From Paper to

Potatoes

Once a full-time editor, Alden begins new vegetable venture

Many of the farmers in the area found their love for agriculture early in life, either growing up on a farm themselves or knowing a nearby relative or neighbor who owned one. Hannah Alden’s appreciation for the craft came later in life, her path to running her own vegetable farm a less typical one.

After initially going to school for journalism and working in the field as a reporter and editor, Alden discovered her passion for farming after taking up a part-time position on a vegetable farm. Years later, Hannah now runs her own farm, one she has dedicated to bringing fresh produce to the surrounding communities.

The farm in question, affectionately named Moody Root Farm, sits on a seven-acre plot just outside of Dorchester. Using methods and techniques she learned on the organic vegetable farms she had worked on in the past, Alden hopes to transform the land into something that will produce quality fruits and vegetables while also regrowing and maintaining the natural ecosystems of the area.

This summer will be the first that Alden will be bringing her own homegrown produce to local farmers’ markets. These fruits and vegetables will not only be the product of her work this season, but also the product of a journey started over half a decade ago.

Finding a Passion for Plants

In 2017, Alden came across an ad in her local shopper that would be the starting point for a life-changing career shift.

The ad in question was posted by a local vegetable farm looking for part-time help in the summers. In exchange for helping out on the farm for a few hours each week, workers would get a portion of the food they had helped grow. Already holding an interest in food systems, Alden took up the position, working the hours around those of her fulltime job.

At the time, Alden was working as the editor of the DeForest Times-Tribune newspaper. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 2015 from Columbia College Chicago, she got a job as a reporter at the Lodi Enterprise and the Poynette Press, which eventually led to her position at the

Times-Tribune. And while she continued to work at the newspaper, she found her thoughts drifting more towards her time at the farm.

“By the end of the second summer, I was obsessed,” Alden said. “I would go to work and just think about farming and what it would be like to make a leap from a stable career to a less stable one.”

By the end of 2018, Alden had made up her mind; she wanted to pursue farming as a career, not merely as a hobby. In the spring of 2019, she began looking for a full-time position and was hired on in an entry role position at a 12-acre organic vegetable farm.

It was here that Alden would learn many of the lessons that allowed her to start her own farm. She worked there for four years, working under the mentorship of the farm’s owner, Tim Zander. Alden would quickly become a team lead, overseeing other employees, managing market runs and learning more about the business aspects of running such an operation.

Wanting to move from the Madison area to be closer to her family, and thinking that it was time to try her hand at running her own farm, Hannah and her husband, Tyler, began to look for prop- erty in the Wausau area. The land just outside of Dorchester was what they were looking for; small enough for them to run on their own while also close to local farmers’ markets. The pair jumped at the opportunity and moved last May.

Building a New Farm

The challenges of running one’s own farm are numerous. As with any small business, coming up with funding is often one of the biggest barriers. Tyler’s career as a diesel mechanic has greatly helped in this regard, providing some financial stability as Hannah worked to get the farm started. Grants have been helpful, but the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly. The Aldens had to wait on a grant for their high tunnel greenhouse, which meant that it needed to be built this spring rather than last fall. This led to many of their seedlings needing to be grown in the less than ideal conditions of their garage, which was both too damp and inadequate for sunlight.

Learning the specifics of the land and working in a new climate are also difficulties that Alden has had to work through. Even the relatively short distance between southern Wisconsin and their farm in Dorchester is significant enough to impact the length of growing seasons, which then necessitates picking suitable varieties of plants based on this. Figuring out what specific pests will be potential problems and when, as well as how the water settles on the land, are all things that Alden has had to learn since arriving.

Revitalizing the fields to something conducive to growing vegetables and fruits using the methods she learned prior is something that Alden realizes could take years. Cover cropping last summer and introducing a half-acre of pollinator plants around the edge of the fields are some of the efforts that she had taken to start that process. While only the beginning, the results of this can already be seen.

“Comparing the spring and summer last year to this year, with the field not having been planted, the differences in insects and birds are noticeable,” Alden said.

And while these problems each provide their own challenges to overcome, Alden has found a lot to enjoy during the first year on the farm.

“I had no idea about so many things on the farm when I started,” she said. “There were so many big surprises and watching Tyler go through that same process is incredible. He’s shocked by what’s happening in the field already. Having him and my family around and seeing their wonder and awe of it has been inspiring.”

The support they’ve received thus far, not just from friends and family, but also from acquaintances and other community members has also been extremely helpful, Alden noted. One of her goals is opening people’s minds to food, and seeing them take interest is exciting.

That food ranges from the more typical, like potatoes and garlic, to more adventurous, like the cucamelon, a small, vine-grown fruit that resembles a miniature watermelon from the outside but is really more similar to a cucumber. She hopes that she can soon start selling these products at the Medford and Marathon farmers’ markets, which will be her primary point of sale for the first couple years as she establishes herself.

While selling at the local farmers’ markets is the current business model, Alden hopes to eventually transfer to something a little closer to home. A selfserve farm stand or one that she would open every few days a week would be the ideal, allowing her more flexibility with her schedule.

She also stated that setting up some sort of supplemental online ordering system and making deliveries are also options she wants to explore.

“I think getting good food into more spaces and making it accessible is important,” Alden stated. “If you don’t have the time to come to me, maybe I’ll have the time to come to you.”

Starting any small business is a challenge and takes perseverance and a drive to push through difficulties. The mentality of getting fresh produce into the hands of people, and growing it in a fashion that works with the land rather than pushing against it, is what motivates the work that Alden does.

And as the calendar turns to June, the products of that labor are just coming to fruition.