📺 Watch, Subscribe, Follow on YouTube & Spotify

Thanks to Our Sponsor

Harnois Greenhouse

Website - https://harnoisgreenhouse.com/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SerresHarnoisGreenhouses

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/harnois.ghs/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/serres-harnois-greenhouse/

“One of the things that we grow year round is actually celery. So I think we're going into the third or fourth year of growing celery nonstop year round. So a lot of people, you know, we kind of become known as the, you know, celery people at market,” says Andrew Phelps, co-owner of Phelps Farm in Guttenberg, Iowa, and this week’s featured grower on Greenhouse Success Stories.

After a career pivot from IT, Andrew Phelps and his wife Amy transformed her family’s farmland into a thriving, small-scale year-round vegetable operation—earning a reputation for consistency, niche innovation, and direct-to-consumer success. From overcoming devastating storms and infrastructure challenges to pioneering unique offerings like customizable CSA boxes and introducing farm-fresh beef, eggs, and honey, Andrew Phelps shares how strategic grants, tech tools, and a hands-on approach turned adversity into opportunity. Discover how this farmer’s market staple is setting a new standard for small growers aiming for year-round production and direct sales.

Key Takeaways

You want to build a thriving year-round farm business—take these actions to accelerate your greenhouse journey:

1. Start where you are—launch your farmers market booth or CSA with whatever you can grow now, and build from there. Progress and consistency beat waiting for perfect conditions.
2. Invest in robust infrastructure. Upgrade to stronger, automated high tunnels or greenhouses before extreme weather forces your hand—your crops and sanity will thank you.
3. Apply for grants and cost-share programs early and often. Tap into resources like USDA EQUIP to slash upfront costs and fuel your reinvestment cycle.
4. Prioritize education and mentorship relentlessly. Attend conferences, connect with extension specialists, and enroll in proven master classes—knowledge and support are your biggest growth multipliers.
5. Build a direct-to-customer sales strategy: Embrace CSAs, markets, and farm stores to control your margins, build your brand, and stay nimble as you scale.

Memorable Quotes

"We invest quite heavily in education and learning new things. If you’re a new greenhouse grower, figure out your local resources—whether that’s a university extension, conferences, or online master classes. Having someone in your toolbox who can help with problems is a huge asset."

"One of the things that we grow year round is celery. I think we're going into the third or fourth year of growing celery nonstop. A lot of people, we kind of become known as the celery people at market—we've always got it."

"So we have two children, they're five and six, and we bring them to the farm with us. They're learning how to grow, seed start, and transplant vegetables. Teaching them that you can grow food is probably our proudest moment as growers and as parents."

Connect with Phelps Farm

Website: https://phelpsfarmsiowa.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phelpsfarmiowa/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PhelpsFarmIowa/

Resources Mentioned

Iowa Food Hub: https://www.iowafoodhub.org/

GrownBy App: https://grownby.com/

Orisha Automation: https://www.orisha.io/

Iowa State University Extension: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/

Market Gardener Masterclass (by Jean-Martin Fortier): https://www.marketgardener.com/

Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI): https://practicalfarmers.org/

FairShare CSA Coalition: https://www.csacoalition.org/

Midwest Organic Vegetable Production Conference: https://www.movia.org/

Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Program (Iowa Dept. of Agriculture): https://iowaagriculture.gov/markets/resilient-food-systems-infrastructure-rfsi

Connect With Us

GSS LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/verticalfarmingpodcast

GSS Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/direct/inbox/

Subscribe to our newsletters!

AgTech Digest - https://agtechdigest.com

The Indoor Farmer - https://www.indoorverticalfarm.com/

Horti-Gen Insights - https://www.hortigeninsights.com/

🎙️🎙️🎙️

Podcast Production and Marketing by FullCast

Discover the best podcast services in the world at The Podosphere: https://www.thepodosphere.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews

2025 Precision Ag Report

2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews

2025 Precision Ag Report

One of the things that we grow year round is actually celery. So I think

we're going into the third or fourth year of growing celery

nonstop year round. So a lot of people,

you know, we kind of become known as the, you know,

celery people at market. You know, we've always got it.

Welcome to Greenhouse Success Stories. Tune in every week as we share

conversations with growers, operators and innovators from around the world,

providing insight into what's working in their greenhouses. We discuss

firsthand experiences and provide insights into how these forums are

succeeding and thriving. Special thanks to our title sponsor,

Arnois Greenhouse, with your host, founder of Little Greenhouse that

could, Trina Semenchuk. Hi everyone.

