Farmer Spotlight: Blue Gate Farm

Jill Beebout & Sean Skeehan are the talent behind the delicious produce at Blue Gate Farm. In 2005, they left their professional theatre jobs in Houston, Texas to start a sustainable, diversified farm on their family’s land near Chariton, Iowa. They provide Certified Naturally Grown fruits and vegetables, raw honey, and free range eggs. All products are raised without synthetic herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers. “When people think of conventional farming, this is what they should think of,” Beebout said, “This was conventional farming the way it started- small family farms doing sustainable, diversified farms.”

“We each have our different skill levels and interest,” Skeehan said. “I like the honey bees and dealing with livestock and mechanics. Jill’s full time focus is growing great produce.” They offer a variety of vegetables including arugula, peas, beans, carrots, edamame, eggplant, tomatoes, beets, garlic, onions, peppers, radishes, and sweet potatoes. Their tapestry salad mix featuring more than 40 salad greens, herbs, and edible flowers makes a great addition to any meal.

The majority of the fruit grown on the farm is devoted to jams and jellies. They make a variety of preserves ranging from apple butter to shallot-lemon basil jam. Their infused syrup made from thyme, rosemary, lemon balm, and ginger is a favorite, especially when made into the lemonade they sell at the market on hot days.

You won’t find any Blue Gate Farm products in stores. They only sell direct to consumer through their CSA and the Downtown Farmers’ Market in Des Moines. If you would like to visit the farm, they participate in the Farm Crawl every October. Visit their website for more information about their products and the CSA program.

Skeehan (right) giving a tour of the farm at Farm Crawl 2011

First CSA Boxes of the Season!

Our CSA has finally begun! We received our first box June 1st and are now getting weekly boxes. If you are not familiar with a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), you purchase a "share" or "membership" to a farm at the beginning of the season and receive weekly boxes with local, fresh produce. It is an awesome way to support local farmers and get incredibly fresh produce. You also get the opportunity to build a relationship with the farmers. Our CSA is through Blue Gate Farm in Chariton and they are absolutely wonderful. We participated in their winter CSA last year and have been anxiously awaiting the beginning of the summer CSA.

Our first box included eggs, asparagus, bok choy, garlic scapes, radishes, several types of lettuce, tapestry salad mix, and fennel. We roasted the asparagus with olive oil and salt & pepper (our second favorite preparation after grilling) and have been eating salads regularly. The garlic scapes were new to us and we loved them! I have been using them in cooking as I use green onions, but my favorite use was in garlic cheese bread made with ciabatta from La Mie. Simple, but delicious.

Our second box from Blue Gate Farm included spinach, more garlic scapes (last of the season), braising greens (mizuna, chard, mustard, senposai, purslane, lambs quarters, amaranth), bok choy, spring turnips, and the usual tapestry salad mix.

Our third box had eggs, sugar snap peas, Michilli chinese cabbage, easter egg mix radishes, oregano, spring onions, and tapestry salad mix.

The fourth box had a beautiful bunch of basil, more braising greens (amaranth, lamb's quarter, purslane, sorrel, chard, dandelion, and sour dock), garlic, turnips, and squash blossoms. This box was a little light because of all of the rain. We were extremely excited about the squash blossoms as they are one of our favorites. I usually stuff them with ricotta and fresh herbs and then pan fry them, but this time I simply dusted them with flour and pan fried them. Divine.

Last week we received 2 beautiful eggplant (orient express), 1 green pepper, lemon balm and tapestry salad mix. We used the eggplant in a completely local frittata with eggplant, eggs, lemon balm, and oregano from the CSA and yellow zucchini from Maharishi Vedic City Organic Farm (which I bought at Gateway).

My Mission

I have always been interested in food, at least for as long as I can remember. It wasn't until I moved to San Francisco a few years ago that I became interested in local, organic food. My husband and I moved to the Bay Area in 2007 and we fell in love with it right away. There was always something to do in the city and we loved taking day trips to Marin, Half Moon Bay, wine country, and the many other lovely communities in the surrounding area. One of my favorite things about living there was the food scene. San Francisco has many amazing restaurants and there is big interest in local, sustainable food within the community. Two of my favorite leaders of this movement lived in the area- Alice Waters and Michael Pollan. We enjoyed eating at Alice Water's restaurant and I still enjoy using her cookbooks now. I loved the work that Alice did starting the farm to school program in Berkeley. I have enjoyed all of Michael Pollan's books and would recommend reading them if you haven't. I never got the chance to listen to him speak while we were living there, but I am pretty sure that I saw him in the parking lot at Berkeley Bowl one time. Unfortunately I didn't get to ask him for his autograph. Anyway, there was a lot of inspiration to become involved in local food there. I started checking out the farmers' markets- there were quite a few. So many, in fact, that I could visit a farmers' market almost any day of the week all year round. I tried to buy as much as I could from the farmers' market. I found a few great grocery stores that sold local produce & food- my favorites were Monterey Market, Berkeley Bowl, and the El Cerrito Natural Grocery because they were close to our home. We also joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) which was available year round. It was very easy to eat local in San Francisco. The diversity of produce was also great- the mild weather in California made it possible to grow a huge variety of fruits and vegetables all year long.

When we decided to move back to Iowa to be closer to family and friends, part of me was excited for the move, but the other part of me knew that I would really miss the Bay Area. My husband and I made the move in May of 2009. I wanted to continue my local diet, but knew that it might be a little more challenging- especially in the winter. We moved at a great time of the year because the growing season in Iowa was just starting. I went to the downtown farmers' market every weekend in the summer and the fall, and also went to several of the other farmers' markets in the Des Moines area. I was too late to sign up for a CSA for the summer season when we moved, but I did sign up for a fall season CSA through Blue Gate Farm (much more information on them in later posts). I did pretty good for my first summer & fall in Iowa- I was able to buy the majority of my produce, meat, milk, and eggs locally. The winter was a different story. I was able to continue buying meat, milk & eggs locally, but not produce. My goal is to improve for next winter. I hope to preserve and freeze more produce this year to be able to last through the winter. For the first 6 months in Iowa we lived in an apartment in Pleasant Hill, but in November, we bought a house in Des Moines. We are very excited to start a garden in our yard this summer. You can't get any more local than your own back yard.

So, my mission is to continue to find local food sources here in Iowa & to figure out how to continue to eat local all year long regardless of the snow & blizzards that we are blessed with here. My goal is to buy as much of our food as possible from local sources. I know we won't buy 100% of our food locally because there are some things that I'm not willing to live without that cannot grow here in Iowa (avocados, lemons, limes, oranges- just to name a few), but I would like to buy the majority of our food locally. My other mission is to make a connection with where my food is grown- visit the farms, meet the farmers and learn more about how they grow my food. This blog will share the local sources that I discover and my journey along the way. Enjoy!