Hungry Dog Farm started in 2020 with a small group made up of friends. Since then we've expanded to sixty CSA members (learn more about the CSA model here). Just a few years ago, to fill those spots, I was flyering downtown and asking for referrals.

In 2025, we turned a corner when the summer CSA sold out within two days of opening public signups. Then, in 2026, we sold out the summer CSA in 18 hours.

What is going on here? Are Fort Wayne CSA memberships the next​ Taylor Swift tickets? And how can you secure a spot in our vegetable farm share even if you missed the deadline? Here's what's happening behind the scenes--and how you can still sneak in. 

Note: At the time of writing, we have 4 spots left in our Fall CSA. You can sign up for that and for our Spring Egg Share (and get on the summer waitlist) here. 

Why Our Fort Wayne Farm Share Sells Out So Fast

In one word? Retention.

Generally, retention is a challenge for CSAs. This is due to a variety of factors--people can't come during pickup hours, they can't finish their veggies, they find way too much kohlrabi in their prepacked boxes, you name it. According to a CSA retention report by Practical Farmers of Iowa, CSA retention rates are typically around 45%.

Our retention has always been higher than that. I think this might be for a few key reasons:

• We let people hand-pick what goes into their weekly share. That solves the "I don't like the veggies in my farm share" issue.
• Our CSA pickups are at our farm, not a farmer's market. This means people who miss farmstand hours can come get their late pickup at any time for days following main pickup. This fixes the issue of unavailability during pickup hours. 

This year, over 88% of our CSA was filled by returning members. We are over the moon and so grateful to have such loyal customers. 

​Because we currently cap our membership at 60 people, we had very few spots left for new members by the time public signups rolled around. And those spots went very quickly. 
​

What We're Doing About It: Future Plans for Our Fort Wayne Farm Share

At Hungry Dog Farm, we have very high standards for quality and want to serve our members as best we can. We absolutely will not expand until we can do so without sacrificing our CSA experience. At present, we are throttled by two main limiting factors: greenhouse space and manpower. Here's where we're at with those--and what we're doing to potentially expand in the future. 

Greenhouse Space: Hungry Dog Farm has been erecting a new greenhouse pretty much annually. We are up to six hoop houses now, including a fancy new one from Nifty Hoops largely sponsored by our very first EQUIP government grant last year. We have materials to put up another greenhouse this year, which should push us over the edge into being able to grow for more customers. 

Labor: Our only full-time worker is Farmer Andy, though we have some beloved volunteers and part-time workers.  Farmer Andy is just one man and is therefore limited in what he can do. (Elaina unfortunately has a lot going on and can't help in the fields on a daily basis.) This year, Andy will likely be scaling back his wintertime employment in favor or working towards all-seasons farming (winter share??). We are also taking steps towards being able to hire a more active employee in the future, which would allow us to expand the number of shares we offer. 

How to Join the Hungry Dog Farm CSA

With our Fort Wayne farm shares selling out so fast, it might seem like it's impossible to join our CSA. We completely get the frustration. However, we do have a few tips on how you can secure a spot.

At Hungry Dog Farm, we go out of our way to ensure our existing CSA customers get first dibs and don't get left out. Once you're in the main CSA, you're in. So, in short, you just need to get a foot in the door. Here are some great ways to do that.

Get On Our Waitlist: Our waitlist is your first move. We let our waitlist folks know one by one if a spot becomes available.

Join our Email List: Make sure you are on our email list and that our emails aren't going to your spam folder (this does happen). That way, you'll be notified promptly if we have a spot for you.

Overflow Shares: We started offering overflow shares in 2025, and many of our overflow share members have graduated to our main farm share. Overflow shares are essentially a way for us to capitalize on the bounty of peak season, which usually hits mid-July and carries through to first frost somewhere in October. Our overflow members are notified when we're ready to start this, and they come get a pre-packaged box of goodies each week for the same price as the standard share. Overflow members get first dibs if a regular CSA spot becomes available. 

