Stalk to Shelf Shopping at Kutchey Family Farm Market: Open Now

“Farm fresh” wasn’t so much a label as it was a way of life when the Kutchey family started to farm more than 100 years ago.

Now, countless planting seasons later, the Kutchey Family Farm Market is relied upon to fill many a Macomb Township dinner table with sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, watermelon and dozens of other vegetables during the summer months.

The owner of the farm market on 26 Mile Road, Joe Kutchey Jr., 52, is a third-generation farmer who oversees the planting, watering, weeding and picking of some 250 acres of fruits and vegetables. 

“When you grow stuff, it’s just like anything, that when you do a good job, it makes you feel good,” Kutchey said of his farming career.

Just as he learned the trade through his parents, Kutchey’s own children, daughters Amanda and Elizabeth, and son, Joey, have grown up working the Macomb Township farm and market stand.

His brother, David, continues to run the family’s first farm market stand at 3202 E. 10 Mile Rd. in Warren. The Macomb Township market is located at 17330 26 Mile Road.

Because heavy rains delayed the spring planting, Kutchey said the first sweet corn and tomatoes will appear at the Macomb Township farm market this week.

“Normally, we start around July 15,” Kutchey said. “We plant corn every two weeks, but it was so wet in May, we couldn’t plant on a regular basis, so that messed us up.”

Yet while the spring was too wet, the summer is proving too dry and last week’s heat wave has put Kutchey’s irrigation equipment into overdrive.

“Right now I’m watering every day and I can’t keep up,” Kutchey said.

But not to fear, sweet corn fans, Kutchey assures that his first sweet corn crop is just about ready and once that hits market shelves this week, fresh sweet corn will be available daily through the fall.

Customers will also be able to buy fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, cauliflower, pickles, watermelon, cantaloupe, peppers, zucchini, squash and just about every other vegetable that comes to mind through October. Kutchey also trades produce with Verellen Orchards, to keep the farm stand supplied with apples, peaches and other fruits during the season.

To put some perspective on the number of vegetables grown annually by Kutchey Farms, consider this: 6,000 tomatoes and 1,000-2,000 cobs of corn are picked and sold every day.

And every one of those vegetables is planted and picked by hand, save for the 120 acres of corn that is planted by machine, but picked by hand.

Pumpkins and other squash will close out the farm stand in November, but Kutchey’s work will be far from done.

“We’ll finish with pumpkins, then have fall tillage work,” he said. “We’ll plant all the fields in rye and then plow it down, because it is good for the ground. It will grow fast in the spring, and when we plow it into the ground, it’s like mulch. The rye will take it up any excess fertilizer and as it decomposes, release it back into the soil.”

A graduate of Michigan State University’s agriculture program, Kutchey is also a student of the care-for-the-earth-and-it-will-care-for-you school of thought.

Although his farm is not organic, Kutchey tries to use as many natural products as possible to replenish the ground and fertilize his crops.

The farm stand is open Monday-Saturday 9 a.m.-7 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m.-6 p.m. ‎