The Ask Aunt Nellie Project – A Crowd-Sourced CT Farm Management Knowledge Base

Ask Aunt Nellie (AAN) is a farmer-led project to build a collaborative database of sourcing for all the stuff and services we need to run our farms. In the early years of my farm, a lot of time and effort went into finding trustworthy and economical suppliers for farm goods and services, from potato plows & wax boxes to tax consultants & payroll services, and I know this experience is not unique. I designed this project so that all of us as CT farmers can support each other with our knowledge. So many of us start from scratch and don’t have an older generation to call upon, and as I’ve learned recently, a number of the older generation are interested to learn more about how younger folks are operating their farms. With your help, Ask Aunt Nellie can be a vital resource that serves us all.

This workshop will be a collaborative exercise in building and testing the AAN database. We are currently in the process of collecting sourcing info for the database, and verifying that the organizational structure we are imagining suits fellow farmers. New and beginning farmers, this will be a great opportunity for you to inform our process, and help us build a useful product. Established farmers, we’d really appreciate you sharing your knowledge and perspective. Peer-to-peer learning at its best!

Ask Aunt Nellie will be a free resource for CT farmers. The project is funded by Cobblestone Farm’s NE SARE farmer grant, with additional support from UConn Engineering’s Small Farm Innovations project and the New CT Farmer Alliance. This workshop is for current and aspiring production farmers.