Conscious Choice: Bloomin’ Beautiful

May 2006

Bloomin’ Beautiful

Sandhill Organics may be the area’s only local organic flower farmer now, but its success may tempt others to push pure petals

By Janine MacLachlan

Many of us wouldn’t think of showing up at mom’s house on Mother’s Day without a bouquet of fresh blooms in hand.

And it’s probably a pretty safe bet that most of us don’t even give a second thought to where these flowers come from, or understand how this gift of beauty probably had an ugly beginning in toxic chemicals and a high pollution/energy quotient in transporting costs.

Well, don’t get discouraged yet, because there’s a beautiful solution: local organic flowers.

It began a few years ago when Matt Sheaffer, and his wife, Peg, dipped their toes into flower production at Sandhill Organics, an organic farm located within the conservation community of Prairie Crossing in Grayslake, Ill., which is located 40 miles northwest of Chicago.

“We were hesitant about flowers at first because we didn’t have the experience,” Sheaffer said. But their interest was piqued because Peg had done a stint as an intern at a Texas flower farm.

So the couple decided to give it a go because they thought, Sheaffer said, “taking care of them is about the same (as vegetables).”

Now, Sheaffer is just as likely to wax enthusiastically about his bold, brash, beautiful blooms, like the chartreuse bells of Ireland or the vibrant snapdragons, as he is to talk about this year’s crop of lettuce or zucchini.

Sandhill Organics might be the Chicago area’s only organic flower farm. (If there are others, we haven’t heard about them, but we would love to.) But it probably won’t be the last or have a corner on this market for long.

Fresh as a Daisy

One benefit of local flowers is that many last longer, predominantly because they show up at the market closer to the time that they are picked. In the case of Sandhill, that can be two days, compared to up to six days for those produced in Central and South America.

And there are other downsides to buying flowers grown in Latin America. There’s the concept of “embody energy,” Sheaffer said, which refers to “the amount of fuel used for shipping and refrigeration, and chemicals to keep the flowers fresh.” But compare the fuel needed to ship and store flowers grown 2,500 miles away to the fuel used to farm flowers locally and truck them to nearby markets, he said.

Another reason local is better, Peg Sheaffer said, is that worker safety is not very important on flower farms in such places as Colombia and Ecuador.

“There’s a disproportionate number of young women on flower farms in South America,” she said. “People who buy our flowers can be assured our workers are treated well and not exposed to toxic chemicals.”

So Matt Sheaffer doesn’t hesitate when asked about the age-old debate about which is more important, organic or local. He responded: “Buy local whenever you can.”

Farm Beginnings

Matt, 31, and Peg, 30, both grew up in the Midwest, he in Glen Ellyn and she in various communities in Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin. They were suburban kids, and none of their parents had farming backgrounds, though Matt’s dad had a prairie-plant landscaping business. They met in 1998 while working as employees at Harmony Valley Farm in Wisconsin, which is known for blazing the trail of organics in the Midwest.

They married in 1990 and now have three children: a son, Avery, 3, pictured on their website as their Vice President of Marketing; and twin 5-month-old daughters, Ruby and Laurel.

When they worked at Harmony Valley, Peg Sheaffer said, they didn’t know they wanted to be farmers — it was just a “fun summer job. But we fell in love with the work and the lifestyle as well as the beauty of the farm.

“It felt like every day was a day well spent. The results of our labor were so tangible. And we used every part of our bodies. We were physically tired and mentally tired at the end of the day but we knew that we had exercised all of our faculties and abilities. And we loved to eat and loved to cook and loved to talk about food.”

That experience inspired the couple to set up their own operations. The trend is similar to that of forward-thinking chefs such as Alice Waters, of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., who went on to inspire many culinary professionals to start restaurants focused on local, seasonal cuisine.

In 2004, the Sheaffers moved their operation from their first farm in East Troy, Wis. to Prairie Crossing, where they lease the farm and buildings.

The Sheaffers’ farm in East Troy started in 2000 with just a half-acre and was planted with tomatoes, lettuce, onions and other vegetables, but no flowers at all. Today, their farm in Grayslake is turning a profit with 42 acres, of which 12 to 15 are under cultivation at any one time. Around two of those acres are planted with 18 to 20 types of flowers and the other 10 to 13 acres with 35 to 40 types of vegetables. The rest of their acreage is planted with soil-building crops such as rye or vetch to add carbon, or alfalfa to pull nitrogen into the soil. This care for the soil is what ensures its longevity, or sustainability, because these farming practices entail, first and foremost, caring for the soil.

Community Supported Agriculture

The couple manages the operation as what’s commonly referred to as a CSA, an acronym for community supported agriculture. A CSA operates in much the same way as a magazine subscription: you pay at the beginning of the season, and collect your shares (the flowers) every week.

Flower shares can be included as part of a Sandhill CSA package, for those who want a steady supply of organic blooms on hand every week. The flower shares cost $180 for 12 weeks of fresh blooms, with pick-up points in Glen Ellyn, Clarendon Hills, Barrington, Oak Park and Chicago’s West Loop Gate neighborhood.

Sandhill also regularly has a stand selling flowers to shoppers at farmers markets on Saturdays at Prairie Crossing, Deerfield and Oak Park. The farm used to have a stand at Chicago’s Green City Market in Lincoln Park (between Clark Street and Stockton Drive at about 1700 north) but recently dropped out because they couldn’t commit to the midweek market day required by the Green City Market’s Wednesday and Saturday schedule.

Beautiful Bonus

A final bonus to the flower production, Matt Sheaffer said, is that people really seem to appreciate the flowers in an unconditional way that translates into them reaching deep into their pocketbooks.

You can’t underestimate the sheer desire created by the flowers’ beauty.

“People hem and haw over the price of tomatoes,” said Sheaffer. “Then (they) buy two big bouquets of flowers without even asking the price.”

Then again, it might be because the next stop after buying the flowers is mom’s house.

Janine MacLachlan, Conscious Choice’s regular dining columnist and self-confessed “family farm groupie,” has fresh milk and flowers on her dining room table as often as possible.

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