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March 28, 2024 12:40 pm
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Local CSA Farm Starts Spring Season Stronger Than Ever

Three interns including, from left, Renee Johnston, Lark Milius and Nichole Ball work in the vineyard of Quail Hollow Farm during a recent spring day. They are learning about organic farming while staying with Laura and Monte Bledsoe in Overton.

By Mike Donahue

Moapa Valley Progress

Quail Hollow Farm CSA (community supported agriculture) last week launched its 2011 spring season and has approximately 60 openings for shareholders interested in receiving its weekly fresh and organic produce baskets.

The farm is located between Anderson Street and the Muddy River in Overton on about eight acres that Laura and Monte Bledsoe keep cultivated and producing in one way or another year around.

“A Quail Hollow share gives a participant over 30 different organically grown vegetables,” Laura said. “Current baskets can include cabbage, kale, carrots and spinach among other things.” Through the course of the year the CSA also offers beans, beets, broccoli, eggplant, peppers, squash and tomatoes.”

In addition to vegetables, at special request, the baskets can also contain broiler/fryer chickens, Thanksgiving turkeys, goat’s milk and cheese, honey and rabbit.

“We just started taking orders for fresh chickens,” Laura said.

Community supported agriculture over the past 20 years has become a way for consumers to purchase locally produced food directly from the farmer. Typically, a CSA will offer a specific number of shares for purchase by the public. The share usually consists of a basket or box of seasonal foodstuffs delivered weekly throughout the farming season.

When Laura first started Quail Hollow in 2006, there were 12 shareholders, one of whom was the Bledsoes. This spring the couple will be producing enough for 150 shareholders, 90 of which are already on board, Monte said.

Quail Hollow has three farming seasons including Spring/Summer, from March 24 to July 14; fall, from Sept. 15 to Dec. 22, and winter, from Jan. 13 to March 17.

Although the farm is presently selling produce to four restaurants in three major Las Vegas hotel/casinos, the Bellagio, Venetian and Palazzo, and participates in a weekly farmers’ market, its goal was always to make fresh, organic food available to the public.

“I never wanted to go commercial,” Laura said. “But we worked out some really good deals with Las Vegas restaurants and it was just a natural extension of the business. The chefs in these restaurants really appreciate the incredible flavor and freshness of the things we grow. They actually sought us out.”

The Bledsoes have four basic purposes or goals with Quail Hollow including being good stewards over their land; producing and offering to the public fresh, “better than organic,” fruits and vegetables; a desire for self-sufficiency, and the joy of gardening in general.

“Our primary driving force is to be as sustainable as possible and we’re almost 100 percent sustainable now,” Monte said.

Like all farms, working the 8-acre garden is a full-time job that keeps the Bledsoes and two young men busy sun up to sundown. Additionally, there are three young women who are interning with Monte and Laura to learn organic farming from the ground up.

Nichole Ball, 18, and Lark Milius, 20, both of Idaho, were drawn to Quail Hollow to learn organic farming because acquaintances or family members know the Bledsoes.

Renee Johnston, 23, of Gardnerville in northern Nevada is a “WWOOfer,” a member of WWOOF, a world-wide network of organizations which links volunteers with organic farmers and helps people share in a more sustainable way of living. In return for volunteer help, WWOOF hosts offer food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles.

Additionally, two shareholders work the farm every week helping prepare the CSA’s baskets used to deliver food.

The farm is truly a labor of love for the couple who believe getting back to the land is the wave of the future.

“This has really been a learning experience for us and we owe a debt of gratitude to a lot of different people,” Monte said. “We’ve had some great local mentors like LaRue Barnum, Glen Hardy, Lloyd Marshall and Sylvan Witwer who have helped make all this possible. I’m not a doomsayer, but I think we really need to get back to our roots.”

Laura said the farm is a work in progress and the couple never stops learning.

“This has really evolved from a small beginning to where I am continually amazed at how much we’re able to produce on eight acres,” she said.

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