Spring Egg Share: Our spring egg share provides you with a dozen fresh Fort Wayne eggs per week from our happy flock of chickens. The ladies have been busy munching on spring grass in the field and are laying like crazy! Here are the details: 

• 5 total pickups (two dozen every other week)
• Now - May 25th
• $54 total (one free dozen based on our market price)
• Prorated shares are available if we have space. 

You can sign up for the spring egg share on our site or by emailing us. Slots are first-come, first-served. ​​

Essentially, get in contact with us. Start buying from us where and how you can. And, very soon, you will probably find yourself in our Fort Wayne CSA, enjoying pesticide-free local veggies, flowers, and eggs. We can't wait to start growing for you. 

This is a a deep dive into one of or staple crops that transports us to a time of cold fingers, long winter shadows, and freezing water lines. Onions have been tricky for us in the past. They are one of the more labor-intensive crops to transplant and are susceptible to a myriad of diseases. They enjoy a long, cool spring to grow their green tops followed by a hot and dry summer to size up their bulbs. If you have been following Indiana springs over the last several years, you know that “cooler” springs are increasingly rare, and our humid summers facilitate a lot of disease pressure.


In order to get an earlier crop and to avoid the weather issues, we have taken to a new schedule. Since 2022, we’ve planted onions in the late fall, overwintered them in an unheated greenhouse, and harvested them in June just in time for our first Fort Wayne CSA pickup.

We’ve added wood chips to all the walkways on our Fort Wayne farm, which required a lot of manual labor. However, we know this will pay off in the years to come. 
 
Wood chips have so many benefits. They reduce soil compaction, reduce wedding, keep the soil moist, and provide food for insects and mycelia (mushroom “roots"). As an added bonus, the wood chips decompose into compost in a year or two. This can be shoveled onto the vegetable beds to help all your Fort Wayne CSA goodies grow!
 
Wood chips also mark the growing beds, which is integral as we move to a no-till system with permanent growing beds. In traditional row crop farming, the entire field is mechanically plowed and tilled to remake the beds each year. However, there are a lot of benefits to permanent beds:
 

1. Saves time, as they don’t have to be remade each spring 
2. Less compaction with no heavy machinery reshaping the beds each year
3. Fertility and compost applications can be focused and built in place over the years  

​In the photo above, the broccoli and cabbage were planted into straw mulch, which was left over from the previous garlic crop. These were planted just days after the garlic was harvested (I added a bit of added compost from our chickens). The year after, there was some remaining straw mulch, and I planted potatoes into this in the early spring. That's three crops with just one mulch application on our Fort Wayne farm!

Our offerings do vary from year to year, so be sure to stop by our Fort Wayne farm stand to see what we've got! Peppers usually start going crazy around July and last until the weather turns.

 
Hedgerows accomplish three main goals for our Fort Wayne farm:

1. Insect/animal habitat. One of HDF’s main goals is to encourage as much biodiversity as possible by attracting beneficial insects, birds, and amphibians. Since the hedgerows are never disturbed like our vegetable fields, they act as a haven for the various beneficials. This is crucial in uncertified organic farming because it helps reduce sprays and attract native pollinators. For example, toads can eat up to 1,000 bugs a day and lacewings can devour up to 100 aphids! 

1. Reduce wind and erosion damage. These hedgerows are still in their infancy, but when they are fully grown, they will span 15 feet in height, helping to shield the vegetable beds. This is especially important in the early spring, when seedlings are tender and must be covered with frost blankets in the evenings.  

1. Provide food. This is mostly a side benefit and is still a couple years off, but ultimately, our hedgerows will provide fruits and herbs for our Fort Wayne CSA (not to mention nectar for insects). In the “off” season, I propagate perennials that go into the hedgerows during the following fall. Pictured above is a two-year-old pear tree that I grafted, and below is an elderberry.      

