sharing our love of healthy, sustainable produce.

Cedar Crate Farm is a small, family owned produce farm situated southeast of Mankato and owned by Dan and Lara Zimmerli. We use organic and sustainable practices to produce over 70 varieties of produce each season.

We love fresh produce and want to share delicious, fresh, local, nutrient dense produce with our community through the Mankato Farmers Market, our Farm Share CSA, and our wholesale partners.

Seriously, we love the superior flavor that you get from fresh, local produce. It makes the food we eat taste incredible and we rest easy knowing exactly how our food was produced.

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It’s world soil day! This is so important to us as our health and overall well being are tied to our soil. We keep our soil covered as much as possible as shown in this photo of our extensive cover crops. Here are some of the ways we are working to protect and regenerate our soil: 🙌 Planting cover crops which has a host of benefits including increasing biodiversity in our soil, protecting our soil from erosion and scavenging nutrient to build up our soil. 🙌 Planting a diversity of crops. This is a little technical but each crop has a host of beneficial microbes that dwell in the soil. In natural systems the microbes work with each other to supply the plant with essential nutrients. By planting a diversity of crops we are simulating that diversity. 🙌 Reducing tillage. While we do use tillage on our farm we are working to reduce tillage overall. We’ve eliminated most of our late season tillage pass and replaced it with a cover crop mix as shown in the photo. 🙌 Using organic, animal based fertilizers. We partner with @highislandorganics and use their pelletized chicken manure instead of synthetic, petroleum intensive, fertilizers. Look up the Haber-Bosch process for any chemistry needs out there. Sourcing local is more sustainable and supports local businesses. #worldsoilday #smallfarmsbigchange #soilhealth

Catch Dan at the Mankato Farmer’s Market today 9-12 inside Bomgaars! #cedarcratefarm #smallfarm #supportsmallbusiness #knowyourfarmer

Hey! We’re going to be at the @mankatofarmersmarket tomorrow inside @bomgaarssupply from 9a-noon. Our famous fluffy popcorn is BACK! You don’t want to miss this cozy winter weather snack. #healthysnack #farmersmarket #eatlocal

Our Thanksgiving featured last years turkey and it was delicious! We had a wonderful day yesterday. Got home today and packed eggs. Addie only cracked one. 😅Tomorrow is small business Saturday. If you want to support us you could commit to a CSA for summer 2023. You might even consider gifting one! #cedarcratefarm #smallfarm #csafarm #mngrown #mnfarmers #pastureraisedturkey #pastureraisedeggs

You can catch Dan at the #stpeterfoodcoop He is sharing about our CSA as we are looking for members for next summer! #cedarcratefarm #smallfarm #mngrown #supportsmallbusiness #supportlocalfarmers

It’s a daddy-daughter morning on the farm today. Addie and I inspected the radishes and removed the frost blanket for the day. #smallfarm #eatlocal #farmkid

A nice dusting of snow this morning! All but the big tunnel got “skinned” of plastic this year. The ground here will be open to the elements all winter. Then in Spring we will put up new plastic. #cedarcratefarm #smallfarm #hightunnel #veggies

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What Our Customers Say

“Thank you so much for all your amazing produce! Everything tasted delicious, and we were always excited to pick up our crate each week. We liked that the lettuce was spread out over the summer, instead of just at the beginning. Thank you also for being flexible with changing pick-up times when there was a change in our schedule!”

“I was so happy with my experience. Everything was delicious and you helped my family make healthier choices with our eating. Keep up the great work!”

“You guys rock! I really appreciate how clean the lettuce and spinach are, so easy to wash up.”