Address: Dexter MI
Farm Type:
Farmer
Farming Practices:
Sustainable
About Us / Cornman Farms History:
James Beard-winning Chef Alex’s garden began in 2004 as a way for Chef Alex Young to spend more time with his family while creating really good and full-flavored food. The garden is now a farm – Cornman Farms, which grows over 130 varieties of more than 27 types of vegetables, including heirloom tomatoes, beans, squash and potatoes. The most recent additions to the farm are almost-lost heirloom varieties of corn, and a selection of livestock, old breeds of hogs and cattle raised according to sustainable practices.Cornman Farms beef is pasture-raised and fed just a bit of grain each day to add a bit of marbling. (Chef Alex is experimenting with adding a bit of grain this way rather than grain finishing with the hopes of preserving the meats fatty acids. As he explains, when cows are grain-finished, their levels of omega fatty acids plummet and little of it ends up in the meat. He hopes that by adding a bit of grain each day rather than a lot at the end, the meat will still be marbled, but yet retain omega fatty acids.) The cows are raised for 2 years and left to pasture the entire time.