Jenny Tutlis's Story

NORTHERN HARVEST: TWENTY MICHIGAN WOMEN IN FOOD AND FARMING

https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/northern-harvest

Jenny Tutlis’s story

Like Jennifer Blakeslee, Jenny Tutlis grew up in Traverse City, but as a child she did not farm or garden. It wasn’t until she spent a post-college year volunteering in a community of people with mixed abilities in Virginia, that she discovered a passion for gardening that led over time to the wonderful CSA in Leelanau County known as Meadowlark. The CSA now feeds almost 600 people through its 180 shareholders. With the advent of hoop houses Jenny and husband Jon are able to garden in all seasons and to sustain their farm without resorting to other jobs, something that was a familiar necessity for many farming families without hoop houses when their produce was strictly seasonal.

Jenny told me, “I feel especially passionate about young women and girls seeing me as a woman farmer. That idea that farmers are all men is still really prevalent. . . That whole stereotype won’t change until there are more women farmers and more young girls start seeing that women can also be farmers. It’s not just the man on the tractor.”

To read more of Jenny’s story and the stories of 19 other amazing women you can now order Northern Harvest from Amazon or your favorite independent bookstore. And you can find current information about the farm at meadowlarkfarmcsa.com. As we endure the hardships created by covid-19 the good news is that all 2020 shares in the CSA are sold out.

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