Brickel Creek Organic Farm
Jamestown, Ohio
The Brickel family established a homestead and farm near Jamestown, OH, in 1890 to breed horses, which they would transport by train to New York and Chicago for races. Over a century later in 2007, Sue Borton purchased about 70 acres of the original property and established Brickel Creek Farm. Where horses once roamed, herbs and greens grow from healthy soil on the organic farm.
Brickel Creek focuses on herbs and greens and a handful of other produce items. The selection changes every week throughout the growing season. Borton started out selling at a farmers’ market in Yellow Springs, OH, but soon developed a relationship with Dayton’s Dorothy Lane Market.
“I like to call Dorothy Lane on Friday mornings, ask what they want that weekend, and harvest and deliver the same day,” Borton says. Because her herbs are delivered the day they’re picked, they have a two-week shelf life.
“Vegetables are living plants. As soon as you harvest them, their nutrient value starts to diminish,” Borton explains. “One of the benefits of growing locally is that you don’t have travel time in which it’s losing its nutritional value.”
Brickel Creek is also raising bees. Borton partnered with Central State University in Wilberforce, OH, on a research project to study bee habitats on organic farms. Last year the bees produced 90 pounds of honey from a single hive; she’s added four more hives and this season hopes to infuse some of the honey with farm-grown lavender.
Borton worked with Greene County to establish four unique conservation zones on her property—a one-acre pond, warm-season grasses and wildflowers, a woodland area on which she planted 650 trees, and a quail buffer zone on the perimeter. She understands that a farm is only as healthy as the land on which it sits, and the land at Brickel Creek Organic Farm is thriving.
Brickel Creek Organic Farm
643 Brickel Rd., Jamestown, OH
937.603.3536
Find it at: Dorothy Lane Market (all Dayton locations); Whole Foods, Cincinnati
A professional writer and Certified Cicerone, much of his writing is about books and film (he is a National Book Critics Circle member), he writes a lot about beer too! David is a regular contributor to Craftbeer.com, PorchDrinking, Indiana on Tap, and Dayton City Paper’s beer section.
