Farmers Serve Up Homemade, Handpicked Goodies

If you want to buy bread from Heavy Horses Farm at the , get there early.

Heavy Horses bread usually sells out within a couple hours of the market's 8 a.m. opening each Saturday.

In addition to artisan breads and scones, Heavy Horses vendors Joe Monahan, 53, and Barbara Ohlund, 44, sell naturally grown produce. They own a five-acre farm in northeast Boone County.

If you wonder how a business that sells baked goods and produce came to be called "Heavy Horses Farm," the answer is in the almost 100-year-old farmstead's history.

According to Monahan, when he and Ohlund bought the farmstead in early 2009, there was a large, old horse barn on the property.

"It was obvious the whole place had been built for horses. We really liked that sense of it," Monahan said.

So they decided to name the farm after the Jethro Tull song "Heavy Horses."

Monahan, who manages the produce side of the business, worked for the engineering college at Iowa State University until the spring of 2010. Then came a round of layoffs.

"I'd always wanted to try making a living by growing produce," he said. So, that's what he did.

Monahan brings around 12 varieties of tomatoes and 10 varieties of peppers to the market each week.

"I like to experiment with different varieties. That's the fun of it," Monahan said.

Among the tomatoes he sells are Japanese pink, German green and bicolor varieties.

Monahan said that for every 200 pounds of tomatoes he picks, he removes around 50 pounds of tomatoes that have a split, bruise or other imperfections.

He uses these to make savory jellies, such as tomato basil.

Heavy Horses Farm was expected to start selling the jellies at their market booth on Aug. 13. They also plan to start selling through Farm to Folk this winter, said Monahan.

Monahan said he and Ohlund also plan to open a pick-your-own operation for tomatoes and peppers on their farm next spring.

Ohlund, who makes all of Heavy Horses Farm's baked goods from scratch, works full-time as a research consultant at the Iowa Department of Education.

She starts preparing for the market on Thursday evening, and on Friday morning she wakes up at 3:30 a.m. and spends the next 17 hours baking in a 120-degree kitchen.

Each Saturday, Ohlund brings 40 loaves of bread and 90 scones to the market. According to Ohlund, her bread sells out by 10 a.m. and her scones are usually gone by noon.

Ohlund uses a total of 10 scone recipes and 12 bread recipes. She provides a comprehensive list of her breads and scones, along with their ingredients, to curious customers. She selects a few recipes each week on a rotating basis to bring to the market, she said.

Monahan said he and Ohlund are installing a large wood-fired oven to increase their production. Ohlund said she hopes the oven will allow her to double the number of loaves of bread she brings to the market each week.

Ohlund and Monahan arrive at the market by 7 a.m. most Saturday mornings, said Ohlund. That gives them about an hour to set up before the market opens. Ohlund said that business tends to pick up around 8:30 a.m.

On a recent Saturday, Bill Anderson of Ames was one of Heavy Horses' first customers. Anderson has been to the Main Street Farmers' Market every Saturday since it opened, and he's a frequent visitor to the Heavy Horses Farm booth, he said.

"This is where I get my veggies, particularly tomatoes," said Anderson.

The Main Street Farmers' Market is located on the 400 block of Main Street in downtown Ames. It's open 8 a.m. - 1 p.m. on Saturdays through Sept. 24.