The start of Jelli's in 2001....
When we planted our first 25,000 strawberry plants in 2001, none of us imagined that Jelli’s Market would blossom into what we have today. The primary intent at the beginning was to earn a little extra money for our 3 girls’ college funds. Our first few years growing 4 acres of strawberries worked out pretty well, so we expanded to about 10 acres and thanks to the encouragement of our customers, we also planted 2 acres of raspberries.
...and today!
As the years passed, it seemed that we were adding a new enterprise each year. Currently, we grow 12 acres of strawberries, 2 acres of raspberries, 2 acres of blueberries, 1 acre of asparagus and about 20 acres of sweet corn. We also start our own vegetable plants in our greenhouse to plant in our 2 acre garden-everything from broccoli to zucchini. Extra vegetables, annual flower bedding plants and a few hundred hanging baskets are sold out of our greenhouse each spring.
In 2009 we formed a partnership with a neighbor and planted an apple orchard. This added a whole new “season” for us. Now we start with asparagus and the greenhouse in May, move on to strawberries and other produce during the summer, then on to apples and pumpkins in the fall. We currently have close to 5,000 apple trees, a few hundred peach trees, and an assortment of pear and plum trees. A large percentage of the apple trees are Honeycrisp, but we have everything from Macintosh to Snowsweet apples as well. In 2022, our beloved orchard manager Terry Bossell passed away, so the management of the orchard has now passed on to our family. We are saddened by the loss of Terry, but we will continue to operate the orchard and honor his hard work and legacy.
2011 brought the addition of a much needed Farm Store which we built inside of an already existing pole shed on the farm. All of our produce is sold in the Farm Store along with our very own farm raised meats. We proudly raise Angus beef, pork, lamb, chicken, and turkey on our farm. Our meat has become quite popular with our customers over the years!
Our daughter Lindsay got married in August of 2020