Our Produce
Wishwell Farms has added a new item to grow nearly every year. The decision to diversify our crops more each year has been consumer driven. As of now, we grow over 20 different types of fruits and vegetables, and offer 10 or 12 other items grown by other farms. We grow many of our vegetables on raised beds covered with black plastic mulch, with drip tape under the mulch to irrigate. The black mulch heats the soil up earlier in the season to provide an earlier harvest, also keeps the weeds down, and keeps the moisture in the soil longer. Each year we are growing more of our vegetables on a cover crop of rye in a no-till system, to avoid plowing and lowering the use of plastic mulch. We believe this approach helps maintain the biodiversity in the soil and prevents top soil erosion.
The diversity of our produce at Farmers’ Markets is one of the things that our customers have come to expect. Wishwell Farms is known for consistently offering only the freshest produce, of the highest quality and having a friendly and diligent staff.
We offer quantity discounts on many of the items we grow, as well as discounted produce that is often used for canning.StawberriesWe began growing strawberries in 1999 on one acre. We now have 6-7 acres on any given year and our fields are open for picking your own usually around June 1st and continues for about three weeks. Call ahead for picking conditions and pricing. We also have pre-picked berries available during the entire strawberry season.
Greenhouse TomatoesWe began growing greenhouse tomatoes in 2001. The demand for home-grown tomatoes during June and July was so great we felt we needed to grow our own instead of buying southern grown tomatoes. In 2005 we added a second greenhouse, and switched over to growing all of our greenhouse tomatoes hydroponically, instead of in the soil. The flavor, sugar levels, and over all quality remained the same, but the yields doubled.
Growing tomatoes indoors is very labor intensive, but it is also very rewarding, when we are the first farm to have tomatoes at the markets. We also grow about one acre of outdoor field tomatoes, but eventually they will succumb to the frost in October, and once again the greenhouse tomatoes are in high demand until their termination around Thanksgiving time. After Christmas the cycle begins again with a new seeding of greenhouse tomatoes, which will be ready for harvest in the middle of April.
Sweet CornThis has been our specialty since the beginning. It all began with extras from the family patch being sold out of the garage in the mid 1990’s. Within a few years it grew to about three acres and became the main source of funding Jason Wish’s college education. Now it requires nearly 40 acres of ground each year to meet the growing demand for our sweet corn.
Varieties have improved dramatically over the years, and we pride ourselves on keeping up with the latest changes. By using the University’s growing and tasting trial reports and by doing our own on farm trials, we believe that we offer to our customers the very best there is to offer when it comes to sweetness, texture and over all flavor.
We pick our corn fresh each morning, and put it directly into the cooler to preserve its sweetness throughout the heat of the day. By planting sweet corn nearly a dozen times between April and July, and using different maturities, we are ensured to have a fresh patch to pick from each week of the entire summer until frost.
Cantaloupe and WatermelonOver the years we have come to realize how well the soils at Wishwell Farms grow large, sweet melons. Our customers can’t wait to get our home grown cantaloupes and seedless watermelons, when they begin coming out of the fields in early August.
Before our own melons are ready, we stock our markets with Indiana’s finest. But it’s our own home grown melons that keeps our patrons coming back for more until the end of September.
Wholesale
We have been selling produce to Fresh Encounter of Findlay Ohio since 1999. Fresh Encounter owns and operates a small supermarket chain of about 33 grocery stores in Ohio and Indiana. Eight of those stores are within a 45 minute drive of our farm, and receive sweet corn, tomatoes, and melons from us twice each week during the summer, as well as pumpkins in the fall.
We also wholesale to several other farms in the area, and deliver any unmarketable or surplus produce to regional food banks numerous times throughout the summer.