The market staple Blue Moon Farm has closed after more than twenty years of growing produce for Champaign-Urbana. Since the 1990s, Blue Moon Farm has been growing crops in Urbana, and the farm announced on their website that they would be closing for the time being.
Farewell For Now from Blue Moon Farm.
This is a note of thanks from Jon and Michelle, who started the farm, and Lorien who took it over.
As some of you may know, Blue Moon Farm is closing. This week’s indoor farmers market will be our last.
We want to express our deep gratitude to all of you who have been eating local and organic since 1995. We also want to express our gratitude to all of our employees over the years. Truly, without their constant planting, hoeing and washing and your love of eating, Blue Moon Farm would not have been possible.
From the first time Blue Moon put heirloom tomatoes and salad mix on the tables of the Urbana Farmers Market and started making sales to the Common Ground Food Coop and local restaurants, the support and enthusiasm from the community has been overwhelming. You inspired us to keep growing and evolving: moveable greenhouses, electric harvest trucks, new sales strategies for winter farming, customizable CSA boxes, new equipment to grow larger quantities of carrots, etc. And now we are tired.
We don’t yet know what the future holds for Blue Moon Farm and hope to have some time off to regroup.
It’s been a great ride. Growing crops with exceptional flavor and doing it organically were always our primary goals and the CU community made that a reality.
Thank You
Lorien, Michelle and Jon
If you want to learn more about the farm, read our 2020 interview with farm manager Lorien Carsey and this 2012 interview with owner Jon Cherniss.
Photo by Blue Moon Farm.
