Wind-Damaged Grayslake Farm Needs Support
Plus, two market visits on the first truly beautiful spring day
Sunny Bunny
I thought this was an appropriate photo for Easter Sunday, though I’m still waiting for this guy to deliver my basket of chocolates. After the articles, more photographic evidence that spring is, in fact, at hand.
Storm-Damaged Prairie Wind Farm Needs Help
Prairie Wind Family Farm, owned by Jen and Jeff Miller, is an exemplary small produce operation in Grayslake, Illinois, with a long-popular CSA and onsite farm store. I was sad to learn that an ill wind generated by powerful storms last Tuesday (April 4) caused major damage to the farm’s crucial hoophouses, requiring an expensive restoration for which the couple has launched a GoFundMe campaign.
The following is Prairie Wind’s GoFundMe appeal, followed by a link to donate, and another link to a CSA article I wrote for the Buy Fresh Buy Local Illinois Directory last month that features Prairie Wind Farm. The Millers are awesome people and local farm community leaders, so please consider making a donation.
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Prairie Wind’s Appeal
Hello, we are Jeff and Jen Miller, owners of Prairie Wind Family Farm, and we're organic farmers in Grayslake, Illinois. For 17 years, we've grown local produce, year-round for our community of 250 farm share/CSA members, 350 households, farm stand, local chefs, schools and food pantries. We farm using regenerative methods and open our farm to researchers, universities and local educators to inspire climate solutions through agriculture.
On the morning of Tuesday, April 4th, our farm was hit with severe storms including an extreme wind that destroyed most of our protected growing structures. We lost three hoophouse structures growing spring crops, and experienced significant damage on a fourth hoophouse and our greenhouse filled with seedlings.
These structures are vital to our farm. Hoophouses and greenhouses allow us to extend our midwest growing season into the early spring and late fall, and grow summer crops that need additional care and weather protection.
While total replacement costs are much higher, we believe our hoophouse repair experience paired with some level of reused materials will keep our clean-up, repair and replacement material costs to $60,000.
Our farm insurance does not cover this loss, and asking for help doesn't come easy to us. However, many in our community have asked how to help so we've decided to share this story.
Your contributions will go directly toward the purchase of hoophouse materials and labor. These materials will include climate change-ready materials better able to withstand future extreme weather events. The labor costs are needed to rebuild and clean up the damage.
We're grateful for the outpouring of kindness and understanding. We know many farmers are impacted by increasingly extreme weather events. We plan to take the lessons we learn through this difficult process and share with others to strengthen other local food growers.
Thank you very much for supporting local farmers,
~ Jeff & Jen Miller
Saturday in the Parks Shines for Farmers Markets
What a difference a week makes. Green City Market’s Lincoln Park flagship kicked off the region’s outdoor farmers market season on Saturday, April 1 on a day that felt more mid-winter than spring. Yesterday (April 8) got off to a chilly but pleasant start and blossomed into the first truly beautiful day of the season.
Green City has been Chicago’s most prominent farmers market for more than two decades and always drew a lot of shoppers. But Green City’s role as a crucial source of food during the first COVID pandemic year — when there were grocery store disruptions and supply chain shortages — appear to have taken the non-profit market to a new level.
The market staff reported that the first week drew more than 8,000 visitors who braved the miserable weather. This Saturday, the crowds in the aisles were reminiscent of some summer season turnouts prior to COVID. This despite the fact that these April markets draw only about half the number of vendors that will be selling starting in May, and the farms that are there are still selling mostly storage crops from last fall’s harvest.
My April 8 market haul (from left): Italian parsley from Jacobson Family Farms (Antioch, Illinois); two tofu salads from Phoenix Bean (Chicago); ground pork from Finn’s Ranch (Buchanan, Michigan); cremini mushrooms from River Valley Ranch (Burlington, Wisconsin); pretzel bagels and cranberry nut tarts (far right) from Dorothy’s Bistro (Chicago); gold potatoes from Wholesome Harvest (Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin); and rainbow carrots from Nichols Farm and Orchard (Marengo, Illinois).
And it was so nice out that I bussed over to the Logan Square pop-up market that is being held every Saturday in April. This market is held in Solidarity Triangle at the intersection of Diversey, Kimball and Milwaukee, on the border of the Logan Square and Avondale neighborhoods (and a few blocks west of the seasonal location for the Logan Square Farmers Market, which kicks off its season on Sunday, May 14).
The pop-up market is tiny but bustling. Many of the vendors are smaller operations, but farmers market regulars such as Finn’s Ranch and Zeiltlin’s Delicatessen sell their delicious products.
I stocked up at Zeitlin’s, which makes great bagels and is one of the few bakers of bialys in our farmers market community, which makes the native New Yorker in me kvell. (If you’re not familiar, a bialy is a Jewish roll that has a depression in the middle instead of a hole like a bagel. Often the bialy middle is embellished with onions and poppy seeds.)
Meanwhile, Local Food Forum continues to be on the lookout for the first of the spring crops. C’mon ramps!