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Greenhouse Success Stories.

Looking forward to this interview. We have Andrew Phelps here.

Andrew and his wife Amy Phelps are the owner of Phelps

Farm Farms in Gunburg, Iowa. So thank you so

much for joining us, Andrew. Yeah, thanks for

having me. So just give us maybe a little bit of

background for anyone listening in right now. Can you tell us about

your story, how you got into the greenhouse industry?

You know, how did you start kind of those, those

details? Yeah. So

we, my wife and I, purchased our farmland in

2019. It was originally part of my

wife's family home farm. She actually grew up right across

the road. We have about 79 acres of

land. We began farm, actually

vegetable farming in 2021.

So originally my background is in IT and I was working

at an IT data center. Oh. And my position

and department were basically outsourced.

So I had to, you know, figure out, you know,

what I was going to do, you know, for income.

So we decided to do something with our farmland.

You know, we kind of toyed with a bunch of different ideas, you know,

maybe renting it out. It was originally a row crop

farm, so, you know, corn, soybeans, you know, stuff like that.

I had the wise idea that I was going to be a pumpkin

farmer. And after quite a bit of research

and you know, looking into it, you know, that's

wasn't going to be feasible because it's income just like one time a year

and pumpkins are big and bulky and heavy and a lot of work.

So we kind of went down the rabbit hole of we're going to

grow vegetables and, you know, figure out how

to sell them. We started doing the farmers markets.

You know, it just kind of snowballed from, from that point on,

kind of going back to our farmland. We sectioned off 5 acres

just for vegetable production. And then we have about

30 acres of woods and another about 40 acres

of cattle pasture. My brother in law still

lives across the road and he runs a certified black and Angus

farm. So he rotisserie grazes on

our pastures through throughout the year. So it's still kind

of part of my wife's family. You know, it's still part of the home farm.

So that's, that's pretty cool. But yeah, that, this is very

interesting. Okay, so just so that I've got the timelines right in

my head, so in 2019, you and your wife

bought your wife's family home farm, which was 79 acres. And

then in 2021 you started vegetable farming, is that correct?

Yep, yep, that's right. Okay, so very. So I have a couple of

questions. Why pumpkin farming? Why did you want. Do you like

Halloween? What? Yeah. So I mean I always

like growing pumpkins and growing up I always had pumpkins in my

backyard, you know. You know, so

this is what I knew at the time and I knew how to kind of

grow pumpkins and it was fun and you know, I enjoyed it.

But when we started looking at, you know, profitability and you

know, the, the market, a lot of people grow up pumpkins

and a lot of people bring pumpkins in from other places

that, you know, they're acres and acres of, you know, fields.

We thought about maybe doing like agritourism, you know, have people come out,

you know, pick, pick your pumpkins out in the field.

But you know, that didn't really sound too interesting to us.

You just didn't want people in the farm and you want to be

more protein focused. Yeah,

I mean it's, it's a lot of work. And again, it kind

of goes back to, you know, what are we going to do like in the

springtime, you know, what can we grow? What other things can we do year

round to, you know, generate

income throughout the year, not just late, late summer,

fall time frame. So we kind of

went, you know, started looking at growing other things and then

we started doing, you know, figuring out

we could grow vegetables. Okay. So we,

you know, kind of kind of started there, you know, just small crops and

we started doing the farmer's market in town and

you know, just kind of trying to figure out what people wanted.

And yeah, it just kept snowballing.

So had your wife been farming her whole

life, it being her family farm or what was her

background? Yeah, so she, she grew up on

a farm. So they, they had cattle, they had hogs, they

did row crops. She, she's familiar with

farming and they always had a, a very large garden. She

did a lot of canning with her mom. Her mom was a

Home Ec teacher for 40 years at the local school.

So, you know, they, they did a lot of canning and

preserving and so

my wife actually, her background is actually nursing.

Oh she has a master's degree in nursing.

So in my background is it. I have a

bachelor's degree in computer network administration. So perfect

for farming. Yeah, that's what that, you know, that I find

that so interesting. I have a lot of friends who are, you know, engineers

and they all, they spend their days behind a computer and a

screen and you know, some of them are happy, some of them are, are not

so happy. So I'm, I'm wondering, you know, with the

IT life, like, why not get another IT

job? Were you tired of being behind the desk and did you want

to be, you know, working with your hands more?

