind and body. Although we are working on some projects around the farm that do not necessarily rest the body. Accomplishing these tasks will make us better and stronger in the long run. In the interest … Continue reading "190-Discussing Food Insecurity Replay"

Hello from Five Feline Farm! As you can imagine, even though there is always much to be done on the farm, there are also times when a break is in order. To this end the Mercantile will be closed on Labor Day weekend. And this podcast is a replay of a previous interview with our … Continue reading "189-Interview with a Vegan Replay"

Hello! Yes, it is that time of year for all things tomato. There is nothing quite like a fresh from the garden, sun warmed tomato. Our tomatoes are at peak ripeness and production as we record this episode. We are eating fresh sliced tomatoes and Caprese-style salads at almost every meal. Of course, we are … Continue reading "188-It’s Tomato Time!"

In this week’s episode we share our vision for the garden area and how we have started to implement that vision. This week at the Farm has been hot. Humid and hot. But that doesn’t stop us. The timing was right in the garden to replace some of the in-ground planting areas with raised beds. … Continue reading "187-Building Garden Beds and More"

Hello! This episode covers all of our celebrations from the past week (celebrating Donna’s birthday) and our current garden tasks. As we talked about the special spaghetti dinner we had on Sunday, it reminded us of an article Julia posted to Medium. Here’s a link if you would like to read: View at Medium.com This … Continue reading "186-Celebrations and Preservations"

Hello friends! On this episode of our podcast we discuss all the things we are doing this time of year. It is super busy with harvest, Mercantile sales, our delivery route and preserving food for winter. We also talk a bit about how Julia learned some of her building skills from her father, way back … Continue reading "185-Learning Skills"

Hello again, It is nearing the end of July as we record this and the garden is in full production. We are eating fresh garden tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplant and sweet corn. This is the best time of year for both cook and gardener. We give a review of using all Janie’s Mill flour in … Continue reading "184-Our Mid-Summer Report"

Hello again! As always there is much happening around Five Feline Farm. On this episode Donna shares more of the story behind her nickname “Gert” and how this foreshadowed her work in the garden. The Saturday before this episode airs, we hosted Doty and Dexter for some afternoon music in the crib. They are a … Continue reading "183-The Garden Name Story"

Hello again, We are continuing to wage war on the groundhogs. Our multi-prong approach appears to be working. We have to keep reapplying some of the repellent and move the sonic ground stakes around, but fewer groundhogs are visible. On July 17, 2021, Doty and Dexter will be playing in the Corn Crib from 1:00PM … Continue reading "182-Groundhog Update and More"

Hello again, We are at war with Groundhogs. Whistlepigs. Woodchucks. Those are the nice names they are called here at Five Feline Farm. Given their damage to our gardens, a lot of not so nice names prevail. Since the recording of this podcast, we found an additional breach. In the area they tunneled under the … Continue reading "181-Our Groundhog War"

Five Feline Farm is small in the world of farms. We have five and a half acres but we try to take advantage of everything this land provides. Right now, in late June the gardens are producing a lot of good food. Green beans, peppers, carrots, and eggplant to name a few. But we also … Continue reading "180-Bounty on a Small Farm"

Hello! It is now officially summer at Five Feline Farm. The gardens are thriving and we couldn’t be happier. On this episode we discuss what is currently available from the garden and what will be ripening in the next few weeks. It is also raspberry and blackberry season so that harvest is underway. In a … Continue reading "179-This Week’s Garden Report"

Wow! Our first Gert’s Garden 2 Go© bag delivery for 2021 is in the books. Anytime we start something new, we learn. Although the first week was relatively smooth due to all of our advance planning, there were still a few things we will do to improve. (For example, now we know how long it … Continue reading "178-First Garden Bag Delivery of the Season"

Hello again, The weather here in Central Illinois has turned to summer. We are grateful for the warmth and the rain. Our garden is producing wonderful vegetables, including the harvest of garlic. Garlic is planted in the fall and harvested early summer. In addition to the curly green scapes we use from the top of … Continue reading "177-Summer at the Farm"

Hello again from Five Feline Farm! As the title of this episode suggests, we have discovered that living on and managing this small farm business requires good problem solving skills. Just this past week, we had a breach of some garden beds by varmints: both ground hogs and raccoons. We will tell you on this … Continue reading "176-Problem Solving on a Small Farm"

Hello again friends, Once again, many new people visited the Mercantile this past weekend. We continue to be amazed at the popularity of our small business. Thank you to everyone who follows us on social media, email and through our website. The Farm is preparing for our summer delivery route. At this time, all of … Continue reading "175-Fresh Produce, New Visitors and More"

This week’s episode reviews our most recent weekend at the Farm which featured Karaoke on Saturday afternoon. It was a wonderful time with Kwiksilver Karaoke. Several people visited the Farm for the first time and many others were return visitors. We appreciate each and every one. In the episode, we mentioned meeting Rooney’s previous foster … Continue reading "174-Karaoke in the Crib Was a Blast!"

