Official Farm Tour 2012

Hello Friends, Family, and Farmies!

With so much happening it’s hard for us to believe that we’re already halfway through our fourth growing season! Amidst the extreme heat our parched land has still managed to produce a beautiful bounty of summer vegetables (let’s just say this weather has made us pros in the drip tape department), and we’ve already begun sowing a bevy of fall crops.

In November 2011 we became the proud owners of some land. At our new location we’ve been able to expand our production significantly. More crops and animals require extra assistance, and we are thrilled to have Matt Myszka on the team as a full-time farm hand. We are so excited to be on our own property, and the farm is thriving at our new home. We found where we’re supposed to be, and now it’s hard to imagine we were ever anywhere else. All our excitement, passion, and dedication is now concentrated; the earth is practically buzzing with energy.

Since moving we’ve put even more land under cultivation, giving us an amazing selection of produce for Station Two Twenty. It’s such an advantage to work with the food we grow. As the years pass we continue to develop deeper relationships with the products. This year we’re growing over thirty varieties of tomatoes, each with its own unique characteristics. Knowing the subtleties of our food from its beginnings enables us to highlight every intricate detail as it finds its way to your plates.

Looking back it’s incredible to think how far we’ve come since our first growing season in 2009, when we joined the forces fighting on the new food frontier. That year was all about figuring out how to farm, teaching ourselves the basics of raising our own food. The following year we began to assemble our team, creating a solid base for the Epiphany Farms family. As we laid the foundations we started experimenting with our harvests – the dinner parties were born. Before we knew it we were entering our third season, this time armed with a restaurant to showcase all of the farm’s fare. And now, here we are well into our fourth season. We’ve mastered the finer details of managing Station Two Twenty and running a farm, and our mission has become to streamline the two. This season is all about joining Station Two Twenty and Epiphany Farms, making them a seamless unit to provide the freshest, most wholesomely delicious dining around.

Part of growing is realizing our limits. As you may have noticed we are no longer vendors at the Bloomington Farmer’s Market. We want to ensure that we can accomplish each endeavor impeccably. To do this we have dedicated ourselves completely to the farm and the restaurant, meaning we had to say goodbye to our booth at the market. However, during these times of summer abundance we do have produce bags available for purchase at Station Two Twenty, full of fresh-picked, in-season surplus.

As the union of Station Two Twenty and Epiphany Farms solidifies we are excited and eager to invite everyone to our new home. On September 2^nd, we will be having our first official farm tour of the year. We can’t wait for all of you to see our progress, and share in our next stage of development! We are so privileged to have such wonderful support from all of you, and we feel overwhelmingly grateful to be a part of this inspiring community. We are offering 60 tickets for this event at a price of $95 per guest. Tickets are available at Station Two Twenty or we can send them to your home via mail.

Additionally, Station 220 and Epiphany Farms are always in need of passionate people, whether they be volunteers or restaurant staff. If you have an interest in working with us at the farm, or in the front or back of the house, please contact us at (309) 828-2323 or info@station220.com.

We look forward to seeing all of you at the farm and in the restaurant!

The Epiphany Farms & Station Two Twenty Team

Epiphany Farms Restaurant!

It is already November and only a month and a half left for this year. Epiphany Farms has been having very busy year and apologize for the lack of updates.

Epiphany Farms has taken over a historic restaurant located in downtown Bloomington at 220 E. Front St. in April, 2011. The building once served as a fire station that was built in 1902 and saved Bloomington from several big fires.

The food we serve at Station 220 is seasonally sensitive and spontaneously changing depends on the daily / weekly harvest. We serve lunch & dinner and provide banquet & catering service at our venue or off-premises with our special menu.

If you want to check more information about Station 220 restaurant, please visit our website www.station220.com.

Also please check our Facebook Page for more frequent updates about farm and restaurant.

Hope you all have happy holidays!

Hello EFE friends,

Thank you very much for your support! Epiphany Farms is no longer having pork and egg pick-up at our Downs Office. All our products are available at our farm location 23676 800North Rd. Downs, IL 61736. Place an order and schedule your visit for a pick-up.

Currently Pork tenderloin is sold out and Hock's are about 3lb per package.

Please order to info@epiphanyfarms.com or 309-378-2403 at your convenience.

