Fat Donkey Digest - Issue #1
Welcome to the Fat Donkey Digest!
Welcome to the first issue of Fat Donkey Digest, the new monthly newsletter from Fat Donkey Farm! Check out The Digest to catch up on all things Fat Donkey, as well as gardening tips, recipes, community events, and more!
The Skinny on Fat Donkey Farm
Started by brothers-in-law Ryan Schmid and Matt Goering in 2024, Fat Donkey is a small-scale, family farm focused on producing healthy, top-quality fruits and vegetables for our local community. We’re committed to organic and regenerative farming practices, local agriculture, environmental responsibility, and healthier, happier humans. Our produce is available via our CSA and at our summer stall at the Larimer County Farmer's Market in Old Town, Fort Collins. Learn more about the farm, our farmers, our philosophy, and where to find our produce at www.fatdonkey.farm.
Meet the Farmers
Ryan Schmid After a decade of trying to fix healthcare, Ryan decided to address the 'root' cause and try his hand at farming. He loves pretty much anything active outside. Ryan spends most of his free time watching his kids play sports. Go Lancers and Bucks!
Matt Goering Matt has worked as a college professor, a freelance writer, and an advocate for the homeless, among other vocational experiments. He enjoys the great outdoors, live music, good books, and afternoon patio beers! His favorite foods are meatloaf and pickles.
What's Up at Fat Donkey Farm
Winter is coming! Since we're an all-outdoor operation, things have really slowed down at Fat Donkey Farm. We’re enjoying the opportunity to catch our breath and have been focused on breaking down the field, building our compost piles, and getting mulch onto our beds to protect the soil and build it up for spring! Other offseason projects include building a proper washpack by the cooler, a lot of cleanup and site improvements, and dialing in our crop plan for 2025!
Volunteer Spotlight
Interested in spending some time on the farm? One of our goals for 2025 is to develop volunteer and educational opportunities and bring more community into the field! As we get rolling in spring, we’ll be reaching out with information about opportunities on the farm, including workdays, volunteer shifts, and general calls for folks who want to get their hands dirty. Duties will include weeding, harvest help, pruning and plant care, and more. If you’re interested, just follow this link to submit your info and get on the list: www.fatdonkey.farm/volunteer.
Happy New Year from FDF!
All of us here at Fat Donkey wish you and yours a Happy 2025! May your coming year be full of family, friends, fun, and really good fruits and veggies. :)
CSA News
Fat Donkey is now taking new signups for our CSA for 2025! Just click on the following link.
CSA Rates for 2025:
Large Share: $749
Medium Share: $549
Small Share: $349
2024 members will have first priority for 2025. After that, it’s first come, first served. Don’t miss your opportunity to join the herd!
First Year Reflections
From Farmer Ryan Three things surprised me about our first year of farming. One: The incredible bounty our little field produced despite our inexperience. Two: The overwhelming flood of support from our neighbors and broader community. Three: The hard reality of how upside down the economics of local (non-industrial) agriculture are.
Nature is remarkable. Plants want to thrive, and by adding dirt, water, sun, and lots of love, a 3/4 acre horse pasture can transform into life-giving nourishment for hundreds of people. The bounty we experienced extends beyond nutrients, however. There is soul force in soil, plants, and the community they bring together. Nothing I've done in my life has resulted in physical, social, and mental health like working last summer on Fat Donkey Farm.
Our CSA members, neighbors, regulars and one-timers at the market, and the broader ag community around Fort Collins blew us away with their support and encouragement. We loved getting to know folks and were so humbled by the free advice and encouragement that so many of our so-called 'competitors' provided. In 2025, we will provide far more volunteer and educational opportunities.
From Farmer Matt The first season of Fat Donkey was a doozy. We launched into this project with a whole lot of passion, and very little experience. It made for an interesting start. The first few months were a scramble to get everything in place for a successful season, and for every to-do we checked off the list, we discovered another 20 we had to add that we didn't know were there in the first place. Everything in those first few months needed to be done yesterday. Plow the field, build the beds, develop a crop plan, modify the greenhouse for starts, get the irrigation up and running. A lot of the time it felt like putting out a forest fire with a garden hose. All that said, before we knew it, there were starts in the greenhouse and seeds in the ground, and things were actually starting to feel like a farm. Once the plants took off, it was just a matter of keeping up. Pruning, trellising, weeding, harvesting, planting. Rinse, wash, repeat. It was a running joke at Fat Donkey that the field looked pretty darn good, despite our best efforts to do everything in.
It's hard for me to express everything I'm grateful for this first year. I'm thankful for farming and for family, and the fact that Fat Donkey is both at the same time. I'm thankful for everybody who joined our CSA and for the community our CSA turned into, and for all the regulars at the farmer's market downtown that made Saturday mornings pretty fun too. And I'm thankful for dirt, and for plants, and for long summer days spent in the sun, which taken all together make for a pretty good way to pass the time.
We learned an awful lot this year, both from our mistakes and from our successes. It's going to be a whole lot of fun to barrel that up and spin it into next year. I'm already looking forward to spring!