New Name, Same Farm
January 2024 – We’re excited to announce that we are now Blue Roof Orchard.
We needed a new name! For twenty years now we have been Two Onion Farm, but we have not grown onions since 2018. We’ve become an orchard, specializing in unique varieties of delicious, organic apples, and we need an orchard name.
We’re still the same farmers, farming on the same land.
Why Blue Roof? Our house and many of our farm buildings have blue roofs, including the new packing shed and walk-in cooler that we built in 2021 with our longtime friends and neighbors. The blue-roofed packing shed is a focal point of our farm work, where we wash, sort, package, and refrigerate all of our apples.
New Packing Shed Under Construction, Fall 2021
We’ve farmed for twenty years under the name Two Onion Farm, so it was a wrenching decision to change the name. That’s partly why we delayed making the change for several years!
We became Two Onion Farm in early 2004, when we began growing onions for sale along with a few other vegetables and cut flowers. In the following years we quickly expanded to raising over twenty different vegetables, which we delivered to CSA members in the Madison area, Dubuque, Platteville, and Galena for five to six months every year.
Tomato Planting at Two Onion Farm, 2006
We have a lot of memories tied up in the Two Onion name, in this place, and the work we did here. Our kids grew up here. Our oldest, Panka, was one and a half when we chose the name Two Onion Farm, while taking a walk and pushing her in a stroller. Andrew and Katie have lived their entire lives here.
We began by feeding our kids snacks and trying to keep them happy while we worked; later we listened from afar to their laughter and chatter while they climbed trees at the edge of the field; soon after we were teaching them to work alongside us; and most recently we’ve been proud and amazed as they out-thought and outworked us.
Panka & Andrew in Lettuce, 2010
Wonderful neighbors and dear friends worked here with us as employees. They worked hard, grew good food, caught our mistakes, contributed new ideas, and shared good cheer.
Brussels Sprouts Harvest, 2014
We began planting apple trees alongside our vegetables in 2012, and we’ve gradually expanded the orchard since then. Planting continues – we will be adding several hundred more trees this spring.
At the end of 2018, we stopped growing vegetables, for a variety of reasons. The apple orchard, with its permanent sod lanes and well-mulched tree rows, protects the soil of our sloped hillside from erosion in heavy rains – whereas the vegetables required frequent tillage which left the soil exposed and vulnerable. As we age, we enjoy standing up straight while we work in the orchard, instead of the crouching, kneeling, and stooping that the vegetables required. We’re challenged by the myriad horticultural difficulties of growing organic apples in our climate.
We look forward to new challenges and opportunities in the years ahead: new apple varieties, new co-workers, and new CSA members. Stay tuned!