2011 Epiphany Farms pork & egg sales

Dear Epiphany Farms friends,

Hope all is well with you.

This brutal winter's almost half way gone and we are all excited to get ready for our third growing season. We have finished our seed order for the spring and planning out the planting schedule and also waiting for a warm day to turn the giant compost pile from our animals.

Our farm families - Houdini, Pam, Gary, Grace, Mae, Dennis, Pancetta, Guan etc. etc. - are all having great time sometimes outside or in the barn. They are healthy and growing amazingly. About 200 laying hens are having great egg production and our first batch of baby pigs are already fully grown. We had to bring 11 pigs to the slaughter house last week and therefore here's good news for our fans!

EFE is having a weekly eggs and pork sales in our Downs Office - 204 S. Seminary St. Downs, IL 61736 on every Wednesday from 4 to 7pm. We are expecting this weekly event continues till the restaurant opening. Below is our 2011 pricing structure.

For a bulk purchase - whole/half , please contact info@epiphanyfarms.com or 309-378-2403 for more information.

‘Tis the Season

December 3, 2010

‘Tis the Season

Winter is fast approaching and all efforts at the farm are changing dramatically. During the summer and early fall, most of the jobs around the farm consisted of daily harvests and overall maintenance of the farm and crops. Once the cold weather starts creeping into the forecast, the daily chores switch to winter preparations for the entire farm. The past few weeks have consisted of prepping the green houses and poly-tunnels, which act as seasonal extenders for the crops that Epiphany wants to keep harvesting year round. The main greenhouse, which is located in the back garden, will contain most of Epiphany’s plants, especially ones that have a hard time surviving the severe winter freeze. In fact, the large greenhouse in the back garden is basically where Epiphany all started.

Ken Myszka, the founder and head chef of Epiphany Farms Enterprise, mentioned that all of their tropical and garden plants were stocked in the greenhouse when he first moved back to Downs, IL back in January of 2009. He said, “The whole greenhouse was being utilized and them some”. He also mentioned it was extremely difficult to divide the limited amount of space in the greenhouse and share growing room for all his crops. Now, the whole Epiphany team has utilized the majority of the land in the back and a small portion in the front for more garden space.

The seasonal changes have a large impact on what happens on a daily basis here at Epiphany. The mornings that I work during the week start at 8a.m. when I walk into the kitchen and I’m immediately greeted by either Ken or Stu Hummel. They are always drinking coffee and staring at the television set propped above the fridge checking out the daily forecasts on the weather channel. In fact, the T.V. never changes channels. The weather is all they care about on the farm. It’s funny, whenever I try to make any sort of casual conversation with the guys and Nanam and I happen to mention a T.V. show or a movie, they never know what I’m talking about. All of them rarely have any free time to themselves. So, as you can probably tell, most of the “casual” conversation is usually only about work. That is how dedicated these motivated individuals are at what they do, and what they want to accomplish. Everyday, it is the same routine: chores, work, jobs, lunch, and more work until they finally make their way into the kitchen and fit in dinner party preparations for the night. It never stops for them. The amount of work they put in on one astounds me. However, the most awarding factor is how well they work together and how efficiently they get what needs to be done on the tightest of schedules.

One whole side of the wall in their office is covered with monthly planners and a staggering amount of multi-colored post-it notes full of upcoming meetings and dinner parties. Like the old saying goes, behind a good man, there is always a great woman. While the guys maintain the farm and prepare for dinner parties, Nanam is constantly working downstairs in the office on scheduling, accounting, and keeping in contact with their correspondents. She is the woman behind all the hard labor and what makes all of Epiphany’s operations run as smooth as they do. Now that winter has made itself evident in the last week or so, everyone at the farm has had to chip in and help prepare for the winter jobs. Today, Kevin Marquardt (intern), Nick Stuberg (volunteer) and I had to help with the morning chores consisting of distributing feed and water to all the animals on the farm, milking the EFE dairy cow, Pam, and grinding feed. Later in the morning all three of us lined the 1/3 of a mile long driveway with colored steaks as guidelines for snow trucks that come and plow the pathways on the farm. From there, we headed back to the the front garden and worked the seasonal extender poly-tunnels that incubate the winter crops from dying off. All three of us had to line the plastic covers with bricks and barrels of mulch in order to capture as much heat as possible. The poly-tunnels are the driving force that allows Epiphany to harvest all year round and still have organic ingredients for their high demanded dinner parties.

