Announcing our next big vendor event at the Farm! Spring Farm Festival 2023 is set for Saturday, May 20, 2023 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. We are seeking vendors now. Specifically looking for artisans, crafters, makers with a preference toward handmade//homemade items. Download the vendor application and pay for booth space early to secure your spot. This event is open to the public and we do a lot of promotional work ahead of time to promote vendors and family friendly activities. The Farm Festival will have vendors, a food truck, and additional craft/art projects to attract families. Contact Chad Gilliland at (785) 491-1978 or [email protected] with questions. Please pay for your booth online. Download the application and e-mail/send to: Chad Gilliland at [email protected]
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Announcing our next big vendor event at the Farm! Spring Farm Fest 2022 is set for Saturday, May 21, 2022 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. We are seeking vendors now. Specifically looking for artisans, crafters, makers with a preference toward handmade//homemade items. Download the vendor application and pay for booth space early to secure your spot. This event is open to the public and we do a lot of promotional work ahead of time to promote vendors and family friendly activities. The Farm Fest includes hayrack rides to/from the event, a food truck, and additional craft/art projects to attract families. Contact Chad Gilliland at (785) 491-1978 or [email protected] with questions. Pay vendor fees here. Download the vendor application:
We're excited to announce our Spring Farm Fest for 2021! We are now accepting vendors for this event on May 8, 2021. This will also be our one-year celebration anniversary in conjunction with the Spring Farm Fest so we will be coordinating lots of activities to encourage people to come out to the farm. Please pay for your booth online. In case of inclement weather, the event will be moved to May 15. Download the application and e-mail/send to: Chad Gilliland at [email protected] Contact Chad with questions at (785) 491-1978.
Our first Fall Farm Fest on September 19 was an amazing hit. Vendors asked to return for our next opportunity so we're -going to hold one more Fall Farm Fest while hopefully Mother Nature cooperates and let's us remain socially distant outdoors. The vendor application below is for NEW vendors only (if you participated in the Sept 19 event, just let Chad -know you want to return). For NEW vendors, please print this out and email or mail this to [email protected]. Please contact Chad Gilliland with questions (785-491-1978).
We are hosting a makers/artists fair on September 19. The vendor application for the fair is below. Please contact Chad Gilliland with questions (785-491-1978).
2020 has been a monumental year for Next to Nature Farm. We've been hard at work at accomplishing a goal we've been working on for over three years now - opening our Agricultural Education Center at our farm! This weekend, May 8, we will accomplish that goal. Given that our world is grappling with a pandemic, we want to do this safely and cautiously for our family and your family. We are going to open the farm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays for now and we hope to expand as demand grows and we feel it is safe to do so.
When planning your visit, make sure to prepare to be on a farm (wear comfortable shoes and casual clothes). We have goats, chickens, peacocks, bee hives, and a fantastically friendly goat dog named Sadie. At the agricultural and educational center, we will offer various classes and learning opportunities to find out more about bees, canning/preserving foods, pollinators, and small-scale agriculture. We will have a variety of products for sale, depending on the season. We are also home to "Kansas' only honey tasting bar" where you can try our delicious local honey, over a dozen varieties of infused and creamed honeys, and exotic flavors of honey from other regions. To our family, friends, long-time customers, we thank you for your continued support. This adventure grew from a passion for doing something "real" and a desire to love what we do and how we do it. We are blessed with the ability to honor our planet, our value system, and God with the work we do. Simple. Honest. Next to Nature. Wow! How is it February already? It's been a quick turn-around for us at Next to Nature Farm. We've worked a really nice show last weekend, The Good Living Expo, in Overland Park and this weekend we'll be at the Lenexa Public Market for a pop-up from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, February 8 and Saturday, February 9. We will also be in Lawrence on Saturday at the Kaw Valley Seed Fair. We would love to see our customers at either event!! So, we're just a few days away from Valentine's Day and we propose giving something that is so much sweeter than chocolate -- HONEY! What a better way to say "be mine" than with a product from a bee!! So, we created some adorable Valentine's Day printable cards you can use to tell your honey how much you love them! You can download the PDF (see the PDF link at the bottom of this blog post)!! Here's the instructions: 1. Print both pages of the printable. 