Nith Valley Organics

09/10/2026

Exactly one week ago we were scrambling from the aftermath of tornado like wind that picked up our chicken pasture pen like it was nothing and blew it through a fence breaking 3 fence posts as it went. Thankfully the chickens are thriving in their temporary barn but it does come with extra costs having to use a lot of shavings to keep them dry and clean instead of fresh grass. The pasture pen is working on getting rebuilt, we have a quote back to fix the fence, and we have done a lot of tree clean up this past week with a whole lot more yet to do!
The forecast is calling for more thunder storms overnight but nothing as severe as last week so hopefully they are correct about that!
Dear friends and market customers Ken and Ellen have started a Gofundme campaign to help us pay for these unexpected expenses to our pasture pen and fence, along with the extra time spent on cleaning up trees. If helping us out is something you would like to do the link will be in the comments.

09/08/2026

Thursday and Friday were about storm cleanup. Thursday morning we cleared the trees off the duck fence and the tomato cooler. The roof damage was thankfully minimal. Only one fascia board was torn off, and the roof itself hardly had a dent. The lilacs didn’t fare as well, but hopefully, they will eventually grow back from close to the ground. Other trees were down on another fence, but that was a lower priority than disassembling the pasture pen in the neighbour’s field. Considering it took me most of a week of solid work to assemble, taking it down went remarkably fast. One afternoon for two of us and we had it mostly down to pieces that fit on our enclosed trailer. Well at least after we strategically jumped on some of the more twisted pieces to increase their stacking efficiency. Friday Aleta trailered that back to Paisley, a couple hours north of here for repair while I worked with one of our staff to clean up more fallen trees. There is still another shed with large limbs sitting on it and more hanging precariously above it, but it hasn’t topped the priority list yet. Both the shed and the tree should come down, but we don’t have money to remove the tree, or replace the shed, so they have been waiting for a situation like this to rearrange priorities and make the situation urgent. And this week I suspect that our tree service guy has more than enough other work to keep him busy!

Well that’s the news for this week. We are all doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances, but would certainly rather be in different circumstances. And now I should get going, because I have chickens to look after, and for the first time in many years we have a commute to work!

Thank you to all our friends who have helped, offered to help, provided space for chickens, our staff who have pulled together through this and kept things running smoothly when we can’t, and of course to Kintyre Metalcraft for taking after hours calls and rearranging their production schedule to repair the unrepairable. Together we will get through this. And of course to our customers. We hope you are feeling extra hungry so we will be able to pay for all this!

09/08/2026

Wednesday night quickly turned into a frantic recovery effort. What do we have, and how can we get these chickens in out of the rain? Aleta called friends to help load chickens off the pasture. As we finished loading them into the livestock trailer I was making calls to figure out what we do next. Where can we put these birds, and how are we going to replace this pasture pen so the birds can have a reasonable home again? And how fast can we do that? Within two hours of the storm we had the birds in a family friend’s empty chicken barn. It truly is more about who you know, and fortunately thinking fast on the fly under pressure. I also called one of our staff to cover our Thursday market so I could be home for cleanup, and the manufacturer of the pasture pen to discuss replacement.

Already Wednesday night not only did we have the birds placed in a barn, but we also had a plan in place to repair the pasture pen. Thank goodness for local manufacturing run by real people who care. Some of you who shop at the Stop’s farmers market may remember Weber’s Pastured Meats. For some time they have been running a welding shop as well as the farm, making mobile chicken shelters for other pasture based farms. Their products are still designed by farmers, for farmers, but they are focusing less on farming now to concentrate on the welding business. And when I described the wreckage on Wednesday night thinking I was requesting a full new structure he told me to take it apart and bring it back. They will repair what they can, and replace the significant number of parts that are beyond repair. I don’t yet have an estimate on the repair cost, but it should at least be less than a full new shelter. Not that we can afford any of this at this time of year, but that will be a problem for another day.
Update continues in next post…

