The Chelsea Standard
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Adopt-A-Farm
December is the time to plan what to plant
By Edward Freundl, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: December 25, 2008
When the cold wind blows, the best place to be on a farm is inside the house.
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But while non-farm folk see snow on the ground, farmers "see" what they will put into the ground next.
That is especially true at Fusilier Farm and Greenhouse near Manchester, an operation that grows a dizzying variety of vegetables, fruits and flowers nearly year-round.
With their dining room table covered inches-deep in an incredible array of seed catalogs last week, Mike and Kathy Fusilier pondered what they would plant just a couple of months from now.
"We're just going through seed catalogs," Kathy explained. "We order from Rupp's, Johnny's and Siegers, and get a lot of our flower seeds from Harris."
Rupp Seeds is located in Wauseon, Ohio; Johnny's Select Seeds is in Winslow, Maine; the Siegers Seed Co., is in Holland, Mich.; and Harris Seeds is in Rochester, N.Y.
"Probably 90 percent of our stuff comes from Rupp, and Johnny's handles a lot of specialty stuff," Mike added.
"We have a somewhat limited supply of land, so we have to grow what we can sell."
Kathy continued that thought: "In most of the markets we have a limited amount of table space; we'll try new things, but it has to make money for us," she said.
The seeds are ordered now, during a slow time, so that they will be on hand when the Fusiliers are ready for them.
"The fruit people were telling us to get our orders out in the next 30 to 45 days; sometimes we order things and they come in a few days later," Mike said.
"We can stockpile the seeds, but when we get live plants like onion bunches, we have to be ready to go.
"We don't want them to sit around — we have to get them in the ground in a day or two."
Kathy pointed out other advantages to ordering early.
"If we buy now we get a discount, and if we wait too long they may be out of a particular type we're looking for," she said.
The Fusiliers also depend on the seed companies for expert advice.
"We've talked to the Johnny's Seeds rep about growing carrots," Kathy said. "We haven't had good luck with them yet and we'd like to get them on the menu this year."
The greenhouses give the Fusiliers an edge, allowing them to start seedlings in February whereas the ground outside won't be ready until at least late March or early April.
The lull between seasons is also a good time to look back at what worked and what didn't.
"We're switching to some of the newer varieties, and we're looking at growing more tomatoes," Kathy said.
"We probably could have sold twice as many tomatoes this year if we'd had them."
Added Mike: "We're going to plant them earlier, spread them out to get more plantings, and cover them more with plastic to keep them warm."
Spreading out the growing season is not the only thing, however; the Fusiliers also spread their risk by supplying a dozen farm markets in Southeast Michigan with a wide assortment of produce.
"Mike keeps track of what each market sells, and if we sell more than 20 percent of any one thing he gets nervous," Kathy said.
"We've learned a lot over the years; we learned that if you sell a lot of different things, you will sell more of everything."
The Fusiliers also keep notes during the growing season on things like diseases, so that they can order more disease-resistant vegetable and fruit varieties.
"Our quality is very important — if I wouldn't eat it, I won't put it out to sell it," Kathy said.
"When people come to you and say they get all their produce from you, that's what you want: you try to develop that level of trust with your customers."
Subhead: Activities off the farm
Although the tempo of work on the farm this time of year is "more relaxed," Kathy said, "We probably should have been done with this a month ago, but we've had a lot of things to do."
Most recently, those "things to do" included the Michigan Farm Bureau Annual Meeting Dec. 2 through 5 and the Great Lakes Fruit, Vegetable and Farm Market Expo, Dec. 9 through 11.
Both events took place in and around the vast expanse of the DeVos Convention Center in Grand Rapids.
The Expo was sponsored by the Michigan State Horticultural Society, the Michigan Vegetable Council and Michigan State University Extension.
The event featured a trade show with more than 300 exhibitors as well as educational seminars on berry growing, organic farming, irrigation and other topics.
"We came across the find of the show: a plastic lifter/wrapper, which is a machine that rolls up plastic," Kathy said.
"It attaches to a tractor, and has two wheels and rollers that pick up the plastic — this was something we'd really like to get."
The Fusiliers use miles of black plastic to cover their rows of tomatoes and other produce to warm the soil and keep bugs and weeds to a minimum, but removing the plastic at the end of the season is a dirty, difficult, thankless task.
"That's the most hated job by everyone who works here," Mike noted.
They also availed themselves of the seminars while they were there.
"We went to a greenhouse workshop on Wednesday and a raspberry seminar Monday, and we walked around these displays of huge equipment," Kathy said.
That equipment comes with a huge price tag as well, and the Fusiliers must balance a machine's productivity gains against the cost and necessity of keeping up their other equipment.
"We need to get a new truck this year, so that (plastic roller) might have to wait," Kathy said.
Mike added: "The biggest thing is, some of that stuff is pretty expensive, and we have to prioritize what we can spend every year."
The Fusiliers have attended the expo for more than 10 years, and usually come back with something they can use.
"When you go to something like that, if you pick up one good idea it's worth your time," Kathy said.
The Fusiliers were also actively involved in the Michigan Farm Bureau Annual Meeting which took place the week before at the same place.
Mike Fusilier was elected to the MFB state board of directors in 1995 after Gov. John Engler appointed previous District 3 representative Doug Darling to the state agriculture commission.
District 3 comprises Washtenaw, Livingston, Wayne, Oakland, and Monroe counties.
The state MFB board has 17 members representing each area of the state.
Fusilier serves or has served on the MFB Legislative Committee, chaired the Capital Finance Committee, and serves on the national Nursery and Greenhouse, state Fruit and Vegetable and Direct Marketing advisory boards.
Michigan Farm Bureau is the parent to a family of companies, most recognizable of which is Farm Bureau Insurance.
"I also serve on the Farm Bureau Insurance board and the Michigan Agricultural Commodities Marketing Association, which bargains on behalf of asparagus and apple growers," Mike said.
"I also sat on the advisory committee to the 7th District of the Federal Reserve for two years in Chicago; that was very interesting."
If that weren't enough, Mike is a member of the MFB Executive Committee and will be a delegate to the American Farm Bureau Federation national convention Jan. 11 to 14 in San Antonio, Texas.
And somewhere in there he even finds the time to help run a pretty successful farming operation.
The real reason for the state annual meeting is to develop policies that were approved at the local level and move them along to the national level, Mike explained.
The Washtenaw County Farm Bureau approved local policy resolutions at its annual meeting on Sept. 25.
"At the state meeting we looked at about 1,000 resolutions coming from the 67 county Farm Bureaus throughout the state, and we sorted through all of them," Mike said. "We try to change legislation to help farmers."
The most important issues that passed at the state meeting were a long-sought ban on deer baiting, and policies on climate control and carbon trading.
"There is some real concern there," Mike said, referring to the climate change discussions. "You can just see money just flowing out of the Midwest into the coastal states if this thing isn't written right."
MFB has been in favor of banning deer baiting for several years, first because of the spread of bovine tuberculosis from the deer herd to the cattle and dairy industries, and now with the threat of chronic wasting disease.
Although Fusilier holds positions of some authority with Farm Bureau, his low-key demeanor doesn't reveal it when he talks about the part he has played in shaping legislation that benefits fellow farmers.
"It's neat when you can see something passed at the county level, then the state level, then the national level, and then see it passed into law by Congress," Mike said.
"And you can say, 'I know the people who started this whole thing, however long ago, at the local level.'"
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