Grassroots Farm in Monroe

The Farm Team
Grassroots Farm is owned and operated by FL Morris (also known as Lindsey Morris Carpenter) and her mother Gail. FL grows all of our veggies from seed to harvest, and raises livestock from day-old to processing. Gail keeps the operation afloat with “behind the curtain” management of owning a small farm business. Gail also brings her lifelong gardening, food preservation, and teaching skills to the table, and has been trained as a professional food processor.

Grassroots Farm wouldn’t be where it is today without the support of our family, friends and neighbors. A special thanks to Lindsey’s Aunt J for her continued encouragement and support.

Our Farm’s Herstory
Mother and Daughter team Gail and FL purchased land that would become Grassroots Farm in late Summer of 2007. They hit the ground running in Fall 2008, planting a few hundred cloves of garlic.

Since 2009, Grassroots Farm has participated in various Milwaukee, Chicago, and Monroe, Wisconsin farmers’ markets, including the Andersonville Farmers’ Market in Chicago for 8 seasons, and we are now re focused close to home at the New Glarus Farmers’ Market on Fridays from 3:00pm to 6:30pm.

Grassroots Farm began it’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share program in 2010, which at it’s peak served 80 families, through 2016. We want to thank all of our CSA customers of the past for supporting our women led, chemical-free farm. We are not sure of how the CSA model can fit into the future of our farm. We are open to stepping into the need if it should arrive in our Green County, Wisconsin Nieghborhood.

FL has always had a passion for growing high quality, flavorful tomatoes, and considers the crop to be our specialty. We have been wholesaling tomatoes since 2009, and we continue to work with local restaurants, and seek new partnerships, into this 2018 tomato season.

Community relationships formed around vegetable pick up sites, market booths, and the farm itself popping up like dandelions in Spring. We sought and delved into local partnerships with fellow farmers, cheesemakers, bakers, and restaurateurs. But we want to do more than just grow amazing, nutritious food and distribute it to folks who can afford it and have the knowledge to store and prepare it.

Humbled by the life of farming, but also squeezed tight by the labor, management and marketing demands, FL and Gail took a much needed break in 2017. With a fresh lens and a bigger picture view, the farmers of Grassroots Farm are taking their learnings and reflection to a new level, one that is steeped in both the farming lifestyle they value, but also in the community based, broad access food system and farmer support ethics that propels it all.

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