Yeah, in a sense I'm a very hands

on person. I like being outside, I like doing

things and you know, just sitting behind a computer screen all

day, it just, I don't know, I didn't,

it's so. Yeah. And

you know, I like, you know, doing things, you know, that you

can actually, you know, be outside and you know, enjoy the,

the nice weather. You know, when it's nice out and you know, in

it, you can be in a low cubicle or behind a screen

all day and it's like beautiful 75 degrees, sunny day out and

everybody's having a good time behind

a screen. So, you know, that

with, with farming I can make my own schedules in a sense.

You know, I can plan, you know, I can change my schedule as

needed. If the kids have something going on or appointments, I can,

you know, take care of it. So, you know, there's a lot more

flexibility. Where is

Phelps farm at today? And you know, what are,

what are some things that you do different than other greenhouse growers?

Like how would you differentiate yourself? So

we are focused on growing year round. So

our focus is continually going more and more towards that

mindset that we. Just because it gets cold outside

doesn't mean we stop growing. There's a lot of farmers in the area.

You know, the farmers market, they, they kind of stop growing after a

while. You know, when it starts getting coal. Just, sorry, just out of

curiosity, cold does it get.

In the winter time? I mean, it'll

get down to, I think one winter we were

40 below zero. But that's, that's pretty unusual for us

for the most part. In the winter time, it gets down to the teens

or zero degrees at night, typically. And then,

you know, during the teens, during the day. So, I mean, it gets

cold. Okay, keep. Yeah, keep going.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for interrupting you. I just. I'm from Winnipeg. So

it's like minus 40 degrees in

Celsius. Okay. In winter, but,

you know, zero is still. That's, that's still pretty chilly. I'm actually

surprised that it gets that cold for you guys.

Yeah. So that. That's Fahrenheit. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I know. I actually just pulled up my. Not sure what it is

in Celsius, I'm not used to, but yeah,

I mean, we. We do good nights below zero too.

So, you know, it depends if, you know, we get a

polar vortex coming down, you know, out of the north.

So. Yeah, we started off with

farmer's friends caterpillar tunnels. So those

are 16 foot wide and 100 foot long.

We start off with one, then we got another, and then

we got another one after that. So we were up to three, and then we

put up one more. So we have actually four. So we

kind of discovered that we can grow a lot

out of season or season extension for

crops. So we just kind of kept buying these

and we still use them and

they've been great. But the problem I run

into is that you have to manually open and close them

on a sunny day. You know, if I'm at market on a Saturday and it's

cold in the morning, I go to market and I come home

and it's sunny and they're, you know, the temperature swings are quite extreme.

So I've put vents in and tried putting

fans in. And, you know, or

if I go away for a conference or something for a day, I have to

try to find somebody to come open and close them. And you

know, that that's probably the biggest thing, you know, just.

Just the manual labor of that. But other than

that, I mean, we. We can grow quite a bit right now,

my farmer's friend. I've got lettuce, I've got some broccoli going.

Still. One of them I partially heat under

row cover. So I still have ginger,

turmeric, Swiss chard.

I still have some basil in the ground. That still looks okay. So,

you know, it's pretty late in the season for basil,

a lot of herbs. So, I mean, there's a lot of

stuff that, you know, we still have going. And this is in

the caterpillar tunnels. Yes. Yep.

So our first year growing, we Had a

duration come through and it took out two of our

tunnels and damaged the other two. So

we kind of discovered that from that point on

we needed something more robust. And

you know, we kind of started looking at greenhouses. And then we found

the usda, the Natural Resource Conservation Service,

they offer equip grants. So I don't know how

familiar you are with those, but

they're grants that you can apply for and get

funding for different variety, different things. So

our cattle pasture, our cattle waters, that was a equip grant that

we got. And then they have one for high tunnels. So we

applied for a grant and

I think it was 2022. We, we put up our first

Harnwell greenhouse. Nice. So

yeah. And we discovered that

everything just grows so much better in you

know, a greenhouse even compared to like a

caterpillar tunnel. So, you know,

a lot better management of temperatures and humidity,

you know, more growing space obviously. So our, our

high tunnels are 30 foot wide and

150 foot long.

And how many do you have? So we're putting

up numbers three and four right now. And then we're putting up

a shorter one that's think it's

30 by 30 by 48 I think is

the actual measurement. But that one will be a prop house.

