Farmers utilize small acreage to develop flower, vegetable businesses

CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. — Although Elaina and Garrett Fales have no farming background, they have developed a cut flower production farm that markets primarily to florists.

“I was working at the local public school district and then COVID happened and my husband said, let’s start a flower garden,” said Elaina Fales, who owns Teshuva Fields Flower Farm in Crystal Lake with her husband, Garrett.

“We never started a business or a farm, but we started growing on three 100-foot pieces of fabric and planted dahlias, cosmos and snapdragons in June,” said Fales during a tour hosted by the Learning Circle for Women Farmland Owners of The Land Conservancy of McHenry County.

“We loved it and we made money off the crop,” she said. “Our friend, Dave, who owns 10 acres here, leased land to us for four years and then he sold us one acre.”

The first year, the husband-and-wife team completed most of the work along with some help from friends.

“Now we’re in year six and we have three part-time staff that work 20 hours per week,” Fales said.

Two years ago, she added a high tunnel to the regenerative, no-till farm.

“We got it through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and we worked with Nifty Hoops in Michigan,” she said.

The 30-by-100-foot building was constructed with a community build.

“The company sent two people and it took us about six hours,” Fales said. “We had about 13 to 14 people helping and now we are trying to get a grant through the EQIP program for another high tunnel.”

The flowers in the high tunnel are planted in a 4-by-4-foot spacing.

“We put our higher end product in the high tunnel,” Fales said. “We grow from 6,400 to 6,500 ranunculus per season.”

She uses a task board to provide information to her employees.

“If you are going to have people work on your farm, you want to over communicate,” she said. “We go by growing weeks and on this board, there is a column for tasks to do, tasks in progress, when the task is done and who it was done by.”

The board helps the employees know what is expected.

“I want to know who did the task, so if it looks great, I want to compliment them,” Fales said. “Or, I can tell them that they just weeded a flower.”

Outside in the perennial area, Fales grows ninebark and hydrangeas.

“If you have a flower farm, invest in woody shrubs and perennials that will last into June,” she said. “Perennials are your best friends and I have about 75 hydrangeas that I use in the fall for florists.”

Other flowers that Fales grows include yarrow, sedum, clematis, daisies and peonies.

“I harvest the peonies when they feel like a marshmallow and then wrap them in plastic,” she said. “I keep my cooler at 29 degrees and they can be stored for three months so my goal is to have them until August.”

The farmer has peonies that are in their fifth year and third year of growth.

“We want to capitalize on peonies because we’re in the best climate for peonies,” she said. “We’re going to expand to another row and add 900 more peonies.”

In the annual patch of the farm, Fales grows cosmos, sunflowers, marigolds, snapdragons, statice, strawflowers and dahlias.

“We have expanded our dahlia section because we do what florists love,” she said.

Tsedah Farms

Just steps from the flower farm is Tsedah Farms, which allows both farms to utilize the same well for water.

“During COVID, there wasn’t a lot for John and I to do, so we started researching how to grow things,” Marilyn McGuire said. “I didn’t think my husband would really get into it, but he did and we thought it would be fun to start next to Elaina.”

The vision for the farm, McGuire said, is to feed the community good, healthy food and utilize the land sustainability.

“Dave was generous to let us start here and my daughter, Kelly, and her family live here on the property,” she said.

“This is our fourth summer and we started by selling at the Crystal Lake Farmers Market,” Kelly Burger said. “We love to meet our customers and share our love for vegetables with people in our community.”

In addition, the vegetable farm has about 15 CSAs this year.

“Our long-term vision is to continue to build our CSA customers and still sell at farmers markets,” Burger said.

Tsedah Farms specializes in root vegetables and greens.

“We focus on baby greens because that’s what people like,” McGuire said.

The family grows vegetables on one-quarter of an acre that is divided into plots and rows.

“We have four plots and 50-foot beds,” Burger said.

“We use all non-GMO and organic seeds, we don’t spray anything on our crops and every time we plant, we get them covered with row covers,” she said.

“Things have been growing really well this year and in some of the rows we started laying mulch in between the beds to subdue the weeds.”

A Jang seeder is used by the farmers to plant the seeds in the garden.

“This is my best friend and you can change the gears for how far apart it will plant the seeds and you can change how deep you plant,” Burger said. “I love it and my kids can help me with it.”

The farmers installed an overhead watering system that is controlled by a timer for their garden.

“Last year we watered every day, I would not suggest that,” Burger said. “This year we’re doing two to three days of watering heavier, but I can’t rely on the overheads for the seeds because they don’t soak enough.”

“We are doing high rotation farming so most everything we grow is 30 days or less,” McGuire explained. “We try to specialize in things that grow well here and quickly, like radishes and arugula.”

The farmers use a greens harvester for all the baby greens such as kale, arugula and a spring mix.

“It runs off a drill and it has a really sharp blade that goes back and forth,” Burger said. “I walk down the row, it throws the greens in the basket and then I dump them into a bin.”

The greens go directly in the cooler that is kept at 38 degrees.

“We bag the greens but we don’t wash them, before we take them to market,” Burger said. “It’s imperative to harvest the greens when they are dry because then they last a long time.”