- Sometimes, you find the most interesting people
in the most unexpected places.
[upbeat guitar music]
Ken and Jay are a wonderful couple
who I've been inspired by for years.
They came to Prairie Farm to try something new and original.
[upbeat electric guitar music]
- My name is Ken Seguine.
- I'm Jay Gilbertson.
- And we are the proud owners and founders of
- In unison: Hay River Pumpkin Seed Oil.
[upbeat electric guitar music]
- Americans love pumpkins,
and you know, they're actually native to the Americas.
They really became very popular in Europe.
And in about the 1600s,
the Austrians started taking the seeds
and pressing the seeds for the oil.
And you know, the pumpkin seed oil, it tastes delicious.
And so we think a lot of Americans,
if they tried it, would also enjoy it too.
- Inga: Thank you so much for having me out to the farm.
Everything looks absolutely gorgeous.
So tell me, what is happening here on the farm?
- Well, we are the proud producers
of America's first pumpkin seed oil.
So we're growing pumpkins.
- Nice. - Quite a few of them.
- We've got 80 acres,
but we're only farming on two this year,
'cause we really wanna focus on pumpkins.
- Inga: Right, and that's still quite a few acres
for this kind of an operation.
- Our whole thing this year,
even though we've been doing it for a while,
we really wanna perfect the technique, you know.
It's not just a cookie cutter recipe of how you do it.
So we're really still learning how to do this well,
and that's our real goal.
- Jay: They're looking really close.
- Ken: Yeah.
- Part of learning how to do it well
is finding creative solutions to the challenges that come
with being organic farmers.
How are you growing these pumpkins here in Wisconsin
with the climate we have? - Well, as you know,
we have a relatively short growing season,
and pumpkins are very tender.
They're very delicate for frost and cold.
So we greenhouse start them.
[water spraying]
And then we take those transplants from the greenhouse
and we transplant them in the field.
- I imagine that there can be some weed issues,
as there is with all organic agriculture.
What have you been finding that's been working for weeds?
- Oh, we don't have weeds on our farm.
Maybe you do on your farm, our farm is good; we're good.
- Paper mulch.
We're trying paper mulch this year,
and so far it's been great.
- Like a lot of us, Ken and Jay are always looking
for effective ways to deal with weeds.
And from what I've seen,
they've found a solution using paper mulch.
[upbeat music]
- Jay: Paper mulch is the best way that we can think of
of weed control.
It completely suppresses the growth
of anything underneath it.
- Ken: So at least in the strip where this mulch is,
where the pumpkins are being planted,
there's gonna be no weed competition.
The plants are gonna be able to have the sun,
the light, and everything to really grow at their very best.
[upbeat electronic music]
[water spraying]
- We plant 50-cell seed trays over in a neighbor's greenhouse.
We greenhouse them for 10 to 12 days, depending.
And then we bring the seedlings over here on a truck
and they go in with the water seed planter.
[upbeat electronic music]
[tractor rumbling]
- We use a water wheel transplanter today,
and it's new for us.
It's pretty cool.
You roll along,
and it has a wheel that has three spikes in it.
And these spikes will pierce that paper mulch that we have,
and then it also has a tank of water,
and it's dripping water.
And when that spike goes into the ground, it drops water.
So you're just sitting on the transplanter
and you're reaching over and dropping a seedling
into basically the mud
that's in that little hole in the paper.
And it's an ideal way to get the seedling started
because they have complete contact with the soil
and a boost of water.
[tractor rumbling]