Our Farm

Our farm is a market-garden farm in which we sell direct to local customers and all produce is sold within a 30-mile radius. Our farm’s strengths include our closeness to market, which reduces distribution costs and maximizes crop nutrient retention, our crop diversity, which minimizes pest and disease pressure, and our closeness to our community, which shortens the feedback loop between our customers and us, allowing us cater our production to our communities’ preferences.

Our one acre of intensive production space is precisely divided to include leafy greens, firm greens, herbs, the allium family, the solanacea family, summer cucurbits, fall cucurbits, root vegetables and legumes, which makes crop timing and management critical to our success. We practice many sustainable and ecologically conservative methods. We rotate the location of our crops annually to reduce pest and disease pressure. We use insect netting to reduce the pest pressure on the most susceptible crops, including those in the cucurbit (cucumber, squash, melon) and brassica (broccoli, kale, cabbage, kohlrabi) families. We use integrated pest management, which emphasizes proper pest scouting, management of beneficial insect populations, and crop and location specific treatment using organic pesticides when preventative methods are insufficient.

The key to market-garden farming is quick plant succession, high planting density, large transplant size, and careful planning. Cold weather looms in northeast Ohio well into April and May, but with the erection of low tunnels made of ½-inch conduit, covered by a spun polyethylene row cover, hardy crops receive sufficient protection to grow and thrive when ambient temperatures maintain in the 30s and 40s. This allows us to transplant earlier in the season than we could if the plant were growing uncovered in the field.

The majority of our vegetable production is done in minimally-tilled soil, with a focus on maintaining the soil structure and high levels of organic matter. We use hand tools to counteract compaction and improve aeration. We use plastic mulch with drip irrigation to prevent soil and nutrient erosion, to increase yields, improve crop quality, and minimize weeds. In our 24'x48' high tunnel we grow tomatoes and cucumbers hydroponically using a drip irrigation system.

Meet The Farmers

Jimmy Myers

I grew up only a few miles from the farm in southern Medina county. I consider myself a jack-of-all-trades, and credit my many skills to some great mentors throughout the numerous jobs that I have had starting at an early age. I graduated from college in 2012 from Ohio University. I loved my time at Ohio University I feel like that school brought out the best in me. I studied media production and visual communications. I still enjoy film and still find time to work on different projects. I put my web development skills to use working on this site. I also took a fair amount of agriculture classes at OU including a sustainable gardening class that greatly influenced me and what we are doing with this farm. My love of agriculture was also influenced by my parents, especially my Dad, who has used and taught me organic agriculture practices throughout my life. After college I took a job at CropKing doing media work including videos, websites, the catalog as well as some sales, construction, IT, and occasionally welding. In 2013 I was able to purchased 10 acres of land previously maintained as a golf course, hence the farm name. I refinished the 1,700 sq ft clubhouse as a residence and have performed extensive work to prepare several acres for vegetable production. 

Casondra Clawson

I grew up in York, Pennsylvania, completely removed from agriculture, and I went on to attend Drexel University in Philadelphia to study biomedical engineering. I had always gravitated toward the STEM subjects, with my main focus on biology and medicine, though, like many in their early college years, I was uncertain of the path I wanted to pursue. Late my freshman year I became a member of the Drexel rowing team, and that athletic commitment invigorated my interest in nutrition, which at that time was focused on nutrition for performance purposes. Though the coursework within my concentration, biomaterials and tissue engineering, was challenging and intense, I never felt it was my true calling. Following my undergraduate in spring 2010 I enrolled in a master's program at Drexel in biological science while continuing to be a member of the rowing team due to my final year of NCAA rowing eligibility, and then serve as a graduate assistant the second year of my master's program. In graduate school I refined my interest in nutrition to focus on vegetables, the most primary of food components, and had the opportunity to work with a group of students with similar passions who were just exploring the tip of urban agriculture and hydroponics. By finally deciding to pursue such a narrow field I was lucky enough to be hired in June 2012 by the hydroponic company CropKing located in Lodi, OH. I worked in product and commercial sales for two years before moving into the position of greenhouse manager. In that position I managed the company's experimental greenhouse and raised thousands of plants managing the equipment, and building confidence in my horticultural skills. In my three years at the company I became very knowledgeable of and experienced with the equipment used in hydroponic greenhouse production, the techniques, and agriculture in general, and I had the opportunity to work with experts in the field. In those years I traveled the country meeting with hydroponic growers of varying scales and professionals in academia. Starting Front 9 Farm in the summer of 2015 was the next step in pursuing my passion for diverse vegetable production and working as an agricultural producer. I look forward to borrowing techniques from the world of high tech/controlled environmental agriculture and applying them to a lower tech setting, and applying my knowledge of agricultural products, materials and irrigation equipment to our market garden operation.