Farmer Lee Jones – Celebrate Mother Nature’s Seasons
Farmer Lee Jones from The Chef's Garden says "We are going to create a whole entire generation of gardeners because once they garden as a child and they learn how fun that is, they understand that the carrot comes from the soil and when they can go with mom and dad and harvest that and bring it in and cook it, and then eat it and realize how good it is and they have a connection with where the food's coming from and how it's grown and how much work it takes to grow it. We've got a generation of gardeners!"
What we covered in this episode
Farmer Lee Jones says that, with the COVID-19 pandemic, they are even more focusing on health and food safety at the farm.
The current situation affected them in a grand way. Over the last 37 years, hundred percent of their revenue has come from working directly with chefs throughout the United States and internationally.
Farmer Lee Jones explains that the farm is in an ideal location. It is situated 2.9 miles inland from Lake Erie and Lake Erie is the shallowest of all the great lakes and it's also the warmest, and the soil is all old Lake bottom.
In the early eighties, after a very devastating hailstorm that wiped out all the crops, his parents lost the farm.
They started back in farmer's market. Farmer lee jones was around 20 years old at that time.
They met a local Chef who educated them about growing vegetables without chemicals and told them that they would be enough Chefs in America that would support them to grow vegetables with great flavor.
The second Chef was Jean Louis Paladin. He helped them to build their network with Chefs like Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller, Alain Ducasse, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
Farmer Lee Jones says that what they have heard from chefs over the last 37 years is that flavor is the most important. Flavor, flavor, flavor. And that's really what they have based every decision on was the flavor, the integrity of the product, and how it's grown.
With the pandemic, The Chef's Garden pivoted their business to online orders and deliveries.
You can order a box of vegetables, herbs, and blossoms to be delivered at your doorsteps at https://www.chefs-garden.com/products/home-delivery
Healthy soil = healthy plants = healthy food for people.
Link to the podcast episode on Apple Podcast
Submitted questions from podcast listeners
What is the best type of farming?
It is our personal belief, says Farmer Lee Jones from The Chef's Garden, that God designed a system far superior to anything we can fake out chemically or synthetically. The way that we're farming [in the US] chemically and commercially today is much like our Western culture of medicine. Once we get sick, then a doctor prescribes medicine to treat the symptom. The method of farming that we're trying to do today is more like the Eastern culture. The Eastern culture is, get the body in balance to defend against the disease in the first place. So we have a sane healthy soil, healthy vegetables, and healthy people. We do the soil analysis based on the deficiencies that we find within the soil. Then we plant crop specific. This is what's really cool based on the deficiency we plant cover crops. Different types of plants will accept different types of energy from the sun, buckwheat, Clover, vetch, barley. We even have a 17 variety cover crop mix that we use to give us a, it would be like, like us taking a multivitamin, the plants except different types of energy from the sun, so based on the deficiency in the soil, you plant crops specific. You let that land sit fallow and let the plants in and if you can visualize the leaves of that plant as antenna or receptacles, they accept the energy through the leaves into the stems, then down to the roots and then into the soil. Then the next year when we plant the turnip or the beat or the carrot or the radish or the zucchini or whatever it happens to be, it picks that back up and when we eat it, it builds our immune system.
What we covered in this episode
Farmer Lee Jones says that, with the COVID-19 pandemic, they are even more focusing on health and food safety at the farm.
The current situation affected them in a grand way. Over the last 37 years, hundred percent of their revenue has come from working directly with chefs throughout the United States and internationally.
Farmer Lee Jones explains that the farm is in an ideal location. It is situated 2.9 miles inland from Lake Erie and Lake Erie is the shallowest of all the great lakes and it's also the warmest, and the soil is all old Lake bottom.
In the early eighties, after a very devastating hailstorm that wiped out all the crops, his parents lost the farm.
They started back in farmer's market. Farmer lee jones was around 20 years old at that time.
They met a local Chef who educated them about growing vegetables without chemicals and told them that they would be enough Chefs in America that would support them to grow vegetables with great flavor.
The second Chef was Jean Louis Paladin. He helped them to build their network with Chefs like Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller, Alain Ducasse, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
Farmer Lee Jones says that what they have heard from chefs over the last 37 years is that flavor is the most important. Flavor, flavor, flavor. And that's really what they have based every decision on was the flavor, the integrity of the product, and how it's grown.
With the pandemic, The Chef's Garden pivoted their business to online orders and deliveries.
You can order a box of vegetables, herbs, and blossoms to be delivered at your doorsteps at https://www.chefs-garden.com/products/home-delivery
Healthy soil = healthy plants = healthy food for people.
Link to the podcast episode on Apple Podcast
Submitted questions from podcast listeners
What is the best type of farming?
It is our personal belief, says Farmer Lee Jones from The Chef's Garden, that God designed a system far superior to anything we can fake out chemically or synthetically. The way that we're farming [in the US] chemically and commercially today is much like our Western culture of medicine. Once we get sick, then a doctor prescribes medicine to treat the symptom. The method of farming that we're trying to do today is more like the Eastern culture. The Eastern culture is, get the body in balance to defend against the disease in the first place. So we have a sane healthy soil, healthy vegetables, and healthy people. We do the soil analysis based on the deficiencies that we find within the soil. Then we plant crop specific. This is what's really cool based on the deficiency we plant cover crops. Different types of plants will accept different types of energy from the sun, buckwheat, Clover, vetch, barley. We even have a 17 variety cover crop mix that we use to give us a, it would be like, like us taking a multivitamin, the plants except different types of energy from the sun, so based on the deficiency in the soil, you plant crops specific. You let that land sit fallow and let the plants in and if you can visualize the leaves of that plant as antenna or receptacles, they accept the energy through the leaves into the stems, then down to the roots and then into the soil. Then the next year when we plant the turnip or the beat or the carrot or the radish or the zucchini or whatever it happens to be, it picks that back up and when we eat it, it builds our immune system.
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