Strawberry 2026 Wrap-Up

Our strawberry u-pick season is finished for 2o26.

Thank you all!  Everyone who visited was lovely.  We appreciate how much you value organic berries. 

2027 organic berries.

We will be back with more Certified Organic berries in 2027.  We planted a fresh strawberry field this spring, and will renovate one of this year’s fields.  That will give us two Certified Organic u-pick fields in 2027.  First, let’s review how this year progressed.

An interesting year.

We’ve grown organic strawberries for decades yet there are still surprises.  Overall, we were thrilled to have strawberries despite challenging weather.

Left; Strawberry leaves and blossoms coated in ice after a night of irrigation to protect against frost. Right; Beautiful, healthy blossoms after a frosty night.

Strawberry blossoms are easily damaged by frost. Each year, we expect to protect the buds by irrigating overnight.  As ice forms, it holds the flowers safely at 32 F.  This season, we had to irrigate for NINE nights.  This sets a record for us.  It was definitely worth the effort – the flowers survived those night beautifully.

King berry

We tried a new pruning technique last year that gave us enormous berries in one field.  That was cool!  Unfortunately, we discovered that those big berries were the most vulnerable to heavy rains!  The berries looked good through two storms but the third storm was too much.  We’ll adjust next year.  Fortunately, the plants set another round of berries and we were able to pick that field again.

Good Picking!

There were excellent picking days.

It’s fun to visit the farm in nice weather.

This is Simone (on tractor), Ken, Steve and me planting a fresh field of strawberries. It will be ready to pick in 2027!

Changes at Tipi Produce, + Many photos

Folks, we are in transition.  Starting this year, we will only offer on-farm u-picks.  Steve and I are headed toward semi-retirement, and are closing our CSA and wholesale operations.  We will continue growing asparagus, basil, garlic, strawberries, plum tomatoes and rhubarb. 

Our 2026 offerings:
– Organic strawberry u-picks (June).  We are one of the only organic strawberry farms in Wisconsin.
– Organic plum tomato u-picks (late Aug – early Sept).  Garlic and basil will be available too.

Join our u-pick email list to receive notification about u-pick dates.
We plan to offer both weekend and weekday strawberry u-picks, and will continue using a reservation system for the u-picks (at least on the weekends). Our u-picks and reservations will be open to the public this year.

If you are looking for a new CSA farm, we encourage you to explore the FairShare CSA Coalition’s Farm Search page.

FYI, we are still delivering winter produce to these co-ops:

Basics Coop in Janesville, Willy Street Coops in Madison area, Outpost Natural Foods in the Milwaukee area. We are currently delivering carrots, cabbage, beets, celeriac, daikon and other roots. Deliveries will continue until we run out, probably by April.  Don’t worry – we have a good supply of carrots for now.

This is a bittersweet moment for us.

We have loved feeding all of you for so many years. It is our career and passion and life work. Thank you so much for joining us. We were honored to feed you and your families. It is hard to fathom this transition yet it’s time for us to make a change. We will continue living on our farm for the coming years. We expect to begin renting our fields for organic production in 2026 and 2027. 

Thank you for many years of Tipi-loyalty!
See you at the u-picks!
Love,
Beth and Steve.

Photos!

Scroll down for photos collected over the years.

The final carrot harvest

We went out with a bang, harvesting one of our best-ever carrot crops this past fall.  After finishing our mechanical harvests, we left a patch of carrots in the ground until our crew could gather and harvest the last few together.  The final Tipi Produce carrots – it was an emotional moment.

Our 2025 carrot harvest totalled about 125,000 lb.  That’s a good yield and will keep our carrots on co-op shelves until about mid-April.

Our family

Steve and I raised two bright kids here at the farm.  They made good use of their childhoods here!

Maggie and Simone

Believe it or not, Maggie and Simone have worked for us for 29 and 27 years respectively.  Over time, they took on more and more responsibility, becoming field and crew managers.  We even hired Maggie’s daughter, who was born while Maggie worked for us.  We are so grateful for these two; we built this farm together. 

Check out the first two photos, taken about 25 years apart.  In the first one, they are showing off our best neoprene gloves.  In the second photo, well, we are having fun reenacting the first one.

Kerry, Carla, Ken

Let’s acknowledge three other individuals who worked for us for many years, bringing their intelligence, organization and humor.

Has EVERYONE worked for us?

We have employed SO MANY people over the years.  We cannot count them all.  If you have worked for us, get in touch.  We want to gather everyone who worked for us for a reunion this summer.  If you’re not in the photos below, send us one!

Farm history; a few highlights.

Steve helped start the Outpost Natural Foods coop in Milwaukee during the 1970s, and was the coop’s first produce buyer. In time, he decided to try farming himself, beginning on rented or purchased farms before settling on rented land in Fitchburg for 14 years.  Selling at the Dane County Farmers Market was an important outlet in the early years.

I (Beth) moved to the farm in 1996, we started a family, and purchased our own farm near Evansville in 2001. We made a lot of investments and grew the farm, starting our CSA program in 2004.  The farm grew, the family grew and it all worked out.

Farmers of the Year

In 2016 we were honored as the MOSES Farmers of the Year for the Midwest.  That was a true high point!

All the Eaters!

Thank you all for eating our food, whether you bought direct from us or through a local natural foods store!  This is a tiny sampling of photos.  It was difficult to narrow down this photo album.

Collaborations

We have been happy to collaborate with scientists from UW/Madison and seed companies many times, hosting research trials and field days with plant breeders, entomologists, plant pathologists, seed companies, and farm organizations.