About Jacob's Fresh Farm

We are a forty-acre all-natural farm cultivating half of our land in produce for farm markets and our CSA program. Ten acres are dedicated to U-pick strawberries, lavender, sunflowers, and pumpkins. The remaining farmland is a serene pollinator habitat encompassing wetlands. We bring a natural and soil-renewing approach to farming and a safe space for our apiary of honeybees that produces hundreds of gallons of raw honey every year. Visit us to experience a community focused farm and reconnect with the natural environment that nurtures us.

Our Mission:

For us, farming is a way of life. We believe in our human need for connection with nature, with our community, with our relationships, and with ourselves.

We provide fresh produce to our local community and a space to experience farm life and reconnect with nature. We are committed to selling the freshest, highest quality naturally grown produce. We strengthen local food systems by partnering with other local businesses.

Although we are not certified organic, we have a strict conscientious model that follows OMRI approved practices. We use compost, natural fertilizers, and cover crops to build the soil and allow healthy microbes to flourish and feed our plants. Microbes are the digestive systems of plants and help them uptake nutrients. Healthy microbes and healthy soil mean healthy plants that provide more rich, nutrient dense food for us. We don’t use synthetic pesticides on our farm, only naturally occurring pesticides and biological controls that do not persist in the environment. Even with these we are extremely careful to ensure their application is minimal and timed to not be detrimental to native pollinators or our own apiary of honeybees.

Our Story

Jacob D’Lamater grew up farming on his parents’ Christmas tree farm in Leslie, MI. Music was a foundational outlet for him and he spent 10 years touring as a musician before returning to Chelsea. In 2013, Jacob started a home garden with no experience growing food. That hobby soon turned into a passion for growing food for his community. As Jacob says every spring, “There is nothing that matches the excitement I feel in watching those first seedlings grow into plants that produce food for the people around us”. In 2013, he started keeping honeybees to help pollinate produce and over the years has expanded the apiary, Hives on the Hill, to over 100 colonies of honeybees that produce hundreds of gallons of raw honey each year. Jacob’s Fresh Farm was formally established in 2015. 

Anna grew up growing vegetables with her mom in their family garden and foraging wild plants for tasty snacks–cultivating a love of plants and fresh produce from an early age. Armed with a bachelors in Art and Chemistry, and has worked as an analytical chemist for the past 10 years. She always had a large home garden and enjoyed growing food for friends and family. In 2017, she started growing lavender and keeping bees as she became interested in transitioning to a more sustainable lifestyle.

Jacob and Anna met during a local beekeeping event in 2019. They quickly fell in love and started working together, building Jacob’s Fresh Farm into what it is today. In 2021, Jacob’s Fresh Farm went from ½ acre with a couple greenhouses and 10 acres of leased land to our location on Fletcher Road with 40 acres of tillable land, beautiful wetlands, and beautiful historic hay barns that have been standing for over 100 years. This new home for our farm allowed us to expand into more greenhouses, u-pick strawberries, lavender, sunflowers, and pumpkins, and a better place for people to visit our farm and enjoy nature.

Timeline

  • 2013 Jacob starts his first vegetable garden
  • 2013 Hives on the Hill is created
  • 2015 Jacob’s Fresh Farm is established
  • 2017 Anna starts growing lavender
  • 2019 Jacob & Anna meet
  • 2021 Jacob & Anna purchase Fletcher Rd Farm Property
  • 2022 Jacob & Anna get married
  • 2023 their first baby, Indigo, is born