Laura Krouse cut a bag of lettuce mix from several rows of ruffled, green plants.

In a few days, the 120 families who buy a share in Krouse’s Abbe Hills Garden in rural Linn County would take home all the greens they could eat. Although November 1 would be the last distribution of the season, a hay wagon in Krouse’s shed was heaped with the fall garden’s bounty: large orange heirloom squash, acorn and butternut squash, onions, potatoes, garlic, mustard greens, spinach, kale, cilantro, dill, fennel, red radishes, daikon radishes, Brussels sprouts and cabbage.

Laura Krouse in her fall garden (and a cornfield with a cover crop).
Another vigorous fall crop is kale.
A closeup of the mixed greens, and Laura's cat, Spin, beside a bag of Abbe Hills corn.

"Many people think local foods stop being available in August but if you came out here and looked, you would see differently," the grower-extraordinaire said to a visitor. "Sometimes I think I may be the only fall gardener in Iowa but it's my favorite time of year to grow things because there's no disease, weeds or insect problems."

Krouse last year hosted a tour for the outgoing head of the Iowa Department of Public Health and her local legislator. She wanted them to know that it is possible to eat fresh, local produce in Iowa well into the fall, and that it could be available for school programs and for the “Iowans Fit for Life” programs if farmers would grow the crops.

“I just wanted to plant a seed for the future,” she explained.

An atypical farmer
That's what Krouse has been doing all her life. She splits her time teaching biology at Cornell College in nearby Mt. Vernon and operating her 72-acre small market farm and open-pollinated seed corn business. She also plays a leadership role in her local soil and water conservation district, often called upon for presentations about conservation, local foods and related issues.

In January, Krouse will add another line to her resume: recipient of the 2007 Spencer Award for Sustainable Agriculture. She holds the distinction of being the first single woman named to the award, and the first small-market farmer.

Although native to the area (her father was elementary school principal in Alburnett and Toddville), Krouse took a non-traditional route before returning in 1988 as an atypical Iowa farmer.

Armed with degrees in agronomy and agricultural business from Iowa State University, Krouse worked two years at a Kansas feed mill, then five years managing an emergency program for migrant farm workers in southwest Florida. Deciding to work in agricultural missions, she enrolled in the master's agronomy program at the University of Florida. She earned the degree with coursework in farming systems, extension and tropical agriculture.

"It was a different kind of agriculture, but there was a huge amount of poverty and hunger. The people who picked the food could not afford to buy it," she said. "At the time the farm crisis was beginning to hit the Midwest and I had an opportunity to buy a small farm back home."

The land had been used to grow hay, soybeans and an open-pollinated corn variety from the 1903 World Corn Exposition in Chicago. The family had been growing the heirloom variety for seed, sold primarily to dairies for its high protein and oil content and for digestability. The seed business came with the land.

"I had never seen open-pollinated corn before I came here," Krouse recalls. "I never saw myself as a corn breeder, either, but that's what I've been doing."

In the public eye
Krouse was in the public eye a few years later when her corn tested positive for Bt toxin, indicating contamination from genetically modified (GM) crops that resist the corn borer pest and are grown widely throughout Iowa. She lost customers and the incident generated a lot of publicity.

"I got calls from Japan, Poland, all over the world and suddenly I was a spokesperson about GM contamination," she said. "I don't blame my neighbors and I don't think GM crops are a bad thing, we just need to understand their ecological consequences better since we can’t contain them."

In addition to about 15 acres of open-pollinated corn, Krouse grows about 30 acres of soybeans and 40 vegetable crops on 11 acres. The vegetables require the help of summer interns and her father.

“I always wanted to grow food, the row crops are just secondary,” she said. “The farm has paid its own mortgage, insurance and taxes, mostly due to the garden although it requires a ton more work and time to manage.”

She emphasizes that she is not an organic farmer but would like to be. "I try to follow sustainable practices but organic farming is really hard because it all depends on having excellent timing, which I can’t always manage" she said.

Krouse has seen many changes in her farm, such as the appearance of additional wildlife. Early on, she built a four-acre retention pond for irrigation. The contour planting, grass terraces and cover crops also provide good habitat.

In 2002, she rerouted field drainage tiles to create a one-acre wetland surrounded by two acres of native grasses. About three-fourths of the rain that falls on her property must pass through the area before draining into Abbe Creek. A well at the foot of the dam shows no detectable traces of phosphorus or nitrate.

“I wanted to demonstrate what an upland wetland looks like,” she said. “That’s how we can improve water quality by treating water before it gets to our rivers.”

Her favorite activities include projects for the soil and water conservation district. She is most satisfied, however, knowing that she is providing good food for families in her community. “Kids eat it on the way home,” she said. “What could be better?”