So we'll do our seed starting in there in the spring

and it'll just be for like a, a workspace.

So the other thing with our, our, our high tunnels, we put

automation in with, with them. So we use Orisha, which

is based out of Canada and they've been great to work with.

The cool thing with that is I can get notifications

on my phone when you know, a temperature or anything is

wrong or out of range. If I'm not at

farm and there's a bad storm coming, I can get on my phone and I

can close the tunnels. Oh, perfect. That's much better.

Yeah. And runs in my ventilation

systems. They have options where you can have it do your watering,

lighting control, all kinds of different things. So I'm kind

of at the basic package. You know, just the automation

and ventilation and that's been great. You know,

a lot of humidity control going on. So,

so with, so with 235 foot by 100 foot long

greenhouses just so that I'm really, you know, mapping out the picture of

where Phelps Farm is at today. Is it just you and your

wife running the greenhouse or do you guys currently have staff?

I just have a couple part time staff that work on

weekends. But we are kind of looking for getting

part Time people, maybe a full time person during

the week for next season. It would be really beneficial.

So it saved me a lot of time, you know, having to deal with trellising

and harvesting and, you know, just having someone here

to help me out because I do this full time. So

this past season I was pretty much by myself other

than a couple hours on the weekend. So that was kind of

challenging, you know, doing, you know, planting,

harvesting, washing, packing for our csa, but also for

our weekend markets. So, yeah,

you know, if, if you know anybody, send them my way

also. I'll send them from Winnipeg. No, I, I, if I, if I know

anyone, I will definitely, definitely send them your

way. So would you be looking for, I guess, like an assistant grower with you

and your wife still being the head grower, or would you want someone to be

like a head grower? You know, probably just, you know,

assistant, you know, someone that can help us, you know, transplant stuff,

flip beds, harvest, washing, packing.

You know, trellising is, is the one big thing that, you

know, we kind of lacked on this past year. Trellising tomatoes and

cucumbers.

Oh, what else? You know, any, anything else that needs done. So,

you know, having someone here to help me physically, you know, do stuff

is, is very beneficial. Definitely. So again with kind

of mapping out with where Phelps Farm is at for all of your sales. Are

you going directly to customers? So are you primarily

still at, you know, farmers markets, CSA boxes, or

are you in retail stores now?

Yeah, so right now, right now we do csa, we do

farmers markets, and then we do some online

sales through the Iowa Food Hub up in

Decorah, and then we have our own

online store that we are just starting to get into

and kind of getting the ball rolling on that. So.

Yeah, sorry. I'm curious to know, why do you go directly to

customers for all of your sales and how come you didn't go to the

grocery retailer Avenue first? I'm just

curious to know that. Yeah, so, you

know, grocery retailers, you go directly to them.

Kind of the price point kind of plays into it, you know,

doing wholesale prices. And we, we're not to the scale

where we can really accommodate that quite yet, but this

next year, with our high tunnels, with the two more high

tunnels we're putting up, we're exploring that option

to do more wholesale and, you

know, maybe we can do more sales through the food Hub.

And they actually work with schools and other

restaurants. So they're kind of like a,

I think of it as like a logistics. Like they can, you

know, connect the Dots together. For us, you know,

that's one option that we're exploring more into.

But for like, you know, sending our product to like grocery stores,

um, you know, we, we just don't have enough product at this

time to do wholesale or this past year. We did it. Did you have

any challenges with getting your initial customer

base going for your CSA boxes, you know, at

the farmer's markets? Were there any challenges there?

I, I actually help out a lot of people starting at Mom Pop Shop

Vertical Farms. And they've been, they, they've been, you know,

doing pretty well with like getting their first few customers. But I'm just

interested because Jersey is a bit bigger scale than what they've been running.

Yeah. So when we first started doing csa, you know, we

just had a handful of customers and, you know, kind of

people that we knew and it just kind of spread

by word of mouth. And now we're doing a lot more advertising on like

social media. There's still a lot of word of

mouth. So, you know, people are telling other people and, you know,

that's pretty cool. So, you know, we've been kind of,

kind of growing in that sense. So,

you know, to get it started, you just, you have to start somewhere. Like

I was looking back at our first farmer's market, you know, several years ago,

and you know, we had one folding table with, you know, just

a handful of radishes and a couple of other things.

And now I feel like two or three tables

even this time of year at the winter farmers market that we go to.

