Ondrea is going back to nursing full time. What’s next for Toppled Barn Farm?

Fresh, local, delivery

Written by Chris

July 14, 2021

It’s amazing how far Toppled Barn Farm has come along over the last four years! It’s been our dream for some time to have a market farm providing fresh, locally grown veggies for our friends and customers. With each passing year, we continue to make headway on getting to where we want to be as a farm.

In 2017, we started with humble beginnings of converting a lean-to on our shop into a greenhouse, and growing microgreens out of our home.

Celebrating Past Accomplishments

  • July 2018 – Installed the first high tunnel and began growing salad mix.
  • May 2019 – Installed the second high tunnel and doubled our growing capacity
  • November 2019 – Launched our website and online farm store.
  • July 2020 – Installed the third and fourth high tunnels and doubled our growing capacity. Again.
  • Fall 2020 – Began building our walk-in cooler and washing and packaging room.

It has been exciting to see so much progress with getting some critical infrastructure in place! But, there is still so much more to do.

Along the way, we have met many of our wonderful, supportive customers. We wouldn’t be doing what we are doing if it wasn’t for you!

Hard Decisions

We have now arrived at a point where in order to grow our farm and make it a sustainable venture we will need to add more workers on our farm to help relieve the burden of planning, planting, growing, harvesting, and delivering produce to all our customers.

While Ondrea has been putting her all into running the farm to this point, she needs some help to keep it growing. It has always been our goal that Chris would join Ondrea on the farm full-time. In order to do this, we must first pay off our mortgage and get other important pieces into place.

With much thought and prayer, we have come to the conclusion that Ondrea will have to work off the farm for 3-4 years.

This has been a hard decision and not without trepidation and tears.

With this being said, Toppled Barn Farm will make our last delivery to our customers on July 26. After that point, Ondrea will once again be working full-time as a nurse as we strive to meet our financial goals and finally allow for both of us to work full-time together on the farm.

Future Plans

  • Last delivery date: July 26.
  • Finish building walk-in cooler and washing and packaging room.
  • Install a dedicated irrigation well.
  • Build other vital infrastructure, continue composting, cover cropping, and improving our soil.
  • Learn and experiment with new varieties of crops we know our customers will love.

We will temporarily disable our online store while these improvements are being made and as we work toward meeting our financial goals.

We solicit your prayers as we embark on the next phase of our journey. May the next few years go by quickly so we can once again provide you with fresh, locally grown veggies!

Please keep in touch by signing up for our Farm Happenings newsletter.

Thank you so much for all the love and support you have shown us. Until then, stay tuned…exciting things are still yet to come!

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1 Comment

  1. Jocelyn Pickard

    Oh my gosh! I praise God that you have provided us with such wonderful produce. I am excited for your plans and know God will Bless you. Of course sad for us as we will miss having healthy choices from You who care about what food we eat!! Thank you for all you have done!!!

    Reply

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