162: Lorien Carsey and Shea Belahi of Blue Moon Farm on Farm Ownership Transitions, Farm-Life Balance, Complex Crop Rotations, and Custom-Packed CSA Shares

Farmer to Farmer with Chris Blanchard

Lorien Carsey and Shea Belahi of Blue Moon Farm in Urbana, Illinois, raise vegetables for farmers market, restaurants, stores, and a CSA. With twenty acres dedicated to vegetable production, and ten high tunnels totaling just under half an acre of year-round production, Blue Moon Farm was founded in 1977 by John Cherniss and Michelle Wander, and now Lorien and Shea are in the process of taking over the ownership and management of the farm.

We dig into how Lorien, Shea, John, and Michelle are managing the nuts and bolts of this ownership transition, including ownership structures, roles in the transition (and how they’ve figured those out), tackling farm-life balance, and the challenges of managing employees through this transition.

We also discuss their homemade customized CSA program, which includes meat and eggs from other farms; a complex crop rotation that keeps ten acres of the farm in a combination of long- and short-term cover crops, and the ins and outs of managing a diversity of high tunnel sizes, shapes, and technologies.

Perennial support for the Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously provided by Vermont Compost Company.

Pictures, show links, and more at farmertofarmerpodcast.com/episodes/bluemoon.