Roberts Ranch and Gardens / CSA Farm

Welcome to our website where you can find information about gardening, ask questions, order products, join our CSA Farm, and where our CSA members can keep up on what is going on at the Ranch.

Here at Roberts Ranch and Gardens, we have 6 1/2 beautiful acres of land most recently used as a horse ranch with a large barn, corrals, a large pasture, alfalfa fields and acres of gardens.  In 2009, after over 25 years of growing large gardens for our family, we  created a CSA Farm.  Those who purchased shares in our farm received fresh, locally grown chemical free produce in 16 weekly baskets throughout the summer.  Did we know what we were getting in to?  No, it being our first year, but we feel it was a success.  We planted many times more than what we felt we would need to provide for our share holders.  It was a good thing, because the weather was funny in the spring, causing us to lose crop and having to replant some things as many as 3 different times.  We also ran into trouble with the compost we used.  It had not been properly composted and so created a toxic situation in our large garden.  Some of the plants did well – like the swiss chard, but others just could not overcome the “hot” manure which bound the nutrients in the soil.  Fortunately, our raised beds did very well and we were able to harvest more than enough from them.  In spite of the difficulties, all sixteen weeks of baskets were filled with bounteous harvest and we had enough produce left to sell at three Farmer’s Markets in Utah County.

In addition to vegetables, we offered 2000 lbs. of free range grass fed beef.  Our beef had no hormone or antibiotics administered.  We did not grain them either, so the beef was very lean this year.  We had three breeds; Angus, Piedmontese, and Holstein.  The Angus was the most tender, the Pied was the most healthy, and the Holstein was good too.  We sold out and that was nice, but we should have saved a little more for ourselves.

Plans for our 2010 Farm include shares in the harvest, beef, pork, dried herbs, our famous country gardens granola, and we hope to be offering a variety of hand made soaps, healing ointments, lotions, lip balms, and some of the best vitamins you can get your hands on.  So, stay tuned as we tool up our online store for outstanding values.

For more information on Our CSA Farm, click on the link to your right.  The enrollment form will be at the bottom of the article.

Another goal we have is  to supply helpful information to those first time gardeners who need help in soil preparation, seed germination, safe planting dates, diseases, watering issues, pest control, etc.  Once you put that plant in the ground, it seems that the war is on.  We fight the bugs, we fight the diseases, we plead with mother nature that the weather will cooperate, and then hopefully we bring in a bounteous harvest.  But that just doesn’t happen by itself.  Gardening is a lot of work, but well worth the effort.