So, you know, you gotta start somewhere and kind

of start learning, I guess, you know, figuring out what

works and what doesn't. And that, that's true for the CSA as

well. For your csa, do you, and your online

sales, do people come to pick up from you or do you go deliver

to your customers or do they pick up at the farmer's market?

Yeah. So we have three options. We do home

delivery, we do several drop sites

in nearby towns, and then we do a farm pickup option too.

So they're all priced differently. So we kind of have that flexibility that,

you know, maybe someone doesn't want to pay for home delivery and they

aren't too far from the farm, so they just pick up from the farm. And

then we have drop sites too. You know, other local businesses, we drop the boxes

off and then they just stop in those businesses and pick them up.

So we pray about like a 50 mile radius

from the farm that we service. Okay.

For the fall, we, this fall CSA that we Just wrapped

up. We started using a new app called Grown By.

It allows CSA members to customize their box.

So if they don't like kale or they don't like beets or something, they can

swap that item out and put something

else in or they can just delete it. And you know, if they don't

get the full value of the box that we determine it'll,

it'll issue them like an in store credit so they don't lose that value.

And with Grown by, they can also purchase add on

items. So they can add on meat,

eggs, maple syrup, honey, or

just a bunch of other veggies so they, you know, that's pretty cool

too, right? Every single box can be custom.

That's. Yeah, no, that's definitely cool. And because you guys also

provide meat, eggs, honey, all those

additional crops as well, right? Yep, yep.

Does it, do any of, does any of that come from your brother in law's

farm across the street? The beef does.

Okay, the beef comes from his farm and then it goes to

a locker where it's a USDA inspected

facility. And then we have a trailer

that is, it's a food license and our

mobile trailer with freezers in it. So that's where we store our

beef. And it's all, everything's frozen and prepackaged. So we've got steaks,

roasts and hamburger and stack sticks. So

you know, we have that option that people

can add on, you know, a couple ribeyes and

maybe they can, you know, meal plan ahead and figure out

this weekend, you know, have a cookout or something. So veggies,

meat, eggs, I mean just about everything you

could think of. Yeah, that's really cool. So since, you

know, from getting started to where you are at today,

what were some of the challenges that you've encountered

and what were, you know, what was kind of the biggest category of challenges?

Was it growing, Finding your customers, getting

the equipment solved? Like maybe talk a bit about

those kinds of things? Yeah, for. Well,

for growing. You know, I think every grower faces

challenges with pests and insects and

you know, you have this beautiful crop and then you know, next day

or two, you know, you come back and it's like there's caterpillars all over. Oh

no. What do you do? Like so, you know, that's,

that was a big learning curve for, for me, you know, just figure

out like what's going on? Why is my crop dying? It's not looking

good. So, you know, that, that was a

challenge to overcome and you know,

and that challenge never goes away. It's just a matter of how

you handle it. The other challenges, yeah,

definitely the markets. Our first year at the

farmer's market in Dubuque that we go to, we were kind

of at the end of a street, like a side street. And

you know, our sales weren't great and we were coming home with a lot of

product and you know, we were trying to decide do

we go back, you know, what do we do. I ended up,

you know, talking to the market manager and getting a spot on the

main street. Oh, and I went back the next year and our

sales were great. Oh, wow. So like

opening weekend I came back with, you know, stacks of empty totes. I'm like, this

is cool. Like, you know, it's just I was not in the right

location. So that's a challenge too. You know, it's

kind of a struggle. You have to learn what's

working and what's not and figure out

how to overcome it. The other kicker, you know,

the, the big thing that we had our first year growing, we had a duration

in December. So a duration, what we call is

like a large storm is straight line winds. Okay. Not

a, you know, but it's just a, you know, large

storm, high winds. So that came through our, our

farm 20, 21 in December

and previous up to that we had like

sustained 50 to 60 mile per hour winds. And

then that evening when the duration came through, we had winds of

excess of 75 miles per hour. And that took

out 2 of our farmer's friend tunnels, the, the smaller caterpillar tunnels.

