About Us

In 2002, while apprenticing at Caretaker Farm in Massachusetts, Dan decided that someday he wanted to own his own organic vegetable farm. He’d just graduated from college with an Environmental Science/Political Science degree, just fallen in love with a girl back in Iowa (any guesses who that girl was?), and was just barely making his student loan payments.

Fast forward. Dan and Julie got married. Dan got his Masters of Environmental Science. Julie finished college and taught high school English.

Julie had always said she would never marry a farmer and never move back home. Never say never! After our first son was born, we moved to Julie’s hometown of DeMotte, Indiana, purchased 20 acres of land--11 acres of woods, 8 tillable acres, a 1918 Montgomery Ward slap-together farmhouse, and an assortment of buildings, including a dilapidated yet gorgeous red barn. We called it Perkins' Good Earth Farm, inspired in part by Pearl S. Buck's classic novel.

Fast forward some more. Dan began working for the Jasper County SWCD. We farmed on the side. Our second son was born, then our third son arrived, then a daughter. We continued the balancing act of Dan working full-time off-farm, farming, building our CSA community, and raising a family of young children.

Meet the present. In 2019, after 10 years of working for the SWCD, Dan said goodbye to a job he loved to fully embrace another job--a lifestyle really--that he loved and had dreamed about since 2002. Full-time farming. The beautiful, sometimes chaotic, get-your-hands-dirty, oh-so-satisfying working of the land.

We’re so grateful to grow produce for this community, food that our customers--YOU--both need and love, food that we both need and love to grow for you.

You can read more about our farming practices below.