Apprenticeship sparks career for first-generation farmer

MARENGO, Ill. — Learning about regenerative farming practices triggered a love of farming for Jessica Davies.

Davies, who grew up outside Chicago in Park Ridge, initially studied fashion design in New York City, until she realized the fashion industry was too competitive.

“I decided to change routes and go into environmental studies because I always had a love for nature,” she said during a Learning Circle hosted by The Land Conservancy of McHenry County.

The college student enrolled in a course called Food and the Environment, which connected her to regenerative farming methods.

“I Iearned how farming in a certain way helped to mitigate the effects of climate change,” she said.

As a result, Davies decided to write a thesis about regenerative agriculture during her senior year.

“To get more hands-on experience for that thesis, I decided to work on a farm in Oregon during the summer of 2020,” she recalled.

“Being on a farm was the funniest thing because I had never picked up a shovel in my life,” she said. “But it was exactly what I needed.”

The college student worked on the farm through the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms program, known as WWOOF.

“It’s a work exchange program, so you live and work on a farm and your housing and food is covered,” Davies said.

“I got a ton of research for my thesis and ended up falling in love with farming, so I decided to take it more seriously and I applied for apprenticeship opportunities,” she said.

As a result, Davies became an apprentice at Frith Farm in Maine, where she learned about no-till practices.

“The idea of no-till is you don’t want to disturb the soil, you always want to keep the soil covered and you want to build your soil tilth by adding organic life in the soil,” she said. “The goal is to suppress weeds with mulch and create a better ecosystem for everything to thrive.”

To diversify her experience, Davies also was an apprentice at a farm in New York that used more conventional farming techniques.

“That’s when I realized that no-till is the way,” she said.

As Davies and her dad started looking for land, they found a farm near Marengo through mutual friends.

“I was instantly sold because there was already a greenhouse, barns and perennials,” she said. “It was a no-brainer and we got the property in April 2023.”

Davies started Adama Farm, a no-till, regenerative fruit, vegetable and flower farm, by renting land from her parents.

“My first year in production was 2024 and I was growing on less than one acre,” she said. “I have been slowly scaling up and now I’m at a full acre.”

The farmer decided to participate in the WWOOF program to get some help for her operation.

“I could not manage this whole property on my own so I have three amazing WWOOFers helping me,” she said. “They have grown so much here. It is really awesome to watch.”

Vegetable plants are started from seed in the greenhouse.

“This time of year, we’re curing our garlic and onions in here on the tables,” Davies said. “We have a 70% shade cloth over the greenhouse because they don’t like direct sunlight and we have a few box fans going for ventilation.”

A wide variety of vegetables are grown at Adama Farm — peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, baby greens, spinach, lettuce, arugula, kale, radishes, beets, summer squash, turnips, zucchini, cabbage, rutabagas, carrots, potatoes and more.

“We just started planting raspberries this spring so we have three rows of raspberries,” the farmer said. “We’re trying to implement more fruit into this space.”

Through the power of social media, Davies has received discounts on equipment and seeds.

“My main platform is Instagram and I started making videos of what I was learning while I was WWOOFing,” she said. “I was not trying to gain a bunch of followers, but all it took was one educational video and it got 2 million views overnight.”

As a result of her social media presence, seed and equipment companies now ask Davies to promote their products.

“I get free products, which is awesome and it’s also how I’ve been able to market my farm, as well,” she said.

Trying to find flattering overalls and work shirts for Davies was difficult until she learned about Dovetail Workwear.

“It is a women-owned company and I really like the way their stuff fits,” she said. “Dovetail reached out to me and gave me free workwear so I started to promote it and now they’re also paying me.”

Davies markets her crops in several ways, including her store on the farm.

“We started a small CSA last year with six people and this year we have 12,” she said. “We also sell at the Food Shed Co-op, River Valley Ranch and three farmers markets in Barrington, Williams Bay and Park Ridge.”

For the winter, all the vegetable beds are covered with straw.

“A rule for no-till is you never want to see the soil,” Davies said. “In the springtime, when we’re going to use the bed for planting, we rake off the straw mulch into the path so that helps keep the path weed free.”

A new plot area that will include 38 beds is currently being prepared for the 2026 growing season.

“We till once to break up the ground and then we put a tarp over the area for two to three months in the summertime,” the farmer said. “So, the heat can smother the weed seeds that come up during the process of tilling.”

After removing the tarp, Davies will form the beds with a BCS tool.

“We’ll add compost to the beds and wood chips to the paths,” she said.

“The beautiful thing about farming is you can make it your own,” Davies said. “You can design it how you want, so this land is still a work in progress.”