It is summer and after a busy spring of planting seeds and transplanting seedlings the bounty is starting to come in. The strawberries are in full flower again and the raspberries are beginning to come in. We have green tomatoes on the plants that were planted in a hoop house in mid April. The lettuce is about over for the season but is being replaced with things like chard, beets, carrots and more. The farms hare Initiative is going along very swimmingly. It has been a very, very good replacement for the Oxford Tuesday market.

Drop me an email to get on the Boulder Belt eNews Letter. I generally send this out once a week If you read the newsletter you will know what we have each week, when the store is open and when we will be going to the farmers markets in Oxford, OH. I have noticed in my web-stats that I am getting a lot of visitors from Colorado. FYI, This website represents an Ohio farm that happens to be situated on a Boulder Belt (and terminal moraine). We would love to grow local food for all you Coloradians but we are simply too far away. Check out Local Harvest for a farm near you

Check our blog for more news about the farm and our lives as full time Eco-Farmers.

Back in 1993 the the market idea was born. The first garden was a few pepper plants and a 25' row of blue lake green beans that all did extremely well. The pears trees had a bumper crop too. Suddenly we were faced with growing piles of food. Being from town, I had no idea about putting up food other than some vague romantic notions of homesteading. Romance became pragmatism and soon we owned a chest freezer. I froze a lot of beans and peppers that year and we joked about finding a farmer's market and selling veggies the next year.

The next year we put in what we considered a huge garden and grew things to put up for winter and to sell. The garden was 50'x75' and was a lot bigger than any garden either on of us had had in the past. We thought we had a HUGE market garden. We did harvest and take things most Saturdays to the Richmond Farmer's Market, in Richmond, IN. But we did not make much money (I did not keep records back than, so I suspect we lost money on the project) nor did we have consistent product as we do now. But we had fun and started meeting interesting people and decided to try it again and expand the following season

Over time we grew from the original 25' x 75' garden plot to several acres of beds scattered over a 10 acre space. We also got into raising chickens for pastured meat and eggs (though we dropped the egg layers in 2002 because we wanted to be free of hens when we finally found another place to move). Now that we have found our farm we plan on having hens in the future unless the USDAreally does implement the NAIS program than I don't know if we will have any farm animals. We also have lots of other plans that will be revealed as time goes on. Among other things we plan to do on our 9+ acres, we plan on having a couple of honest to god greenhouses (as opposed to movable,unheated hoop houses), fruit trees such as peaches, pears, plums; brambles, a store that will sell our produce as well as other locally raised items as well as certified organic/OMRI approved garden amendments and certified organic and/or locally raised veggie seedlings.

Moving a small farm that has been established for over a decade is no mean feat. We must have had over 5 semi tractor tailer loads of stuff to move. We had a moving party one Sunday that got around 10 of our friends out to help us move the household (But not much in the way of farming goods, except the 3-door commercial fridge that would not go into the 17' U-Haul box truck in an upright position but by the end of the day the men got their heads together and figured out how to get the thing into the U-Haul and got it hauled over to the Boulder Belt Farm-Yay!.) That was a huge help in getting the household goods over to the new place and even got a few rooms set up. And it was a lot of fun too.

It took another 6 weeks or so to get the rest of the farm over here but by the end of November we were officially moved in, just in time too because about a week after we finished moving the snow started flying.

The first 4 seasons here have been good. We have over 3 acres of beds. There are round 275 50'x 4' and another ten 100'x 4'beds. We expanded the asparagus by 100% in 2008 and in the same year the apples we planted the first year we were here bared their first fruits. The store traffic has been increasing steadily each year and this year with the Farm Share program we expect have even better business.

We are committed to growing our food Sustainably and Locally because food grown sustainably and locally is healthier for both us and the planet. Animals raised on wholesome food, fresh air and sunshine are happier, healthier than confinement farm operation (aka factory farmed) animals that are shut up in huge buildings in crowded, dirty, stressful conditions and fed the cheapest feed laced with antibiotics (to keep diseases at bay). Pastured livestock tastes better too, according to all of our customers. We had been certified by OEFFA until Oct. 2002, but when the USDA took over the organic certification we voluntarily dropped our organic certification. The USDA is encouraging farms to get big or get out and not supporting small farms like ours. And now they have allowed the Bush regime to start the watering down of the organic standards. Soon these standards, that small independent, contrary farmers have worked hard to get credible will be just more corporate smut. We are very glad to not be all wrapped up in the USDA organic BS. Instead of going through the hoops of organic certification done by a third party inspector we invite the public out to our farm to see how we do what we do and ask questions. This is how you can learn more about the food you eat and how to eat wholesome, local nutritious food.