Our History
A Five Generation Family Farm
A Holstein Heritage
From horses and hand milking, through the Great Depression, to the first farm in Polk County to have a calf conceived by frozen AI semen, to a record-setting herd of registered Holsteins, four generations of Burkes milked cows on the homestead. This lasted until a fire destroyed the barn in 1988.
The Next Generation
In 2008, we moved back to the farm- which had been sitting empty. That same year, we began with a small table at the Amery Farmers Market selling wild blackberries we picked in the woods.
Over the next few years we added more and more to our vegetable gardens. Before we knew it, we were growing nearly 5 acres of produce!
We renamed the farm after the locally famous Apple River swimming hole just a half mile up the road.
IQ
Healthy Beginnings
Our early gardens were created in the century-old barnyard, fertilized by dairy cows for decades.
As we needed more garden space, we expanded into the old pastureland- land that had been virgin prairie for centuries and had never been tilled.
This provided a naturally rich soil for our crops, allowing us to forego any fertilizing during the early years.
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