Making the Crops
"The small family farm is one of the last places where the maker — and some farmers still do talk about making the crops — is responsible from start to finish for the thing made." — Wendell Berry
Vegetables
The availability of our seasonal produce has ebbed and flowed over the years, yet our commitment to growing the best crops is steadfast — free of synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides, which are most damaging to the fungal partners essential to building healthy soil in partnership with healthy plants.
We use draft horses for our fieldwork and feel it has been, and will continue to be, important, exciting, and meaningful to explore the possibility of growing food with a minimum of fossil fuel energy and an optimal mix of muscle power — both human and animal.
Since founding, we have subscribed to William Albrecht's prescriptions of balancing soil cations: calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, and boron. We have amended our soils over the years with hi-calcium lime, epsom salts, homemade compost, zinc sulfate, and boron.
As we learn more about soil ecology from Christine Jones and Helen Atthowe, we are excited to refine our methods of feeding our soil microbes with fewer off-farm inputs and more energy from the sun.
Growing Principles
- No synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, or fungicides
- Draft horse cultivation — no tractor, no soil compaction
- Soil cation balancing following William Albrecht's prescriptions
- Homemade compost as primary soil amendment
- Cover crops to protect soil between harvests
- Harvest at peak quality while leaving the field better than found
Seasonal vegetables at Trapp Family Farm.
At the Stand
The farm stand — open daily, 8am to 8pm.
Garlic
We purchased 40-odd pounds of hardneck seed garlic from Fedco Seeds upon moving here in 2012. We have been growing, saving, eating, and selling that same garlic ever since. We sell it by the head, pint, quart, or by the pound.
Seasonal Vegetables
What's available changes week to week through the season. Brassicas, root crops, alliums, and leafy greens are reliably available through the growing season. Call or email to ask what's currently at the stand before making a trip.
Farm Stand Hours
Open Monday through Sunday, 8am to 8pm. Cash or check only, please. Located at 1019 W. Streetsboro Rd., Peninsula, OH 44264.
How to Order
- Walk-in welcome during stand hours
- Broilers and turkeys by pre-order only — email to reserve
- Lamb available by arrangement — call or text Mark
Setting the Table
Fruit
In 2021 a deer exclusion fence was erected around our main 16-acre field. The next year we planted 100 fruit trees within that field, adding another layer of protection — hardware cloth around trunks for rabbit and vole deterrence. In 2024 we harvested our first small crop of fruit, grown without synthetic fertilizer, insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides.
We look forward to offering more of this fruit in the near future, but we also realize that the path to marketable fruit grown without the abovementioned -cides is uniquely challenging. In the meantime, we have expanded our small bush fruit: strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries.
Vegetables don't stand alone. Livestock can be part of the fertility plan; cover crops protect soil between harvests; timing matters because Northeast Ohio weather makes every season feel shorter than the seed catalog promises.
Farm-raised turkey — setting the table from our land.