2. We recommend using a heavier stock paper (65 lb. or 85 lb.). Copy the printable. If you want our website information from page 2 on the back of the valentine, use the duplex function on your copy machine and print double-sided (top-top). 3. Use a 3 -hole punch to cut out the black dots to put a ribbon through the valentine or make the hole large enough to fit a honey straw through. 4. Tell your valentine to "bee yours" and spread to love! We wish you the best and look forward to seeing our customers soon! -Chad and Megan Next to Nature Farm
Wow, we say this every year but 2018 has certainly been a year that has flown by. Since December of 2017, Chad has worked every day (literally) toward growing Next to Nature Farm and we've learned to accept the highs and lows of owning a small business. To those of you who own businesses or work for a small business, you know you have to love what you do to own a small business. It takes guts (and a whole lot of faith) to step out of your comfort zone and become the owner/manager/retail associate/laborer/marketer/jack-of-all-trades of your own business. It's been hard but there are many rewards that we can point to that say we're moving in the right direction. In 2018, we opened our first retail location at the Lenexa Public Market. The Market has allowed us to have a presence in northeast Kansas and we've met so many repeat customers who tell us things like "Your honey is the best," "I love your healing salves," and "Wow, you make that by hand?!" Today is Small Business Saturday in America. It's the day after Black Friday and we're officially in the holiday season. As small business owners, we appreciate our customers and the fact they want to put something handmade, homemade, and all-natural in their loved ones' holiday gifts. We take great pride in making sure our products are made with ingredients you can pronounce with all-natural ingredients. We think it is the passion and purpose that small businesses owners have that make it even more important to "shop small" this holiday season. Small businesses and retailers are the life-blood of communities - they support the local community and schools, they provide jobs to your friends and neighbors, and they support a community's tax base. Don't get us wrong, we shop at large retailers, too. In a world of two-day delivery, sometimes it is nice to take a walk in your downtown and look to see what is for sale in your community. It's nice to interact with an expert who can tell you exactly how to use a product or repair something when it breaks. So, here's to Shop Small Saturday and the start of the holiday season. We're blessed here at Next to Nature Farm and we're looking forward to celebrating those blessings with friends and family during this holiday season. We thank God each day for our health, children, friends, and the many blessings we enjoy. Below, we posted a recipe for Spicy Party Nuts. We'd recommend using our jalapeno or habanero infused honey for an extra spicy kick to the nuts (or just use the infused honey and leave out the dry spices). Take this recipe to a holiday pot-luck, bag some up for teacher gifts, or just enjoy a handful while you're wrapping gifts! -Chad & Megan Welcome to our new website! This past year of our lives has been filled with excitement, stress and, a little bit of fun. One of our goals for the business was to re-launch our website with e-commerce capabilities so that our wonderful customers could purchase products online. We've grown our product line immensely in the past year. There's new products, like the incredible creamed honey, to try. And, of course, our favorite products {healing salve, lotion bars}. We hope you enjoy the new site. We appreciate feedback, comments and suggestions. In the coming months, you'll see new features included in this blog. We're looking forward to sharing recipes and tips for using honey in everyday life. We love bees. We love what we do. Thank you for being a part of it. We thought everyone might need a healthy snack idea to get through the holiday season. Try the recipe for energy bites below when you really want that cookie but don't want to get on the treadmill for an extra hour in the evening. -Chad & Megan |
AuthorWe're Chad and Megan Gilliland, owners of Next to Nature Farm. Chad's the beekeeper. Megan's the chaos keeper. Welcome to our farm. Archives
February 2023
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