Cedar Crate Farms

“Everybody has that one crop they’re excited about,” speculates Dan Zimmerli, who, with his wife Lara, owns and operates Cedar Crate Farms not far from Waldorf.

 

Since 2015, the couple has grown vegetables in a garden which has come to be three acres in size and include six “tunnels,” round-topped structures covered in transparent plastic which, Dan says, cannot be properly called “greenhouses” because they lack automatic monitoring and ventilating systems. He explains lightheartedly that he and Lara do the monitoring and ventilating. “When the temperatures start rising, we make the decision it will get too warm and lift up the plastic on the sides to let air through,” he summarizes.

 

Apparently the system works well; Dan notes that, even without mechanical heat in its tunnels, Cedar Crate is able to extend its growing season for certain suitable crops to 10 months of the year. “We’ve expanded it gradually,” he says of the farm’s online harvest calendar, which shows when 30 different options ranging from asparagus to zucchini are available for purchase.

 

Cedar Crate came about when two major influences in Dan’s life combined.

 

One was that he found only limited satisfaction in his job in the Internet Technology (IT) field. “I was doing important things,” he says, “but I was in a cubicle all day working on a screen. It just didn’t line up with who I am.”

 

The other factor was his dissatisfaction with commercially produced vegetables. “I grew up on a traditional farm near Wabasso,” he relates, mentioning that his family has many roots in the Waseca County area. “My dad managed the farm and the work that it needed. My mom always grew a large garden. We would eat lots of fresh foods, and she would can and freeze a lot of what she grew to use during the winter.”

 

Compared to that freshness, Dan comments, vegetables available in most stores “aren’t good at all.”

 

Between what he learned from helping his mother in the garden and the business practices he learned from his father, Dan says he and Lara decided to take a shot at the fulfillment being large-scale gardeners could bring. As a teacher in the Mankato school system, Lara was able to devote summers to the many tasks involved.

 

“At the beginning, I was doing both,” Dan says of his nine-to-five job and gardening.

 

Cedar Crate markets its products in a number of ways. Buyers can find the business at the Mankato summer and winter farmer markets. They can use the company website to order and pay for selected products and then have them delivered to their homes at no charge–although delivery is available mostly on a corridor between Waldorf and St. Peter, including Pemberton, Janesville, St. Clair, Mankato and St. Peter. It is also possible to place an order and pick it up on Fridays at the farm.

 

As is the case for all gardeners, Dan says various factors–especially weather and rainfall–greatly influence what vegetables are available and how plentiful each harvest is. He remembers excessive rainfall and hail which presented tremendous challenges during the 2024 growing season, causing him and Lara concerns about whether Cedar Crate could continue.

 

Despite the challenges, however, Dan believes businesses like his are on the increase. He can name 15 to 20 growers and natural food producers in the region. “We have a real economic impact,” he observes, noting that Cedar Crate has as many as seven employees and fills an important niche in the market.

 

Based on his own experiences and his knowledge of others in similar fields, Dan says he is glad to be on the steering committee for the Waseca Food Cooperative, a local initiative to open a non-traditional retail outlet in Waseca. 

 

As summarized in a previous article in the Pioneer, leader of the initiative is Jim Boerboom, Waseca resident and former deputy commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Steering committee members have been meeting, discussing options, and investigating possibilities for about a year now. In the previous article, Boerboom mentioned visiting four cooperatives, and having completed a preliminary market assessment.

 

The food cooperative took a major step forward recently when it was recognized by the state as a legal entity, authorized to carry out essential transactions including opening bank accounts, collecting funds, purchasing equipment or real estate, and more.

 

“It will be exciting to see it all come together,” says Dan. “The cooperative will be a real asset to the area, and to people who care about where their food comes from.”