Hello again from Five Feline Farm! We were reminded this week that it is not quite summer here in Central Illinois. There are days with warm temperatures and gentle rains. Then there are days with storms and cold. This Mother’s Day was one of those cold rainy days. In fact, we had a frost advisory! … Continue reading "173-Frost on Mother’s Day?"

Hello again! Yes, we now have a boardwalk at the farm. On the south side of our Mercantile building, there was a bit of a problem area, so we fixed it by installing a boardwalk. Plus four new planting boxes. Even though there are a few details left to complete, it is functional and we … Continue reading "172-A Boardwalk at the Farm"

Hello from Five Feline Farm! This past week, our area experienced an unusual late snow and freeze warning for two nights in a row. We covered everything possible and prayed for the rest. Everything was fine! It appears the snow had an insulating effect. Coupled with the temperature not dropping quite as low as expected … Continue reading "171-How the Farm Fared in a Freeze"

Welcome to our milestone episode #170. This week we share our progress in landscaping around the new sidewalk from the driveway to the Mercantile building. We have been busy! You will also hear a new feature: a garden tip and a kitchen tip near the end of the episode. This week we talk about using … Continue reading "170-Landscaping at the Mercantile"

This week we made major improvements in accessibility to the Mercantile. It has been a need for a long time. Many of our customers, friends and family members had difficulty walking the mulched path from the parking lot to the Mercantile building. Now, the walk will be easy. A new concrete sidewalk leads from the … Continue reading "169-Major Improvements at the Farm"

Who doesn’t love fresh flowers? In this episode, we interview our friend and neighbor, Cathy Hiser about her new venture in flower farming. She describes her interest in growing flowers, the types of flowers she has started and when she anticipates fresh picked blooms will be available. As a bonus, we plan to include some … Continue reading "168-Interview with Cathy Hiser"

Spring is a busy time at Five Feline Farm. The Mercantile is open on Friday and Saturday from noon to 4:00 PM. We discuss on this episode how that simple change in hours helped our stress level. Sometimes it is just the little things that make a difference. In addition to the change in hours, we … Continue reading "167-Noodles, Gardening and More"

On today’s episode we review our Mercantile season opening; the successes and challenges. As always, we learned and are making a few changes. One of the lessons learned is to make our opening hours more consistent. To that end we have changed our hours to 12:00 PM (noon) to 4:00 PM both Friday and Saturday. … Continue reading "166-Season Opener at the Mercantile"

It’s that time of year! We are excited to start our on-farm Mercantile season. Beginning Friday, March 19 2021, the Mercantile will be open on Fridays from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM and Saturdays from 12:00 PM (noon) until 4:00 PM. More hours and deliveries will be added. You can order ahead through our online … Continue reading "165-The Mercantile is Opening"

With the arrival of warmer weather, the outdoor tasks at the farm begin in earnest. In addition to planting, transplanting and taking out invasive plants, we are preparing for the season opening of the Mercantile. On Friday, March 19, 2021 from 10:00AM – 2:00PM we will open the Mercantile. Our onsite store features great products … Continue reading "164-Spring Has Arrived"

As the title of this episode suggests, we are starting to see warmer temperatures in East Central Illinois. Those warmer temperatures allow us to begin the outdoor tasks like removing invasive plant species and burning up the cuttings. We also have been able to check on the honeybees. We may have lost one colony over … Continue reading "163-It is Almost Spring at the Farm"

The long cold days are about to come to an end and we are thankful. We have also set Friday, March 19, 2021 as the season opening of the Mercantile. Between those two things, we are working hard to fill our product stock now while we have the chance. As soon as the weather breaks, … Continue reading "162-Filling Our Time by Filling Stock"

It is mid-February 2021 and the Farm is deep in the grip of a Polar Vortex. For us, that means temperatures hovering near 0º with windchills even lower. It is too cold to work outside even though we are chomping at the bit to begin gardening. Even with the uncooperative weather, we are still able … Continue reading "161-Polar Vortex at the Farm"

Once again, it has been a busy week here at Five Feline Farm. As promised, we launched the long awaited gardening course. It is loaded with videos, tip sheets, discussion forums and downloadable documents. We will add to this throughout the year, so by the time next January rolls around, there will be a full … Continue reading "160-Course Launch, Gert’s Garden and a Kitten"

The day has finally arrived! Today, February 1, 2021 is the official release date of our new online course “Gardening the Five Feline Farm Way“. This episode describes our last week of progress toward this year long goal. Plus we discuss the content of the course, how we will be adding to the content and … Continue reading "159-Garden Course Launch"

On this episode we revisit a series of firsts in this business. First garden, first cookbook, first podcast, first market plans. We discuss how far we have come in the past few years and talk about a few of our plans for the future. If you haven’t already let us know you are interested in … Continue reading "158-Celebrating Firsts"