Overall, the beginning of the winter has been a dramatic switch of jobs and tasks on the farm, but has also presented the opportunity with more time to keep up with my journals, blogs and pictures. So I hope that all of you will stay in touch with Epiphany’s Facebook, website and blog to see behind the scene action of the farm and coming soon in January, construction at the restaurant location.

Tim Blakemore

I am Thankful for Epiphany Farms: Thanksgiving Market Sale 2010

I am Thankful for Epiphany Farms: Thanksgiving Market Sale 2010

The anticipation had been building up for the last few weeks. Epiphany Farms had been promoting their daily harvests through local market sales for the last two weeks in front of their restaurant location on East Monroe Street in Downtown Bloomington. To all of them at Epiphany, the Thanksgiving Market Sale was the quintessential effort to provide Bloomington-Normal select sorts of their freshly picked organic harvests including:

o Assorted radishes

o Carrots

o Scallions

o Arugula

o Kohl Rabi

o Pak Choy

o Leeks

o Kale

o Turnip tops

o Mustard greens

o Head lettuce

o Fennel

o Napa Cabbage

o Salad green mixes

The harvests alone at the farm had been back-breaking work for the past few weeks since most of the crops were dying off from the threatening frosts of the fall and fast approaching winter. However, the weather had been extraordinarily mild for all of October helping with the prolonged harvest of most of the crops on the farm. I remember going to the Farm all of October wearing nothing but work jeans and an old beat up t-shirt embracing the unusually warm weather. However, I wasn’t the only one enjoying the warm weather. All of the fall crops had been basking in the warm sun, especially in the front garden which is solely divided on south facing slopes (at a 30 degree angle) in order to capture the full potential of the sun. It was peculiar though; every other sign outside told me that winter was fast approaching, the absent leaves, bare tree branches, grass turning a grayish green, but the warm weather allowed the farm to fully produce to its potential and make a killing at the end of the year market sales.

The morning of the Thanksgiving Market Sale, all efforts were focused on getting the harvest to the US Cellular Coliseum. The entire arena was invaded with trucks and stands of local farmer’s products ready to be engulfed by the swarm of market “goers”. The first hour before the actual sale started was saved for the very cream of the crop visitors who wanted to get a first stab at all the stands before the remaining crowd would flock into the stadium and snatch up everything in sight. The first few hours seem like a trippy blur that were spent continuously re-stocking the front stand and taking shouted orders from long lines of people who were lining up to get Epiphany’s fresh produce . Within only two hours, the stand was wiped clean. People were continuously disappointed to hear that most of their favorites were gone for the day. On the other side, everyone at Epiphany couldn’t have been happier with the result of the sale. At one point, I saw Ken Myszka and Stu Hummel were jumping up and down like little kids, joyously proud of the amount of produce they had all sold at the market in only a few short hours.

In the end, the success of the Thanksgiving Market Sale provided a huge sigh of relief to everyone at the farm, solely because of all the strenuous work that had put in during the fall harvesting season; including the never-ending dinner parties, week-long harvests, and the farm winter preparations. Overall, everyone couldn’t have been happier with the result of the Thanksgiving Market, myself included. The rest of the year, most of the work will be focused on booked dinner parties and efforts toward the new restaurant opening in the spring of next year. I hope everyone is excited as I am about the opening of the best fine dining restaurant in Central Illinois. Get ready!

Written by:

Tim Blakemore

(Epiphany Farms Marketing Intern)

Thanksgiving Farmers' Market

Epiphany Farms will be at the Thanksgiving market from 10am till 1:30pm today.

Available vegetables are;

Salad Mix

Assorted head lettuce

Purple top turnips

Korean daikon

Easter red radish

French breakfast radish

Assorted beets

Leeks

Scallions

Red cabbage

Napa cabbage

Broccoli

Mizuna

Pak Choy

Collard greens

Kale

Red frill mustard greens

Arugula

Fresh herbs - roasting mix

Sunchokes - Jerusalem artichokes

Mugwort

Cilantro

Carrots

The 'Dinner party for two at the secret location' raffle drawing will be at 12:30pm.

We look forward to meeting you soon!

