Blue Gate Farm is the small, family
operation of Jill Beebout & Sean Skeehan. We are Certified Naturally
Grown, producing healthy fruits & vegetables, free-range eggs, raw
honey, and alfalfa hay. We run a limited membership CSA
and are regular vendors at the
Des Moines Downtown Farmers Market.
During the majority of the growing season we publish a weekly Newsletter
for our CSA members - the entire archive can be found on the
Newsletters page.
Jill maintains a blog about our adventures on the farm: http://beyondthebluegate.blogspot.com/.
Farm Crawl 2009 - on Sunday, October 4th.
A third year of joint open houses at each
of the seven participating independent family farms in south-central
Iowa (including Blue Gate Farm).
Visit
www.farmcrawl.com for more details about
past and future Farm Crawls.
Check out our newest page:
maps of what is planted in
all of our gardens: Garden Maps.
In late winter
of 2009 we completed work on a second, larger, high tunnel. High
tunnels allow us to extend our growing season both earlier and later -
this new high tunnel was planted March 17th with cool tolerate crops
(salad greens, spinach, etc.)
We have posted some
pictures in the Photo Gallery.
A tornado
stopped by the farm in the pre-dawn hours on May 30, 2008. All the
people and animals were unharmed but some structure were damaged or
destroyed.
Some pictures are posted in the Photo Gallery.
In spring of 2007 we had the
misfortune of herbicide drifts from neighboring fields that
damaged a majority of our vegetable crops. With the
assistance of an attorney we recouped a small portion of our financial losses.
Simultaneously we have been developing and implementing strategies to avoid similar
problems in the future, including: better communication with neighbors,
registering with the Iowa Agriculture Department's sensitive crop
program, signage at our property lines, and planting buffers.
Our story was featured in an article in
the
August 16 - 22, 2007 edition of Cityview paper. You can view
the story, as well as other press pieces about BGF, from our newest page:
In The News.
Have a look around the site and come
back often as new features, refinements and content are added. Please contact us with questions or
comments. Thanks for visiting!
To create an
economically and ecologically self-sustaining homestead that provides an
ongoing connection to the Beebout land for our family, our guests and
ourselves.Fundamental to this vision are naturally based production methods
including: composting; rotational planting & grazing methods;
integrated pest management; rainwater collection; prairie restoration; responsible timber &
wetland management; limited dependence on petroleum products and public
utilities; and no synthetic herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers.
Blue Gate Farm
provides Certified Naturally Grown specialty fruits & vegetables, raw
honey, free-range eggs and alfalfa hay, all sustainably raised on our
small family farm for the benefit and enjoyment of our CSA members and
Farmers Market customers.
Please contact us with any questions or comments about this website, our
products, our farm philosophy, or any other matter. E-mail is the
best but you may call or write.
FYI: in order to get home delivery of mail, the USPS
dictates that our address is in Chariton (Lucas County). In actuality we
are 14 miles north of Chariton in Marion County and very close to the town of
Columbia.