Did you know the gardening season begins in January, even when it is snowing? It does here at Five Feline Farm! This episode is chock full of what we have accomplished in the past week. We are recording video of each step and will release that in Five Feline Farm School within a couple of … Continue reading "157-Gardening Begins in January"

Today’s episode gives a glimpse into our past week, the progress made on one of our major home projects. During these winter months, when pickup and deliveries are closed, we concentrate on home improvements. Last week, we used our time to tighten up and repair the drop ceiling in our basement. While we were at … Continue reading "156-Project Progress Feels Great"

Hello and welcome to our first podcast of 2021. Here at Five Feline Farm, we are excited about the possibilities this year. We have a lot of plans, ideas, goals and projects. Some of these you will see or hear about very soon and others will take longer to execute. If you have questions for … Continue reading "155-2021 Projects"

What a year! 2020 presented challenges and victories to Five Feline Farm. We adjusted hours, locations, products, procedures and days of the week. Just when we thought we had a plan, something changed and we changed too. A huge shout out to all of our customers, friends, family and fans who persevered right along with … Continue reading "154-2020 In Review"

This week is a huge shout out to all of our friends, fans, supporters and customers. Each of you have contributed to our best December ever here at Five Feline Farm. We are exceptionally grateful for all of you. We also had the privilege of appearing in a spot on CiLiving on December 17, 2020. … Continue reading "153-We Are Blessed"

It truly has been another banner week at Five Feline Farm. We are grateful to each of you who value what we do and shop in our store. This coming weekend marks the end of our season, but we are not going away. We will spend time refreshing, learning and building to bring you more … Continue reading "152-Another Banner Week"

What a difference a week makes! Thank you to everyone who sent encouragement, positive thoughts and product orders. Our “Small Business Saturday” stretched into the entire week making it the best week ever. We have been hinting at sharing the story of how BEEk Balm© originated and how we came up with this unusual name. … Continue reading "151-The BEEk Balm© Story"

Celebrate with us on the occasion of our 150th episode of Farm Chatter. We even give ourselves a little cowbell! When we first started a podcast, we had no idea we would be able to sustain it for this long. Yet here we are. You, our listeners have heard us explain what we do, why … Continue reading "150-A Milestone Episode"

This episode is packed with news. We share our new vision for “courses”, which really won’t be courses at all, at least in the traditional sense. In coming to this decision, we discovered how we had been making assumptions and not using our respective strengths to the fullest. If you are interested in learning from … Continue reading "149-Refreshed and Renewed"

As small business owners we are continually learning how to improve. Some of the things we are learning currently: -Facebook is not a platform we can rely on to advertise and promote our products. -Building and sharing our Spotify playlist -new formats to reach out to friends, fans and customers You heard us talk about … Continue reading "148-Things We Learned This Week"

We cover a lot of topics on today’s podcast. First, a huge shout out and thank you to everyone who placed orders this weekend. Several of you took advantage of the new pickup boxes Friday afternoon, we did delivery on Saturday morning and even mailed out a few orders. We are so grateful for our … Continue reading "147-What’s Up at Five Feline Farm?"

Wow! There is so much going on here at Five Feline Farm. This episode is packed full of updates and information. We are transitioning to all pickup, shipping and delivery beginning November 6 and 7, 2020. You can order any of the products we normally carry in our physical store and choose how your delivery … Continue reading "146-Small Businesses Must Be Flexible"

Even headed into winter, we are excited to keep growing and working on our Farm business. In addition to our online store, we are developing courses to teach what we have learned as we build Five Feline Farm. If you are interested in these courses as we develop them, you can sign up for our … Continue reading "145-Building the Business Continues"

We are into late October now and the garden season is changing. Frost and freezing weather forced us to harvest all remaining summer produce, but many other things are in season. Garlic and perennial onions are now in the ground, persimmons and black walnuts are plentiful. Our attention is turning to planning for winter and … Continue reading "144-Fall in Full Swing"

Farm Fest 2020 was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who came out to the Farm, enjoyed great weather, music, vendors and visiting with each other. On this episode of Farm Chatter, we recap the day, talk about next steps and just generally “debrief”. It’s what we do. Don’t forget to post or send … Continue reading "143-Debriefing Farm Fest 2020"

Farm Fest 2020 is almost here! On Saturday, October 10, 2020 from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, join us at the Farm for fun and unique items. Plus from noon to 3:00, the Luna Halos will be playing music in the crib. In addition to the great products offered by us, you can shop with … Continue reading "142-Farm Fest and Frost Warning"

Mark your calendar for October 10, 2020. This will be our 3rd annual Farm Fest here at Five Feline Farm! We have great vendors joining us for this outdoor, socially distanced event. Come out and see Hazel Anne Farm, It’s Metalish, Four Little Pumpkins, Lynn and Greg Klec, Kathy Olsen, and of course, Five Feline … Continue reading "141-Farm Fest Is Coming"