August 14, 2025
The countdown is on! The Great Minnesota Get-Together is just days away, and things on the farm are about to get a whole lot busier.
While the State Fair is a joyous celebration for most, for us, it marks the start of a 12-day sprint. Our days become a 24-hour operation, with early morning corn picking and late-night deliveries to the fairgrounds for the famous Corn Roast. It's a wild, stressful ride, but every year, we find a way to make it happen.
You might think we have a precise plan for the fair, but the truth is, Mother Nature is the ultimate decision-maker. Every spring, we plant corn in succession plantings — a new planting every few days, hoping the harvest will be perfectly ripe for the 12-day run of the fair. But hitting that narrow window is far from easy.
If it gets too hot, the corn ripens too fast. If it's too cool, it might not be ready in time. This past spring, a string of wet weather made it tough to get tractors in the field, creating gaps in our planting schedule. With every storm, we cross our fingers and hope for the best. Let’s just say we’ve had more than a few sleepless nights this year. We can plan all we want, but ultimately, we just hope to hit the target close enough because "dead center" is rarely an option. And that’s not even considering how fair attendance and demand can change with the weather!
Harvesting Chaos and Summer's Best
The State Fair isn't our only focus right now. It’s all hands-on deck for the harvest. Due to the unpredictable weather, several of our succession crops — the ones we plant weeks apart — are all coming ripe at the same time. This is a unique challenge we haven't seen this prevalently before, but we're doing our best with the hand we've been dealt. There are only so many hours in the day, but we are harvesting and selling as much as we can while the season lasts.
This is truly the best time to enjoy local goodness from Minnesota. Our roadside vegetable stands and farmers' market locations are overflowing with homegrown cantaloupe, a huge variety of tomatoes, and every kind of pepper you can imagine. It’s hard to believe it’s already mid-August, but we see this as the peak of the season.
The Seasons are Converging
As busy as we are, we're already looking ahead. First Kiss apples, our earliest variety, are almost ready. We're just waiting a few more days to ensure they're sweet and juicy before we begin harvesting. It’s wild how it feels like all the seasons are converging at once!
And yes, we've already gotten our first calls about pumpkins. They aren't ready yet, but as soon as the State Fair wraps up, we'll switch from an abundance of sweet corn to picking pumpkins, squash, and gourds. It's a busy, busy time of year.
Even our garden centers are changing. The greenhouses have come down to make way for fall. We're expecting our first shipment of mums at the end of August, with more fall décor arriving in September. We're not wishing summer away just yet, but the changes are already here!
Preserve the Taste of Summer
If you’re someone who loves to preserve the taste of summer, now is the time to do it. The best of the best is in season, and we have it all: sweet corn, tomatoes, green beans, pickling cucumbers, beets, Colorado peaches, and more.
Don’t let food preservation intimidate you—there are countless tutorials online. Your future self will thank you on a cold day in February when you get to enjoy a taste of summer.
Visit our bulk ordering page to learn more. Until next time!
