Beginnings
Don Anderson was born in 1920 and grew up on the family dairy farm with his parents, Milo and Lula, and two older sisters. Besides all the cattle in the barn they also raised chickens, hogs, horses, and vegetable crops. His ancestors settled and started farming an area west of Neenah, Wisconsin known as the “Norwegian Island” as far back as 1850. While it wasn’t technically an island, it was a relatively small spot of high ground populated by Norwegian and Danish immigrants and surrounded by hundreds of acres of low-lying marsh land. For generations, the marsh was mostly unfarmable unless there was a drought. Then the locals could cut marsh hay for their livestock, but in a wet year it was untouchable. Many locals owned 5 or 10 acre parcels in the marsh for just that reason, but they all lamented that the land couldn’t be farmed regularly or they would risk losing their crop to flood conditions. Don’s father, Milo Anderson, had a solution. He would dig a ditch system to let the marsh drain into the nearby Rat River and make all that rich, fertile land farmable for himself and his neighbors. The project was completed in 1946 and became known as the Rat River Drainage District. Everyone immediately began farming their parcels in the marsh and planted everything from sweet corn, cabbage, and cauliflower to potatoes, onions, and sugar beets with varying degrees of success.
Planting crops in the marsh came with it’s own set of challenges. The soil was made up entirely of peat. While extremely fertile, peat is lightweight and didn’t provide a stable enough growing medium for onions, potatoes, or beets. Don once said, “The potatoes grew so fast, they had holes in the middle like a doughnut.” The other issue was the temperature in the marsh itself. Being much lower elevation than the surrounding land meant that it stayed cooler for longer. Nights could still get cold enough to develop frost in the marsh well into May, after vegetable crops had germinated. This led to a large degree of crop damage on leafy plants like cauliflower and broccoli, and in some bad cases, total loss. Even though the land was fertile and farmable now, it was still a gamble to plant anything in the spring. One season, Don recorded morning frost in 11 months. The search was on to find a crop that wasn’t susceptible to frost damage.
In 1957, Don and his wife, Ginny, bought the farm from his parents. They maintained the dairy operation while they researched viable alternative crop options for several years. The postwar housing market and boom in new construction provided their answer. Builders and landscapers wanted turf for their new homes so they could move on to the next build. Don spent years researching cool season grass varieties, going to seminars, and talking with other sod farmers who had also just gotten their start. He planted a small field in the marsh with Merion bluegrass using equipment he already had at the farm. In 1960, the bluegrass was mature enough to sell, so Don went looking for customers. One prominent local landscaper came out to see the field for himself, loved what he saw, harvested the sod himself, and trucked it away. Don used the proceeds to buy some specialized equipment, like a harvester of his own, a mower, and floatation tires for his tractor that wouldn’t damage the grass. Anderson Sod Farm was born!
Don on his first harvester, a Ryan sod cutter with ride-on roll up ladder. Originally, rolls were 18” wide by 6’ long. The harvester cut them to length, rolled them up, and kicked the previous row out of the way. Every roll still had to be picked up and hand-loaded onto a truck.
Always Improving
Don and his son, Jack, handled all the field work while Ginny took care of the office, which was in their kitchen at the old farmhouse. By 1969 the sod operation was sustaining the family well enough that they decided to sell the cows and all the milking equipment. It was all sod, all the time for the Andersons from there! Over the years they expanded their acreage in turf to meet increasing demand, invested in new equipment, and continued learning everything they could about the sod business. New bluegrass varieties were being bred all the time, selective chemicals for weed treatments and pests became available, and best practices were developed for fertility programs and soil health. In 1979, Don and Jack built a new machinery shed, purchased a tractor-mounted sod harvester, a rough terrain forklift, and pallets. This meant no more picking up rolls from the ground! Sod was stacked on pallets behind the tractor-mounted harvester and loaded onto trucks by the forklift. In 1985 Jack began purchasing the farm from Don, although Don would continue working into his 80’s. He truly loved what he did.
Jack continued investing in the business. He added delivery trucks and truck-mounted forklifts to unload sod at jobsites. He drilled a high capacity well and purchased irrigation equipment to keep the sod watered in the heat of summer. He began a more aggressive marketing campaign involving print ads and radio commercials. Then he purchased another sod harvester and hired more people to keep up with the increased demand. After that he bought a new tractor capable of pulling his new 22’ wide mower (that was Don’s new favorite toy). There was also increasing demand for big rolls of sod that could be installed by a machine, so Jack bought a big roll harvester and installer. The business was growing at a torrid pace when tragedy struck; In 1999, Jack was killed in a car accident on his way home from work. His wife, Cynthia, jumped into action. With two young boys to provide for and a large crew of employees, Cynthy felt it was her duty to pick up where Jack left off. She doubled down on radio and print ads so everybody would know Anderson Sod Farm was alive and well. She purchased another forklift, expanded the acreage, and broke sales records for several years after Jack’s death.
Lean Years
Jack and Cynthy’s boys, Blake and Dylan, worked on the farm throughout the summers and on Saturdays during the school year. Growing up with the crew and operating all the equipment would prove to be invaluable experience for each of them. As they were reaching college age, the recession of 2008 hit the country forcing Cynthy to downsize the crew and the operation as a whole. Sales declined and we tightened our belts. As we began to emerge from the recession, the weather played a more destructive role. Northeast Wisconsin broke records for total precipitation in back to back years, ‘18 and ‘19. Sod fields flooded and our drainage district wasn’t moving the water like it used to. The boys still wanted to run the farm, but they knew some big changes needed to happen or there wouldn’t be much farm left to run. As Cynthy eased into retirement, Blake began managing the books and day-to-day operations while Dylan managed the harvesting crew. It was time for drastic measures to address our problems.
A Brand New Day
To combat the excessive water we’d been dealing with, the brothers decided that the entire farm needed to have drain tile installed to lower the water table in the soil profile. Over the next several years, we’ve installed drain tile into fields right before our late summer tillage and seeding so all newly seeded fields would drain appropriately. We saw the results immediately with this practice. Suddenly, we weren’t losing harvesting days due to our fields flooding! Soil health and sod quality both improved drastically.
The 2020 season brought with it the Covid Pandemic. We had serious concerns about what that may do to our sales with most people staying home. What we saw instead was a huge increase in sales! People used the lockdown as an opportunity to improve their outdoor spaces since they were spending so much more time at home. We also saw support from the community, as many people chose to shop small and shop local to support businesses that may otherwise struggle during a lockdown. The uptick in sales caught us off guard since we were hand stacking all our sod, so the next problem to address was to increase production while keeping our crew from wearing themselves out! Fortunately, they make a machine for that.
Another Wisconsin sod farmer was upgrading to a brand new harvester, so the timing was perfect for us to pick up his old machine. The AutoStack turns turf harvesting into a one man job, cutting, rolling, and stacking sod onto pallets automatically. Besides being a labor saver it’s also extremely efficient. We had to get another field forklift just to keep up with moving and loading pallets!
At the end of 2022 we were fortunate to purchase our neighbor’s farm directly to the north of our sod fields. This addition allows us to expand inventory for the future by adding a few fresh acres to our growing farm. Blake and Dylan continue to invest in new equipment, land, and land improvements to bring our customers the finest sod available with the best service in the industry. At Anderson Sod Farm, we’re always looking towards the future.
“We’re only caretakers.”