Epiphany Farms Upcoming Events

Epiphany Farms Team's all doing great and busy to prepare the winter season. Houdini (calf), Dennis (goat), Pam (dairy cow), Gary (Texas long horn bull), Guanciale (boar) and many other animals are getting hairier and ready for the cold weather as well. Our mom pig 'Pancetta' (if you had a chance to visit our farm, she is the spotted one) delivered 13 little piglets yesterday, so our family even got bigger before it gets too cold!

Before the ground gets frozen, we are planting our last seeds of the year. GARLIC!! We are having collaboration with a garlic preserver in town, who's renown as one of the biggest garlic collector. We have several endangered garlic variety and hundreds of different garlics to test and examine the taste and its use. For this reason, four people (us) are not enough for sorting and planting all these garlics, and we are looking for volunteers who can help us to accomplish this mission. Please let us know if you can come out and help us, just for a couple of hours to several days. Send us an email (info@epiphanyfarms.com) or phone call (309-378-2403). Your help will be truly appreciated. We are planning to plant whole this week and until next Wednesday.


Our fall vegetables are all covered under season extenders - green houses, and still producing amazingly. Since the Bloomington Farmers Market finished its season and only Thanksgiving market has left (November 20th-Sat., from 10am till 2pm), we are going to have our own market stand in downtown Bloomington, in front of our restaurant place, at the corner of East & Monroe st. Epiphany Farms Liaison will be selling lots of fresh vegetables on November 6th-Sat. and November 13th-Sat. from 12pm till 2pm. Available produces are;

Salad Greens
Spinach
Kale/ Collard Greens
Hot/Bell Peppers**
Mustard Greens
Leeks
Turnips / Turnip tops
Sweet Radish
Pak Choy
Daikon Radish
Red Cabbage**
Broccoli**
Arugula

We will bring lots of vegetables but if you want to make sure that you are getting what you want, please email or call us and order for your pick-up. (**not available for order)


Also we are planning to give out a holiday present to our customers to show our appreciation for your support. There will be raffle tickets available at Epiphany Farms market stand on November 6th, 13th and 20th (Thanksgiving Market). The prize for the raffle will be ‘Dinner Party for two with Epiphany Farms at the Secret place’. We will provide amazing experience and delicious meal for you and your special guest for the day. Every $10 purchase, you will get one ticket to enter a chance to win. (no limit per person) The drawing will be at the Thanksgiving Market, EFE stand at 1:30pm. (Dinner party will be scheduled upon availability)


We are so excited to finish our second phase with lots of lessons, and cannot wait to start the next season with improvement and even more energy & passion. Thank you so much for being a great supporter of Epiphany Farms and we look forward to taking adventure together with you for upcoming year as well!

CSA # 22

Lettuce
Radish
Pak Choy
Turnips
Cabbage
Kale
Cilantro
Arugula


This is our last week. we really enjoyed the csa program, it was a lot of fun. Don't be scared about an empty refrigerator, you can still get our products at the farmers market.
Saturday October 30th 7:30 - 12:00 Downtown bloomington
Saturday November 20th 10:00 - 1:00 US Cellular Coliseum

Hope to see you there!

CSA Harvest Week #20

Hello our CSA members,
Hope you enjoyed recent 'unusual' warm and sunny days. Weather seems back on track of 'usual' fall days now and I'm half sad and half happy to witness the global warming v. longer warm days (I need layers and layers for cold season).

Our crops are doing great in both conditions and we are happy to post this week's harvest.

Head Lettuce
White Radish
Purple Top Turnips
Red Russian Kale
Pak Choy
Tomatoes
Arugula
Kohl Rabi

We had insane marathon of dinner parties last weekend so have very limited eggs available today. However as time goes, our chickens will produce more and more and we will have lots of surplus for all of you.



I'm sure you all received our newsletter, but here's the information about this Sunday's brunch at the Medici in Normal. Our chefs are preparing 6 course brunch (little lighter than our dinner party menus) from 11am till 12:30. Price is $50 per person and the profit goes to non-profit organization The Land Connection to help and guide farmers to start organic/sustainable farm. Tickets are sold at the Garlic Press, TLC website (www.thelandconnection.org). Or let us know then we can get it for you.




Hope you have a great afternoon and look forward to seeing you soon!