And that was kind of devastating for us because we

lost so much crops. And you know,

the market before Christmas is a bigger market for us. Yeah,

you know, we just, you know that, that was a hard hit and

we kind of had to make a decision at that point, like, are we

going to continue, continue doing this and

you know, are we going to rebuild? And we kind of put,

you know, put a game plan together that

we, we needed better structures because our farm is on top

of a hill. So we always have wind. And

you know, if we have this wind event, there's going to be more wind

events. So we need something that's going to with withstand

wind. So that's why, another reason we went with carnlough greenhouses,

they can handle 100 mile per hour wind and a lot of snow and

they're just robust structures. So you know,

the challenges of finding, you know, robust structures

for us, that was, you know, that, that was a

hurdle too. How did you

Find out about the grants. When we started our

farm, we were working with our FSA office.

It's a usda, the Farm Service Agency. And

in that same office is a natural resource conservation office.

So we were just kind of talking to them and kind of, you know, found

out these different equip grants that are available

in cost share programs. So we decided, you

know, why, why not apply? It's not going to hurt anything and

it's not overly complicated to apply either. So

we were pretty, pretty happy that we've, we're on our

second equip grant for high tunnels. And

you know, we're pretty pleased with it. The grant actually

covers majority of the cost of the high tunnels.

So what percentage did it cover?

80 they paper per square foot.

So it depends on, you know, they just pay per,

per square footage wise. So whatever your

high tunnel is, you know, that's on you. You know, you just

have to put a structure up that you say you're going to put up

and they come out and certify it and then you get

reimbursed. Wow, that's so nice. So for us, you know,

it covers almost 100% of the high tunnels.

Wow. For what they pay now,

they don't pay for the, the extra bells and whistles, they don't pay for the

automation or venting. There's just the structure itself

and you have to grow in the ground inside that structure. Oh, you

have to grow in the ground? Yep, yep.

So you guys, I know in our pre call you were talking about how

you grow in the ground all. Just to clarify, all the crops

in the greenhouse that you're growing, they're all from the ground? You don't have garden

beds or anything like that? Yep, that's correct. And

it's year round. You're able to produce that way within the

high tunnels. Sometimes, you know, if it gets real cold,

the ground in the outer beds of the high tunnel will freeze because we

don't, we don't have like a, we've not input like insulation

barrier in the ground around the high tunnels. That would be cool

if I did, but so sometimes the ground around the outside

we'll get cold or slightly frozen. So depending

on what crops we have in, some can tolerate, some can't. But

the ground in the middle of the high tunnels, it never freezes. Yeah,

that's, that's awesome. What do you think is the vision,

you know, for future growth of Phelps Farms? You know, I know you mentioned putting

up two new high tunnels currently this year. Do you want

to get more high tunnels and, you know, get into grocery

stores like we kind of talked about. Or just keep building

your CSA box. I mean, honestly, you could almost have a grocery store

yourself with meat, eggs and all the veggies and honey and

whatnot. Just. Just about, you know, we thought

about, you know, having a farm store at the farm, but we're so far out

of town and down gravel roads, a lot of people just, you know, I

don't think would venture out thus far. We do have a little

farm store in town that we run on weekends. Oh, you have your own farm

store in town? Yeah, we rent a little storefront in

Gothenburg, so we do that on weekends and just. It's like our

own little farmers market. You know, we. We have a good handful of locals

and regulars that come in and buy from us.

So that's pretty cool. But for the future, you know, we. We do

want to expand our CSA and

do more wholesale. I don't know if it would be through grocery stores,

but schools, restaurants, stuff like that.

So another cool thing that we're doing is that we're putting

a processing kitchen in. We received a

RFSI grant through the Iowa Department of

Agriculture, and it stands for Resilient

Food System Infrastructure Program. So with that

grant, we're building out a processing

kitchen. So we will have the ability to wash, peel, slice, dice,

freeze, or freeze dried vegetables. So a way of

preserving vegetables that not only that we grow, but

we're looking at potentially buying vegetables from other local

farmers in the area to bring in and process

them and then be able to turn around and sell them as a

maybe, you know, a diced frozen product that we

can sell to schools and they can use it for soups or something,

you know, so there's a lot of things that are still in the

works. You know, we have to figure out our licensing and narrow

down our products. So we're

almost. We almost have all of our equipment in place. Early

spring next year, we'll be running some test batches of different

things to figure out what works and, you know, figure out

what. What people want. So kind of a

testing, testing markets. We, we have a lot of daikon

radishes, so we're really curious about maybe slicing

daikon radishes in our equipment

or dicing them and figure out if we can make some.

Something out of them. You know, we. We have so many of them and they

store so well. So that's kind of unique and different.

