OUR STORY

For Martin and Karen, our paths to the farm started when we were children. Both of us grew up a generation removed from the farm. Martin’s grandparents grew up on farms in Northern Kentucky and Karen’s paternal grandparents owned a small truck farm in Northern Kentucky that helped pay the bills during the Great Depression, and her maternal grandparents operated a dairy farm in central Kentucky.

Maybe it was a dream but we decided some 30 years ago that farm living was the life for us. Soon after we married, we bought the land, tilled a garden, built a house, and started our journey to become Bezold Farms. Our first stop along the way was Laurel Gardens where we tried our hands at growing flowers for market. But circumstances quickly changed and we welcomed our son, Henry, into our family. He was followed soon after by our two daughters, Marie and Elise.

Because of the children, we journeyed to our next stop along the way: 4-H. We have 4-H clubs and the wonderful leaders to thank for teaching our children (with us by their sides) about meat goats, meat chickens, pork, gardening, canning, and horses. We have been members of a number of different 4-H clubs for well over a decade.

We still have our meat goats but they are put to their best purpose: brush clearing. None of us knew anything about meat chickens but they are an affordable market animal and our son decided he wanted to give them a try. We raise the meat chickens on pasture in moveable pens where they get fresh air, exercise and sunshine. A few years later, our son decided he wanted to raise market hogs. He sets up paddocks in the woods where the hogs are raised outdoors through the warmer months with huts for protection.

Our next stop on the journey was unscheduled. Karen developed a digestive disorder and thankfully found that the symptoms could be relieved by dietary changes. Because processed foods present her with serious difficulties, we returned with single-minded zeal to vegetable gardening. We grew up in families that had vegetable gardens which were necessities for the number of mouths that needed to be fed. The times were different back then…..we did not want to put pesticides on our food.

So, we are embarking on the next part of our journey: organic certification. We have cultivated our garden without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides for many seasons. But to become certified organic is a 3-year process and 2017 marked the starting point. 2020 was the year our gardens were certified. In 2016, we switched to non-GMO feed for the chickens and pigs which we source locally. All the animals are raised on pasture.

Our journey so far has been amazing and the path forward looks bright. We hope you will join us!