Today we’d like to introduce you to Martin Gray.
Martin, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My wife and I both grew up on grain farms and, after living in the Chicago suburbs for about 10 years, we decided to study organic vegetable farming to start a farm near our families in Watseka, IL and Donovan, IL.
We started our farming career in Donovan, IL on 5 acres and marketed mainly to Chicago farmers’ markets. As production picked up, we started our CSA program and began selling to restaurants.
Around 2013 we moved into my (Marty’s) childhood home in Watseka, IL as part of an infrastructure update and acreage expansion. Now farm about 10 acres of organic vegetables and grains every year.
We are happy to be farming the same ground that my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather worked on.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Farming runs in my blood, and my motivation for raising crops has carried us through some big challenges. Learning to work with the weather instead of against it has been a big part of becoming a better farmer. We’ve had greenhouse plastic blown off, crops terminated by rain and drought, and freezes that have presented some major challenges, but we know that with each hiccup in production there’s a multitude of successes around the corner. I can carry these lessons with me as a toolkit for making the farm better each year.
Please tell us about Gray Farms.
Our farm specializes in freshly-picked organic vegetables.
Our customers know us for tasty, nutritious food grown with integrity. Our adherence to organic standards on the vegetable farm originates from a desire to create some of the best produce Illinois can offer.
As a company, I am very proud of the efficiencies we’ve learned through the years – each day’s harvest requires very little communication between the employees, and our crew strives to do the best job possible out of pride for the business.
Our farm manager Mark is a high school friend who has committed more than eight years to growing the operation and serving customers. We are able to spend sixteen hours on the road delivering vegetables and we still arrive back home talking about our plans for making the farm better.
We are set apart from other farms because we usher a careful attention to quality into every delivery. Our field work and production begins with raising the crops and continues on to our customers’ plates in Chicago, and we want each bite to be special and to contribute to good health.
What’s your favorite memory from childhood?
This is an easy question –
Growing up in the home that I live in now, my daily routine was escaping to my Grandma’s timber to wander around, climb trees, and converse with the resident animals. Now, I help my parents to continue taking care of this timber ground and I still do wander, climb and speak with the animals.
Contact Info:
- Website: grayfarmsproduce.com
- Email: marty@grayfarmsproduce.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grayfarmsproduce/
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