So we always try to figure out a niche,

you know, something that, you know, Filling a void

and kind of focusing on that rather than, you know, just

doing what everybody else is doing. And so the

slicing daikon radishes, I guess that would

be. Yeah, I've never, I've never really.

I don't think I've eaten many of those, but. Yummy.

Yeah. Would you say, would you say that like finding a niche and

offering something new to people was fundamental

to your guys initial success and you know, getting your

initial customer base?

Yeah. So one of the main things is, you

know, if you do get into like a niche or something, you

know, you're growing a specific product to try to have

consistency, to always have it at market.

That's the biggest thing is, you know, being consistent, you know,

showing up every week with, you know, kale,

lettuces, spinach. So that's probably the biggest challenge. One of the

bigger challenges for us is to have that consistency and that's not

always easy with weather and bugs and everything else. So

one of the things that we grow year round is actually celery. So I think

we're going into the third or fourth year of growing celery non

stop year round. So a lot of people, you

know, we kind of become known as the, you know,

celery people at market. You know, we've always got it, you know, we've

always got kale. We try to always have lettuce mix.

Winter time we'll have spinach, stuff like that. So yeah,

trying to just, you know, fill that void that,

you know, regrow things that people don't, you

know, other people might not be able to find in the winter. Yeah, no, that

makes a lot of sense. How, how many we your

CSA boxes, are they weekly or

monthly, you know, orders that people put in to sign

up? Yeah, so this coming year

we're, we're doing, I think our spring boxes every other week.

Our summer boxes are weekly and then fall is

every other week. So we offer a spring, summer and fall CSA and

then we also offer a winter farm membership and that's

exclusive just for past CSA members in the past

year. So that's kind of a,

a perk of being a CSA member. You can take advantage of our winter

share and that has fresh veggies, but

also maybe some preserved things or stuff that we've made,

you know, that's kind of unique and different. And last year was

our kind of our first trial run run of it. So this year

we're using grown by so we can, you know, offer

a customized option. So yeah, you know,

just trying to have A option available year

round. There are other farmers that do

CSAs and you know, it's more seasonal,

which is fine, but you know, we, we try to offer something that's, you know,

we, we keep going because we're still growing and you

know, we still got stuff in the ground and you know, things to offer.

So why not? How many people do you

have signed up for your farm membership?

Do you know what those numbers are? And

you know, you don't have to share any details if you don't feel

comfortable with that, but even like a range.

So last year we, we probably about 30, 30

CSA members for spring, another about

30 for summer, and then fall we had about 21.

So it dipped down a little bit. This coming year

we're, we're hoping to increase that number and with it, you

know, more features and the ability to customize

boxes or skip boxes, you know, oh, that's cool.

There's a lot more, there's a lot more options and I

think that might be more appealing to people. It's just a matter of

us learning how to do the marketing of it. That's a

challenge. Okay, so we are, we're actually selling our

CSA boxes right now. We have a promo code. You can

get 10% off if you sign up for spring, summer and fall for next season.

So we're already selling next year's boxes and then in

the spring we'll reopen that and you know, maybe offer some

other promotions. Very, very

interesting. I, yeah, I, I have so

many more questions, but maybe I'll just follow up with you

after the interview. So your story is

definitely really interesting. It's nice to have someone on this

podcast who's going, you know, directly to customers, csa,

farmers markets. Because a lot of people, I find when they

want to get into the greenhouse space, access

to capital is a big barrier. And to get into the grocery

stores and the retailer chains like you have to be, you know, just

like you say, a certain size to have the volume to make it

worth the investment. So for new people looking to get

into the greenhouse sector, I think like listening to your experience

will be very beneficial to them and just, you

know, thinking of ways to get like their first customers and

whatnot. I know for sure. In Manitoba anyhow, we don't have a lot

of these year round growers who are, you know, kind

of doing what you guys are doing. And you know, we are a bit colder,

but it is still very similar climate. The one thing

I would mention is that we, we invest

quite heavily in education and Learning new things.

So if they're a new greenhouse grower, figure out your,

you know, if you have a local university that offers

like a service, you know, that can help. For us, we,

we work with Iowa State University Extension. The

person's name is Dan Filius. So he's been a huge

help with us. He's a specialty in a horticulture crop

specialist. So yeah, know if I have a bug problem

or I've, you know, something going on. For example, my celery, I had

brown leaves. I sent him a picture. He actually came to the farm and

you know, whipped out his little microscope and figured out that I have

mites going on. So you know, kind of figure out solution.

