When: Sunday, October 7.  11:00 am to 5:00 pm  

Where: Southwest Marion County and adjoining Lucas and Warren Counties. Maps online www.farmcrawl.com and signage along the route to direct traffic

What: Tour the farms, visit the animals, meet the farmers, sample the goodies, listen to live music, discover locally grown & produced products and lots of fun in the beautiful Iowa countryside as you drive yourself from farm to farm!  Several of the host farms will include other area businesses and farmers that produce photo cards, artisan beer, honey, desserts, wine, sausage, pork and more.

Below is a summary of this years stops:

Blue Gate Farm - Certified Naturally Grown, chemical-free produce, pastured eggs, and honey bees benefit our CSA and markets.  Sample homemade jams; guided tours of the gardens; visit our chickens and alpaca.  Guests: Peace Tree Brewing Co. (Knoxville), Aunt Louise’s Cinnamon Rolls (Russell), Glorybe Photo Cards (Columbia) and Still Waters Fiber Farm (Pleasantville).  Homemade cookies & herb lemonade available.  

Coyote Run Farm - A 110 acre chemical-free, sustainable farm growing chemical-free produce, eggs from hens on pasture, hormone-free/grass-fed beef, and mules. Walk the farm, see the livestock, learn about our integrated production systems including a high tunnel, and enjoy complimentary borscht (beet and beef soup) and desserts.

Crooked Gap Farm - The Book family raises heritage and rare breed animals including woodlot pigs, grass-fed cattle, pastured lambs, pastured rabbit, pastured broilers, and laying hens.  Purchase meat and hand-made soap.  Guests: Story City Locker--classic abattoir and artisan butchery, Marion County 4-H, and I'm in Stitches--crochet gifts, patterns, and classes.

Pierce’s Pumpkin Patch - Thousands of different pumpkins, squashes, gourds, decorative corn and Halloween celebration décor.  Enjoy brisket or pork sandwiches, jumbo hotdogs and all the fixings.  Guests: Nearwood Winery (Knoxville) and Wallace Kettle Corn.  

Schneider Orchard - Stroll through the orchard, enjoy fresh fruit pie ala-mode, apple crisp and caramel apples. For the kids: tractor wagon rides through the orchard, take a scenic sky high look from the tree house and games and activities with the Chariton FFA.  Rope making demonstrations.  Guests: Pipers Candies (Chariton) and Thelma Saxton's fried chicken (Chariton).   Live music from Albert Butler and friends.  

Iron Works by Williams Machine Shop - In 2017 Farm Crawl added Trojan Iron Works to the route.  The TIW team is not able to participate this year, however the response received was greater than we had envisioned so we reached out to a local shop to see if we can continue on with similar product offerings.   Williams Machine Shop will be joining farm crawl and making the stop bigger and better than last year.  Williams brings 25 years of experience and vast array of capabilities used to support local farms including some of which are on the crawl.

Farm Crawl 2018 is sponsored by Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) and South Central Coop.