Heirloom, ancient grains grown and marketed from Hazzard Free Farm

PECATONICA, Ill. — Heirloom and ancient grains are grown on Hazzard Free Farm without any chemical pesticides.

“Corn is my specialty, but I also grow wheat, oats, rye, barley and dry beans,” said Andrea Hazzard, owner and operator of Hazzard Free Farm. “I am starting to play around a little bit with sorghum and flax.”

One thing that Hazzard has noticed is that the flax plants compete with foxtail.

“I had heavy foxtail pressure and I sowed some flax in that field and the number of foxtails was non-existent,” the farmer said during the Rooted in Resilience: Learning Circle for Farmers and Landowners event, hosted by the American Farmland Trust.

Hazzard started her operation in 2007, growing vegetables.

“I had a CSA and our main thing was wholesale vegetables to Chicago,” she said.

In 2011 or 2012, Hazzard began to grow grains and she added an 8-inch mill in 2013 to process her grains. The following year, she ended her vegetable production; however, she is considering the addition of some vegetables to her operation.

“I am really into growing carrots and the ground here is sandy, so they grow really good,” she said. “That might be a bulk crop that I grow and I also had garlic up until this year.”

Hazzard also feeds some of her garlic to her sheep flock.

“They would eat sometimes an entire bulb at a time and that was helping with parasites,” she said.

In 2017, Hazzard saw an advertisement for a 20-inch stone mill.

“I bought it sight unseen from a guy in Chicago,” she said.

Grains are grown on 35 to 40 acres on the Winnebago County farm.

“The winter wheat is planted,” the farmer said. “I grew Sonora white wheat last year and it was kind of wet, so it didn’t love it, but I will keep planting it because it will adapt.”

Marquis hard red spring wheat is grown on the farm and about five kinds of corn every year.

A variety of products are available for purchase from Hazzard Free Farm including cornmeal, wheat berries, wheat flour, raw rolled oats, oatmeal, grits and polenta.

“I am almost completely direct marketing through an online farmers market called Jo Daviess Local Foods,” Hazzard said. “I also sell to a couple of retail shops, I have clients in Chicago and a lot has gone straight to the food bank the last couple of years.”

When planting her crops, Hazzard does a lot of underseeding.

“I do that to fix nitrogen and then I also have something for the sheep,” she said.

This year Hazzard received a grant to do a fencing project.

“We are going to do temporary fencing so that we can graze the sheep on the grain early and that will increase tillering,” the farmer said.

“Then we will pull the sheep off, go through the season, harvest the grain and then put the sheep back out on the field and let them glean the field,” she said.

In 2025, Hazzard had a second crop of oats, which was accidental.

“The oats almost went to seed, so if I plan it better, I think we can double crop oats,” the farmer said.

“I plant hulless oats that are really high in Omega-3s and Omega-6s, so it is almost like eating fish,” she said. “That’s why the oats worked really well for my horse that was really thin when I got her and they are great for the sheep, too.”

For the future, Hazzard said, she is thinking about doing large-scale camping on the farm.

“I love people who love horses,” she said. “I would love to be able to do a little bit of farming with horses, like a horse plow day or host clinics where people could come and learn more about horses.”

In addition, clinics could be offered for people to learn more about raising sheep.

“I want to give people the option to get their hands back into old-timey work,” Hazzard said.

For more information about the farm, call 815-289-1431 or go to www.hazzardfreefarm.com.