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River Country Organic Foods
"Goodness From the Earth"

Locally Grown Organic Fruit & Vegetables
Lyle Schmidt Farms, LLC was first certified as an organic producer in 2006 by OCIA International. We are now in our 4th year as a certified organic producer and we operate under the name of:
River Country Organic Foods
The farm has been in the Schmidt family since 1948 and is located just West of the friendly town of Mendon, Michigan. Mendon sits on the banks of the scenic St. Joseph River which meanders through St. Joseph County, Michigan.
Lyle Schmidt Farms, LLC and River Country Organic Foods uses sustainable farming methods with a focus on organic production. We do not use harsh chemicals, herbacides or pesticides. The key to superb produce is having good organic soil, with proper nutrients, water and sunshine. We use good old fashioned tillage methods (hand hoeing) with help from mulches, composts, powered tillers and manually pulling of weeds.
Most of our fruit and vegetable plants were started from organic seeds. We will utilize a "Tunnel" cold frame this season. This tunnel measures 12'x50' and allows us to cover a portion of the crop to protect it from early frost. This should enable us to get a jump start on planting and to obtain earlier harvest of produce, particularly tomatoes.
Available this season:
Shell beans, golden wax bush beans, stringless green beans, red beets, broccoli, cabbage, China Choy Cabbage, carrots, sweet corn, ornemental corn, cucumbers, eggplant, cut flowers, garlic, gourds, herbs, basil, mint, dill coriander, sage, leeks, kale, lettuce, spinach, cantaloupe, melon, watermelon, onions, peas, peppers, chiles, potatoes, pumpkin, radish, squash, tomatillo, turnip. Red raspberries and blackberries should also be available this season.
Tomatoes! We have (8)+ varieties including several delicious Heirloom tomatoes, salsa, yellow, cherry and slicing.
We will have apples and farm pressed apple cider this season. Our fruit trees are just approaching 7-years and they are producing more fruit each year.
Our contact information:

River Country Organic Foods
24310 Clark Road, Mendon, MI 49072
Tel: 513-232-9977
email: lyle@rivercountryorganicfoods.com
Thank you for visiting our Website. We plan to offer updates and a newsletter in the future. Send us your comments, suggestions and contact information and we will add you to our email list.

June 10--potatoes & sweet corn are doing well.
If you have an interest in joining our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) group let us know. We can provide baskets of selected fruit and vegetables available during the season. We anticipate providing a basket of wholesome produce every 2-weeks, harvest permitting, during the growing season. Pick up locations will be at the farm or can be arranged to meet member requirements. Welcome to Spring!!	Links: Be sure to visit www.rivercountry.com This is the site for St Joseph County, Michigan. For fun activities, great places to stay and dining experiences. Enjoy life at a slower pace and awaken your senses. Link: www.michiganorganichops.com Link to hops website offering several different fresh hops for micro brewers and home brewers.
The 2009 season was challenging, but rewarding! We began germinating seeds in early March. In all, we started about 2,400 plants from seed and transplanted them to the garden beginning April 30. The spring weather was cold and wet and delayed our opening harvest. Some of the plants were dug out by woodchucks and raccoons. Rabbits feasted on the young plants as well. We added an additional electric wire close to the ground around the parimeter of the main garden to slow down the small critters and 2 more higher wires to slow down the deer. We plan to improve our irrigation system for 2010. We are debating whether to offer a CSA for the 2010 season. We have several major expansion projects in the works including the installation of a hops yard with 1500 hop vines and a vinyard with 600 vines all to be planted this spring. We will also need to install drip irrigation systems for all of these vines. If you know of anyone with a green thumb or an interest in agriculture and wants to get involved with organic farming please let me know.