09/08/2026

September 7, 2026
Wednesday started off normal enough. We had forecasted rain and possible high winds, so we were sure to anchor down the pasture pens with the extra screw anchors to give lots of hold against possible high winds. This summer, we once didn't have enough warning and the large pen jumped and swung sideways a bit while I was trying to get the anchors in. We didn’t want that to happen again so we made sure to get them in early. As the storm approached, we did a final round of chores: closing the sides to shelter the chickens from the storm while Aleta closed up greenhouses and parked the tractor. And good thing too. Back at the house with little time to spare the wind really started whipping things around, mixing a bit of hail with the rain which had already really started in earnest. Trees were bending, leaves from trees not in our yard crossing the yard at some speed, and the rain was hard and horizontal. The wind let up a bit and I went outside for a minute to check on damage. A walnut tree had fallen on our tomato cooler and our lilac bushes. The storm wasn’t over, but I figured maybe it was an occasion to put that new saw chain on the saw and get the chainsaw ready for cleanup. Both the walnut tree and a chunk of willow tree were on the duck fence so it would be a good idea to clean that up promptly. But that could be a job for after dinner. Dinner was almost ready, and the worst of the storm had passed. But before dinner I should go check on those chickens. I headed for the back field on the golf cart just to make sure everything was okay. By halfway out, I could see my worst fear confirmed. The pasture pen had been picked up and blown through the pasture fence. Only a twisted wreckage remained: 357 chickens wet and scattered across the field.

This week in CSA we have Romaine lettuce, Beefsteak Tomatoes, Green Beans, Onions, Carrots, Radishes, Beets, and mini Cabbage.
Update continues in next post.

07/03/2026

Come on out to the farm and see what we have growing on Monday!

MON JUL 6 @ 10 AM - 12:30 PM | Plattsville (30 minutes from Kitchener)
No-till Mulch at Nith Valley Organics

Our first field day of the month takes us to Nith Valley Organics, where farmers Nathan and Aleta Klassen have built a thriving mixed organic farm rooted in a lifelong passion for agriculture.

Nathan grew up near Rochester, NY, and took every chance he could to be on a farm. He gained experience through farm internships, raising his own poultry, and working in organic research, seed breeding, and demonstration gardens at several universities. In 2010, he graduated from the University of Guelph with a B.Sc. in organic agriculture. Aleta grew up on a dairy farm outside Cambridge ON where she spent every opportunity in the barn with the cows, sheep, and her poultry and rabbits. As well as developing her love and skills in livestock production, Aleta learned from an early age how to operate a remarkable range of agricultural and construction equipment, and can compete with the best for backing trailers and wagons. Nathan and Aleta met through their shared hobby of Square Dancing and were drawn together by their love of agriculture.

Register at efao.ca/event/nith-valley-organics-2026/

10/02/2025

Update continued…
It is time to Talk Turkey. Thanksgiving is coming up soon. We have orders rolling in but still quite a few birds available. Based on experience from last year I won’t be bringing many birds to market beyond what is ordered since whole turkeys tend to be something people plan in advance for. So if you want a turkey, email me, or get your name on an order list this week at market so I know you want one. There will also be parts available and I will bring some extras of those, but some parts go fast and others might end up in sausages if I don’t hear that people want them. So there will be some, but I can’t reserve it for you if you don’t ask me to.

Fresh Lamb this week! Because one type of fresh meat for the week wasn’t enough and we thrive on insanity.

We finally got rain last week. Enough Rain. We need an inch per week to grow, and if the soil is very dry like it was it needs an inch to recover normal moisture levels plus an inch to grow for the week. Well we got two inches and it was a beautiful thing. The pastures are turning green again. We might get a bit more grazing season this fall after all. We will still give it some time for growth before putting the sheep out, but it is nice to have the prospect of saving a bit of hay so the other end of the season isn’t quite as tight on feed.

Plum tomatoes continue to ripen slowly. A little more every week.

We had some aerial photos taken this week! A family friend with a small drone came over to take some updated aerial photos. We had one from years ago before most of the greenhouses were built or the coverall where the sheep are, none of the fences for the sheep, and the pond hadn’t been dug. So there are a lot of changes in ten years here! Cool to look back at how things were and have new photos showing so much of what we have done! And we got some straight down as well, less as an art project more for a base map for crop planning. Also cool.

10/02/2025

September 29, 2025
Another crop done for the season. Squash harvest is complete. And it was a good harvest this year only partially because we planted more than last year. We harvested over 9000lbs of squash and pumpkins this year. The other exciting part of this year’s crop was that we are participating in a Farmer Led Research Project supported by Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFAO) exploring squash production using mulch for w**d control and water conservation. We have been doing this for a number of years now, but we are interested to hear how it is working for others. And it gave me an opportunity to reflect on what is working and what isn’t as I was asked to advise others on their setup. Overall it looks like others think this method has potential as well and we already knew we liked this method, but I have kept better records this year to support why. The basics come down to we are growing squash without irrigating even in hot dry summers, and this year we managed to meet provincial average yield numbers developed for conventional squash growers. That already sounds like success, but the best part of this system is what is going on underground. The mulch feeds the soil and builds organic matter. It will take until next August before I can plant into that ground again but when I do we will get better carrot yields than I do on un mulched fields. And we can see that effect for years to come. Our squash is helping us grow good soil, produces a good crop, and is now beginning to educate others.

