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Turning a family dairy farm into a greenhouse

Skyler Liebig’s Fresh Take Farm tries to make the world a better place by providing fresh produce for the local community. Together with his his fiancé, Jessica Duignan, he runs the business deep in Washington County’s pastoral hill country.

There are still a handful of dairy cows on-site, primarily for personal milk consumption, but Liebig’s love for agriculture led him down an entirely different career path. Launched in 2015, Fresh Take Farm has survived its critical first five years in business, thanks in part to the COVID-19 pandemic that’s sparked a dramatic increase in demand for fresh, locally produced food during the past year.

“We do quick seedings of radishes along edges of the beds to get a little extra crop in there before the deep freeze hits,” Liebig said. “Early crops in spring are over-wintered onions. Those tend to do really well. We’ve got a certain variety from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Maine. They’re a much earlier crop of onions. You don’t have to worry about disease pressure. We also have strawberries under row cover now and put small hoops over them to get a little greenhouse effect. We can start picking in late May and early June, a couple of weeks before other farms.”

Their outdoor crops, in summer, include carrots, beets, onions, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Their chickens and ducks produce eggs, and the farm also has pigs for pork sales. In addition, Liebig’s father, who currently handles the dairy cows, is considering a switch to beef cattle to further diversify Fresh Take Farm’s income potential.

Construction is currently underway on a new propagation house behind their main barn for year-round microgreen production, transplants, and a raised bed on one end for additional in-ground, year-round production.

“Growing undercover doesn’t take up much space, but produces more. It’s much more profitable than out in the field,” he said. “You can get more crops per year. Crops grow faster, so the turnaround is quicker. It’s just the controlled environment. There’s less waste of seed and plants and less fertilizer runoff. You’re a little bit more in control.”

Read the complete article at www.lancasterfarming.com.

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