Today I'm talking with Sheila at Backlund Acres.

This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company.

https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/

https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/

www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead

If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment.

Or just buy me a coffee

00:00
listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company.

00:28
Today I'm talking with Sheila at Backlund Acres in Belle Plaine, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Sheila. How are you? Good. How are you doing? I'm good. We're having a hot one again today. Right. I'm a little tired of it, are you? Yeah. Yeah, the plants love it, though. So I can't complain because everything in the field is just doing amazing. Well, I guess I guess the good news is that at least we've been getting rain along with the heat.

00:58
Exactly. If we were just getting the heat, we would be in trouble. It's definitely, yeah, it's definitely a bigger problem. And when we had the early heat, I think was it in May or June? It was so dry and it was just heat. And so we had trouble with like our spring crops bolting early. Yeah, our asparagus went to seed super fast this year. I was very sad about this. Yeah.

01:27
We planted asparagus five years, five springs ago now. And this was the year we were going to be able to have a bunch to sell at the farmers market, right? No, it all bolted so fast that we couldn't keep up. So I have a question about your asparagus. So you planted it five years ago and you can just start harvesting now or you're just saying it multiplied enough where you had enough to sell? We got

01:53
We got enough to have a mess as my mom would call it two springs ago. And then last year we had enough to have some to eat and some to sell on our farm stand. This was the year where we thought there was going to be enough to actually sell it at the farmer's market. So we thought that it would have been long enough that it would have multiplied and sell it. But no, because it was so hot, it just went poof because it's a breath.

02:23
as a grass. Oh, I didn't know that. We are on year two of our asparagus and it was ready really early. Now, I know you're not supposed to harvest it the first year, but we bought like and we have a whole field of it, I'll just say. And they, the company we got it from said we could harvest it for a week the first year. And then the second year it's three weeks. So anyways, yeah, I was ready in April though, which was really weird.

02:53
We're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, but we're on asparagus. I'm going to ask this, and then I'm going to ask you to tell me about yourself. Was your asparagus super sweet this year? Because ours was. It was delicious. Yeah. But then we had a freeze and I had no idea that it all will freeze and die. Oh, yeah. You know, if you're only allowed to harvest it that first week, everything that was above ground froze. And so if I would have known that, I would have taken like I probably would have had an entire

03:23
There was a lot that I could have brought in and pickled or done something with, but I just, I guess I didn't know. Live and learn, right? Right. Yep. Yep. That's all this farming and home setting and ranching is, is living and learning every freaking season. For sure. It's fun and it's frustrating. So anyway, please tell me a little bit about yourself and about Backland Acres. Okay. So we...

03:50
So I grew up, me and my husband actually grew up in Eden Prairie and had never planted anything. um So we got married out of high school, lived in Chock-A-Pee, had never planted anything in my life. And my son came home with like a styrofoam cup with a little plant from, you know, that you do in kindergarten. They plant the seed in the styrofoam cup and bring it home. So he brought that home and we planted it next to our house.

04:20
in Chakapea, just dug a hole, had no idea what I was doing, just dug a hole and planted it and it turned into this big plant and gave us summer squash. was crooked neck summer squash. Nice. And I just became really infatuated or yeah, just really, really excited. So I went to the store and I bought a bunch of seeds and I had no idea what I was doing, like literally nothing. don't even, I didn't.

04:46
don't even know if I had a smartphone then. I didn't know how to look anything up. I didn't look anything up. I didn't read anything. I just started dumping seeds in the ground. But I dumped a whole packet in the ground. So I would dig a hole and dump a whole packet of bean seeds in the ground. Or unknot seeds or whatever. You got the bug. Yeah, I did. And it was really fun. And we had some things, obviously. We had weeds and everything. And I had no idea what I was doing. But yeah, so from there, we had some...

05:16
friends who wanted to purchase a farm and start like an organic meat farm. And so we were good candidates for that. we, um they wanted to purchase it and start this business and they wanted somebody else to live on the property and run the business. So we agreed to do that. And I just started planting more and more. I don't know how much you want me to tell, but I started planting more and more. um

05:46
when we came out here and learned a little bit more about what I was doing, you know, that I needed to weed, that I needed to space the plants apart and um start some seeds ahead of time. And this was 12 years ago? Yes, this was 12 years ago. Right. I'm impressed. You...

06:15
You caught the bug knowing nothing and you have turned it into a business in 12 years. Right. Yes, exactly. And so when we first moved here, we started with a lot of animals because they were really interested in the animals. So we raised like a thousand chickens a year. We um had pigs, we had cows that we had like put up all this fencing to have cows on our land. was someone else's cows, but we were just, we had 15 acres. So, you know, it was either hay it or have animals on it. So.

06:45
um We were learning how to move cows around and how to move chickens behind them. And we had some sheep at one point. We had goats. We tried everything. But the thing that we did for our business first off was the chickens and the pigs. um So that's more of what we were focused on. But I slowly just started growing uh vegetables. Well, actually not slowly. Before I even moved in here.

07:12
We rented a tiller and for some reason I thought I had to bring the sod up. So I got a sod cutter and um we planted a whole bunch of stuff. But just again, still had no idea what I was doing. Didn't have a greenhouse and had all this stuff in my basement um and was doing a lot of throwing, like digging a hole and still throwing seeds in the ground. um But yeah, so over the

07:40
course of 10 years or 12 years, guess, we have transitioned to doing less animals and more. Now we have, now we plant five acres of vegetables and flowers and we have tractors and a greenhouse and high tunnels and oh all the things. You also have a model for your CSA that I read about on your website that I think is super cool.

08:09
people can come and work at the farm. yes. this is. It's a SDS share, right? Correct, yep. And this is how that started. So we start, I really started selling vegetables, you so we're still doing a lot of animals. I think in one year I raised like 3000 chickens because I was raising for somebody else as well. So we're still doing a lot of animals, but.

08:35
We had these gardens that were quite big and they were just for me and there was no reason to have that much garden space. And it was during COVID and I had friends. So this was, think, so yeah, COVID six years ago. um I had friends coming over because there was nothing else to do with their kids and the kids were playing and we were weeding the garden. And I just said, let's all take care of the garden together and then we can just split the, whatever we produce.

09:03
So that same year, a farmer's market reached out to me because I think they needed vegetable vendors, I can't remember, and asked if we would sell vegetables at their market. And I was like, oh my goodness, I've never even, you know, I don't know what I'm doing at all. Like, we're just, I can grow things, but it's very messy process. Like there's lots of weeds, things are imperfect.

09:30
So I asked my friends and we said, let's do it. So we all went on it together and just started planting and um taking care of what we already had and started going to the farmer's market together.

09:46
I so far, love your story and I'm going tell you why. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get people to grow something because things are so expensive right now and seeds are cheap compared to a tomato. Yes. I feel like almost everybody can find a bucket and get a scoop full of dirt and grow a tomato plant. I feel like they really can. I do too.

<...