Mill Road Farms- working hard to feed the masses

So in the spirit of letting people get to know us, we decided to start a blog!  For those of you that are aware, you can just skip the next few lines. For those that are new, please read on!  Our farming life, as it currently is, started about 3 years ago.  But the seed ( no pun intended!) were planted decades ago.  You see, the farm is from my husband's family-  it was land purchased well over 65 years ago by his maternal family lineage, passed on for generations.  When I came into the picture, it was in his grandparent's name, and their home was right down the street.  By that point, only a small portion of it was being used, and the rest of the land was just providing to the landscape of Sheffield.  But my husband, being a chef, saw this land as a way to give more people who were not living right in the farmland, access to fresh, organic, locally grown fruit and vegetables.   So he, along with his brother & parents, decided to start reworking the land to make it a working farm again.  This was painstaking, back breaking work, but to see what it was to what it is now brings a smile to their faces.   Finally, last year, we put the icing on the cake, and built the green house, and were able to start our first growing season.  And as many of us in the farming community remember, last year was a you know what! Imagine it being your first year as we had! Seeds went in, plants died, seeds went back in, started to grow, and then died again.   The heat was so unbearable so early on, these little seedlings just couldn't take it.  And we watered.  And watered.  And watered.   And then we would look, and in a couple of hours, it was just dry as a bone again.   My in-laws & brother in-law would be out there every single day, and it just seemed like no end was in sight.  But we kept on.  And stuff started to grow, and we felt relieved.  Chalked everything up to a learning experience, and move forward was the motto. Flash forward to this February when we started to work on what we were planting.  We did a lot of work in the green house for this year- lights installed, heaters, new beds for the seeds. We said, let's get an early start so these babies are nice and strong when the heat hits, and started our season.  Only this year, we kept waiting for the heat to hit so we were prepared.  And then the rain came.  Field flooded.   Rain came again, field flooded again.  New learning experiences I have to keep saying.   But the nice thing is all of our seedlings had the time to grow & grow.  So when market time came, these plants were gorgeous.  And the fields are doing great.   Once the fields were able to dry, the plants were so strong once they were transplanted, and made the exchange well.   We are so elated to see the hard work pay off.  And when you come to the markets, you will literally see the fruit ( and veggies) of our labor, all ready for you to take home and eat.  Until next time, keep on growing!