- by Tad Thompson | September 07, 2020
MANHATTAN, KS — The COVID-19 pandemic has more than doubled the business for a “diversified market garden” in northeast Kansas. Piccalilli Farm is located along McDowell Creek, several miles south of Manhattan, KS. The farm was launched seven years ago by the married couple Nat and Alison Bjerke-Harvey. They grow one intensively planted acre of specialty vegetables beside their farmhouse.
Alison indicated that Piccalilli produces specialty veggies rather than conventional crops. These are what “our market customers — and we — use to feed families for everyday meals.”
Further into their 60-acre treed property, which slopes down the creek bed within the scenic, rolling Flint Hills, is a four-foot high electric fence to protect 500 range chickens, 100 egg birds, and 100 turkeys from coyotes —owls and red tailed hawks are not so easily-swayed. A few dairy goats provide milk and cheese for personal, and friends’, enjoyment.
The first-generation farmers started this operation from scratch. Alison is from Manhattan. She met her husband when they worked making specialty cheese in Chicago.
Piccalilli grows the majority of its sales volume. “We see ourselves as producers first and foremost, and this is important to us,” Alison said. “While there are times when up to 30 or 40 percent — at most — of the product sales are from other local producer-only vendors from our market, our sales are primarily represented by our farm and baked goods that we produce here from product that we grow or is sourced locally.”
Nat noted that “in years past, our sales were 50-50 going wholesale to independently owned restaurants in Manhattan and to local retailers.”
Piccalilli regularly marketed from Manhattan’s open-air farmers market before the COVID-19 outbreak. Alison said “it is our intention to get back to the farmers market when we have the space, storage and staff to do both.”
This spring the pandemic was devastating to Manhattan’s top restaurants, which relied upon Piccalilli to provide unusual vegetables to enrich gourmet menus. Most notably, Harry’s, which was long rated as Kansas’ top restaurant, closed its doors in July after 30 years of operation. Other restaurants may not have closed but their business — and purchasing — greatly declined.
“We had never been on e-commerce before,” Alison noted. But, using the banner “Farm 2 Porch”, the farm began offering its inventory online, along with other locally produced specialty items, such as pasture-fed pork, honey, grass-fed beef, dairy, flowers, jams, and baked items.
On the vegetable side, Piccalilli supplies a wide range of specialty organic beans, sprouts, eggplant, peppers, shoots, and micro-greens.
Alison said there are larger vegetable farms in the Manhattan area, so Piccalilli maintains its niche with highly-specialized items.
Piccalilli Farm is named for its parallel to the English relish, piccalilli. The piccalilli recipe varies with what English vegetables are in-season.
The farm’s e-commerce flourishes with strict rules.
Orders are received only from 9 a.m. on Tuesdays to 5 p.m. on Wednesdays. Customers ordering for home delivery must have at least a $15 order. Orders being picked up at a designated location in Manhattan can be purchased for a $10 minimum.
Pick-up orders are available on Saturdays from 10:30 a.m. until 1 p.m.
As of early August, the firm’s employees were making between 200 and 250 deliveries a week.
Nat said the demand has met and exceeded expectations. “This started as a stop-gap measure,” and is expected to remain. “This evolved more quickly than we had any aspirations. Our business has doubled or tripled in total sales this year,” he added.
This summer the firm is building a small cooler at their farm to hold products packed for delivery. Piccalilli carefully follows food-safety protocols.
Forty percent of Piccalilli’s e-customers had never visited the couple’s farm market. “Almost half had never been a customer before.”
Alison noted, “We want to expand. But we are at a crossroads. We need to decide what direction we’re going to go.”
The farm has a hoop greenhouse that is used throughout the year.
Initial seedling replanting begins in February. The firm produces arugula, lettuces, and root crops until late November.
Being an organic farm limits production options. For example, Nat said, “we are not bug-free long enough to grow watermelons. There are better uses of bed space.”
Their one-acre vegetable plot produces two or three different crops a season.
In the summertime, young area chefs and horticulture students from Kansas State University in Manhattan provide a good labor force. September, which is after classes start, brings peak tomato and radish production. So, expanding the business heightens labor considerations.
She noted that Kansas has a lot of potential to increase its fruit and vegetable production.
Horticulture professors at Kansas State indicate to The Produce News that early Kansas settlers planted many apple and peach trees in the sandy river valleys of eastern Kansas. A century ago, Kansas apples from large commercial orchards, were winning awards at horticulture shows in New Jersey and Chicago.
Photo: Alison and Nat Bjerke-Harvey stand with row covers that protect their organic zucchini crop from insects.
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