So, you know, having someone like that

in your, your toolbox is like, you know,

a huge asset and it's free, you know. So

he also hosts a high tonal conference. He just had one

last week down in Des Moines, near Des Moines.

So yeah, Iowa State University Extension.

Great resource. The other resource that we rely

heavily on is the market Gardner master class.

So that's from J.M. fartier. And he focuses on

field production and greenhouse production. And I believe

he uses hardwall greenhouses now too. So that's pretty

cool. Like, you know, you watch his videos or

you know how he does things and you can see the greenhouse like, oh,

that looks just like mine. Like that's pretty cool, you know, and

you can see how he's doing things. So

the class is a little spendy, but it has paid for itself ten

times over already. You know, just the amount of knowledge and that's

kind of like our bible. So, you know, if something's not working, we'll

go back and re watch it and we'll figure out, oh, he updated this. You

know, this is new. Like, oh, we can do that. You know,

so, you know, just a constant, you know,

learning new information that way. The other

resource that we rely on is organization as a

nonprofit here in Iowa called Practical Farmers of Iowa or

pfi. So they also have a lot of learning

opportunities. They have grants, cost chairs.

They have a lot of different resources that you know, can help someone

getting started for, you know, management

of business or land access. I mean, you name

it. I mean they have, they can get you pointed in the right

direction at least. They have an annual conference coming up, I think in

January. So really awesome stuff.

Very, very great organization. And

then there's a Midwest Organic Vegetable Production

conference in Madison, Wisconsin. I think that's in January

as well. I could be wrong, but that's also Kind of hosted by like

Iowa State Extension, Fair Share, CSA

and a couple other organizations. So we went to that last year

also. Very, very beneficial. We're going to go again

this year probably. So, you know, just,

we take a lot of notes and, you know, constantly getting

new ideas to maybe try something else on the

farm or, you know, refine things on the farm. Be more efficient

and cost effective. Yeah, absolutely. Well,

that's, that's really good advice, you know, for, for

new growers is to really invest in, in your education, you know,

from. And it sounds like you guys did a wide

variety of education too. Like you had some

horticulture, some business planning, partnered with

programs who could help you out with grants. So that's, yeah, really

good advice to share. Just, you know, one last

question for you and I'm hoping that, you know, again, elaborate as much

as you can on this question because it is, it's always our

last question on these podcasts, but it's also, I think,

one of the, you know, most inspiring one to leave with

people. So what is your proudest moment as a

grower? So

we have two children, they're five and six, and

we bring them to the farm with us and they're learning

on how to grow, you know, seed starting and

transplanting and growing vegetables. And yeah, like we

teaching them that you can grow food. And so, you

know, that's, that's probably the proudest moment as a

grower and a parent. And our

kids are number one quality control analysts. So if they get a

cherry tomato that's bad, they're going to tell you about it.

So, you know, being able to grow veggies and then having them

to be able to just, they can go pick, you know, all the cherry tomatoes

they want. We don't get upset with them. You know, if they want

to go pick some cucumbers and snack on them, they can, you

know, pick cherry tomatoes right from the plant and eat them. I mean,

so that, that's pretty cool. Like we, you know, we

teach them how to grow food and they get to have some fun doing

that, too. Oh, that's.

That. That's a really sweet one. Thanks. Thanks for sharing.

Well, well, thank you so much, Andrew, for sharing your story

about Phelps Farm. Where you guys started, where you came

from, you know, where you're at today. I think this will be a really

beneficial podcast for all those new greenhouse

growers looking to get into this space, but maybe want to start a bit

smaller and go the CSA route. I already know of, you know, a list of

like five or six people. People that I'm going to recommend this to. Yeah,

definitely. And you can check out our website,

phelpsfarmsioa.com we're on Facebook and

Instagram as well. So, you know, you can go see all the

pictures and things that are happening on the farm.

So. Yeah, definitely. Well, yes. Thank you so much

for your time. Thank you for agreeing to do the show. Yeah,

thank you. I hope you enjoyed this episode of

Greenhouse Success Stories, hosted by Trina Semenchek. Thanks to our guests

who make this all possible. Special thanks to our title sponsor, Arnois

Greenhouse. To read the full show notes for each episode, which includes an episode

summary, key takeaways and guest resources mentioned, please

visit greenhousesuccess.com.