Dear Reader,

We’ve been getting a lot of questions about Tokyo Bekana lately. This Japanese cabbage is a little thinner than normal cabbage—it sort of resembles Bok Choy or napa cabbage and can easily substitute for those in recipes. It can be eaten raw or cooked and has a nice, light flavor.

Personally, I prefer my greens cooked into a hearty meal or doused in bacon grease. This recipe doesn’t do that, but I would absolutely still eat it. It features raw Tokyo Bekana and its crunchy cousin, kohlrabi, in a slaw made with miso, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar—three classic Japanese flavors. Add other veggies from our Fort Wayne farm stand, like green onion or julienned turnips or radishes, to give this slaw an extra crunch.

Love,

Ginger the Hungry Dog
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Dahlias do not survive over the winter in our Midwestern climate. When lows in the mid-teens come, we work hard to dig and divide the dahlia tubers on our Fort Wayne farm.

Dahlias grow into large clumps of tubers below ground, which can be divided and replanted each year. With a bit of care and proper storage, we can propagate dozens of new plants off a single cluster!  

​Each cluster is cleaned, cut in half, and divided into smaller tubers for storage. It is important that each tuber has an “eye,” or growth spot, located near the stem of the main cluster. Dahlias need the energy stored from the root to make it through the winter storage, but they will not sprout without an eye.

Divided tubers with eyes end up looking like small potatoes or even weird, gnarly fingers. It's because of the eyes that the tubers have these long, delicate necks as pictured on the right above. 

Once the tubers are cleaned and free from any debris that may cause rot, we wrap them in plastic to ensure they do not dry out in winter storage. The wrapped tubers are stored in our walk-in cooler at around 38-40 degrees - just cold enough to prevent premature growth, but not so cold that they might freeze. Thanks to these funny-looking tubers, we will have plenty of Fort Wayne dahlias for next year! 

Obligatory side note: dahlia tubers are actually perfectly edible, but with so many other veggies on hand, we prefer to keep them for flowers!

Dear Reader,

Last winter, I decided to master risotto. It’s a bit tricky when you have paws, but I managed it (plus the mistakes were still delicious)! Fear not—it’s not as complicated as it seems, and as an added bonus, you don’t even have to peel the Jerusalem artichokes.


This recipe is sure to impress your guests, and it’s a great way to try out this healthy tuber from our Fort Wayne CSA. If you are extra hungry, make like Gordon Ramsey and add scallops. If you are looking to keep it vegetarian, mushrooms are a great option. I’ll take it all!

Love,
Ginger the Hungry Dog

HDF Ingredients

• 1 finely chopped onion
• 1 celeriac bulb, finely chopped
• 7 oz Jerusalem artichokes
• 5 1/2 cups vegetable stock, kept at simmering point (can be substituted for chicken stock)

Other Ingredients

• Olive oil and butter
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 3/4 cups risotto rice
• 1 cup white wine
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan
• 1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts

This system has many benefits that facilitates healthier soil and better crops:
 

1. I don’t have to till after the rye is established, which prevents erosion and makes for happy soil. The rye keeps the soil moist and loose so when I go to plant an actual food crop in June — the stuff you’ve been eating all summer! — I just add compost and plant (no tractor needed).
2. Because rye is aggressive and grows in temperatures down to the low thirties, it outcompetes most weeds, leaving little competition for the future vegetables.
3. It creates an incredible amount of biomass. Carbon is the building block of all soils, and rye can add 10,000 lbs. of dry carbon per acre. Not bad for a little grain!

 ​

This last photo is of our main fall crop, which I planted into crimped rye. I’ve experimented with planting broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi, and winter squash (not pictured) in this way for our Fort Wayne farm stand. You can see the above crops have thrived in the rye, benefiting from the covered soil and weed-free beds. The patches of green that are actually rye that has self-seeded, an indication that I was a little late on crimping, but the new rye hasn’t out-competed the crop. Our Fort Wayne farm will continue to benefit from this system for years to come.