CSA this week we have Sungold Cherry Tomatoes, English Cucumbers, Radishes, Carrots, Mini Romaine, Pie Pumpkin, and Garlic.
Continued in the next post…

12/19/2024

Weekly update continued…
After spending most of last week looking at a broken greenhouse furnace and honestly spending more time pricing out replacements than working on repairs, we decided it was worth giving a fair shot to repairing it. The circulation fan wasn’t working. The furnace would come on, but the fan wouldn’t, making it a highly ineffective heat source. My first guess was the fan motor itself. Very early in the diagnostics process we found that hypothesis to be incorrect. The fan worked just fine, but the controls weren’t sending power to it. Having no previous experience with the control side of these furnaces I didn’t really know what I was getting into. Fortunately last year when we replaced two of the same model of furnace we saved the old ones for parts. After consulting the wiring diagram on the side of the furnace we were fairly quickly able to identify the problem and swap out the part and fire up the furnace. It worked! It was nice being able to add another success to my furnace repair portfolio. Most of what I have done in the past is common repairs that I learned by watching a professional once and going from there. And now I understand more about the control sequence of these furnaces and what controls what!

Today we have a bit more sheep sorting and then we are switching rams to keep some genetic diversity in our breeding ram offerings for next year. Always something to do!

Well that’s the news for this week.

Until next week
Happy ordering!
Nathan and Aleta Klassen
https://nith-valley-organics.localline.ca/retail-catalog
[email protected]

12/19/2024

December 16, 2024
This week we will be working a lot to be ready for Christmas. For us that means a lot more than getting some cookies baked. It is a lot more about being ready to be off market for two weeks. For having staff off for almost two weeks. For moving the rest of the onions and garlic to winter storage because the new year provides a convenient cutoff point for when we move the last of them into a cooler. So we’ll be preparing for Christmas, but that looks a little different around here.

CSA this week we have Lettuce Mix, Cabbage, Carrots, Potatoes, Buttercup Squash and Beets

Turkeys available for preorder! We still have five frozen turkeys available to order for Christmas. Sizes range from 16.4 to 19.7 lbs. First come first served on sizes and availability. Organic fed bronze feathered and raised on pasture, $7 per pound. We also have turkey pieces or large chickens in case you need something smaller. Or we have fresh lamb roasts available if you aren’t set on serving poultry.

Stock up on eggs before we are off from market! We have a little extra supply right now so make sure to stock up before we are off!

Wednesday was a fun diversion from the everyday routine when we attended the annual Montgomery’s Inn craft market. We also went up to the tannery ahead of market day to drop off more hides and pick up the previous batch that was finished. So if you are hoping to do some last minute Christmas shopping we have some new selection! And maybe we will even bring some wool crafts to market on Saturday too!
Weekly update continued in next post…

10/24/2024

October 21, 2024
To look at the weather it doesn’t seem like we are too far behind just yet on fall work. We have one greenhouse mostly turned over from summer tomatoes to salad greens and one high tunnel started, and a few storage crops in from the field. We harvested two bulk bins of rutabaga and one of beets for storage which is good progress towards being able to plant garlic where they were. We still have the main planting of carrots, beets, cabbage and miscellaneous smaller crops like turnips, storage radishes, and a few fall harvest rows of parsnips to name a few that we need to look after. There have been a few freezing nights, but it isn’t that bad yet. But the calendar is telling different tales and that means that the clock is ticking until some night the forecast says something truly damaging like -10 and we have almost no time to get this show wrapped up. So we are trying to get harvest rolling at a faster pace. Which presently is somewhat at odds with how busy markets are persisting in being making it very difficult to get anything else done. There are worse problems to have, but we are calling in additional harvesters to hopefully get this job done!

CSA this week we have Iceberg Lettuce, Kuri Squash, Carrots, Potatoes, Spinach, Tomatoes, and Garlic.

We will have fresh lamb again this week, and at the end of the week the last of the turkeys are going to the processor. Not in time for market this week, but we should have some cuts available the week after.

Well most of the update this week landed in the intro. I think I’m forgetting half of what we did last week, but we’re heading into a new week with a big harvest job ahead of us so we’re keeping the update short. Also, not something I would expect to be saying in October, but we need rain. Enough to soak the soil so it isn’t as hard to dig. Never thought I would be battling dryness for getting fall crops in!

Until next week
Happy ordering!
Nathan and Aleta Klassen
https://nith-valley-organics.localline.ca/retail-catalog
[email protected]