This 38.5-acre patch of clay near the Hibbing airport used to be an appaloosa horse farm. Now it’s a specialty crop farm yielding produce, meat chickens and turkeys, honey, and, in a better year, hops for beer. There’s no electricity or running water here, just a tiny lowland spring. This is part of Kudrle Farms. Scott Kudrle grew up in Bloomington but went to college at Hibbing Community College as a young adult and always wanted to move back up here. He worked two jobs the year before moving and saved up enough to buy some land—this tract and seven acres on Hwy 169 near Virginia eleven years ago. The smaller property is where he lives with his wife Nicole, extension educator for 4-H youth development in north St. Louis County, and their two young children, with a third on the way. The laying chickens are at that location, along with two large gardens.
This location is where Scott has reclaimed the overgrown alder brush and built up the soil with manure, compost, Epsom salts, gypsum and lime to yield a productive operation. One high tunnel, built with help from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, is filled with carrots, beets, tomatoes, bell peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, onions, and cantaloupe. Scott hauls water to keep them hydrated and they’re looking good for a year of severe drought. Outside to the south there are rows of sweet corn, broccoli, brussels sprouts, peppers, watermelons, and peas. The beehives are nearby. And in the north area, 60 apple, apricot, pear and cherry trees are bordered by blackberries, raspberries, and the hops. As on most other farms this year, the fruit and berry crop this year succumbed to the late frost.
To spend less time weeding, Scott buys billboard tarps from a St. Cloud company and uses them as a ground cover, cutting holes for planting. That’s about the only thing “artificial” here. He tills very little and uses the new tractor (a 1950 Farmall---the old one is a 1940 Farmall, still adorning the property) to haul water. All of the produce here thrives on healthy soil and transported water, or, in a good year, rain. Scott uses no artificial fertilizers or pesticides. The turkeys and meat chickens here forage in a large pasture and eat non-GMO feed mixed by Floodwood Farm and Feed (the subject of a previous column).
This and the 7 acres on 169 are the homestead Scott wanted. He chops his own wood by hand and heats with wood. His family eats what he grows. He sells produce, eggs, pickles, jams, jellies, salsa, ketchup and homemade soap at area farmers markets (you can always find him at the Hibbing and Virginia markets). And he takes orders for meat birds. He is licensed for home processing and delivers frozen, pre-ordered chickens and turkeys in the fall. I bought chickens from Scott last summer and made the best ever chicken soup all winter! I love growing and freezing my own parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme for homemade chicken soup.
The “other half” of Kudrle Farms is Nicole. She met Scott on a blind date arranged by friends in 2010. Scott had just moved north and bought the two properties and Nicole had just moved to Ely after college for a job with the Boy Scouts’ Northern Tier base. She initially thought he was crazy, living in an RV having completed just three rows of logs on the cabin in which they now live. But she liked his passion for doing everything himself, knowing where everything comes
from. And she had some farming experience, growing up in Wisconsin and helping her grandmother can prize vegetables for the county fair. It was a match.
When they moved into the log cabin there was no water or electricity….a true homestead just like Scott had wanted. Now, of course they have a well and electricity, and this is home base for all of the canning and preserving and soap making and egg production. Nicole says it’s a joint effort, the canning. But Scott does all of the farming and garden tending as well as the chicken care and eventual butchering. In fact, Scott is delivering the frozen chickens I ordered this year tomorrow morning. Chicken soup, coming up!
Scott and Nicole are like many specialty crop farmers (“specialty crops” = crops that aren’t commodity crops like corn, soybeans, wheat) in that Nicole’s job provides the health insurance coverage that farmers need and often can’t get. But, unlike other specialty crop farmers, Scott does this full time. I once commented on the stellar nature of his produce at the Virginia market and his response was “I do this full time, I’d better know how to do it!” And he does. You can learn more about Kudrle Farms at their website, www.kudrlefarms.com, and their Facebook page www.facebook.com/KudrleFarms. Or you can stop by the Virginia Market Square farmers market on Thursdays 2:30-6pm on Silver Lake at West Chestnut, or Hibbing Farmers Market on Tuesdays 2-5 and Saturdays 9-1 north of Hwy 37 across from McDonald’s.
