May 13, 2015
130 years
down on the farm Recipes
Grilling with Grains
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Around Town
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Second Grader Saves Family
Photos by Ray Rockwell Dave Theis rides a tractor at Thies Farm’s North Hanley location. Theis Farm grows produce along with flowers inside of their greenhouses.
Thies Farm has been a North County institution since 1885
School
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Campaign Goal Exceeded
By Sara Hardin With spring comes the excitement of beautiful, blooming flowers and delicious fruits and vegetables. At Thies Farm, the air is sweet with the scents of strawberries ripe for the picking, and brothers and farm owners Dave and Darrell Thies are tirelessly preparing for the busy spring and summer seasons. Thies Farm was founded in 1885, and has since then established itself as one of the largest, most trusted familyowned vegetable farms in the St. Louis area. “My great, great grandfather came from Germany and settled in the area, and after two years he bought this property here,” said Dave Thies about the farm’s original North Hanley Road location. “It’s been a fruit and vegetable farm ever since then.” The farm’s location on North Hanley features 30,000 square feet of the farm’s total 50,000 square feet of greenhouses. The rest reside on the farm’s other two properties in Maryland Heights and St. Charles. Maryland Heights houses the farm’s main growing area, with over 200 acres of fruit and vegetable production. The Maryland Heights location hosts the farm’s biggest October event, Pumpkin Lands, and also
features the farm’s retail market. The farm’s St. Charles location currently has a greenhouse with nursery stock, as well as a bakery and a café. Dave Thies expressed hopes of growing on the St. Charles land as soon as the farm gets better established in the area. “Right now we’re getting ready for summer,” said Darrell Thies, owner of the Maryland Heights farm. “The greenhouses are full of flowers now and we’re looking to start picking strawberries very soon.” The farm offers a ‘you pick’ system, where the public is able to go to the farm and pick fresh-grown strawberries to buy and take home. Weather permitting, the Maryland Heights farm hopes to open up its five acres of berries to the public starting May 16th. One thing that makes Thies Farm unique is their commitment to sustainability in both their crops and the structure of the business as a whole. “Since we’ve been on this property for 130 years and have cropped it every year in those 130 years, it’s very important to us to be sustainable and to take care of our main asset, which is our property,” explained Dave Thies. “We do all kinds of conservation methods to keep our soil productive and try to
keep erosion at a minimum.” Keeping the family name in the business is something that the farm has achieved consistently since its opening, and the family’s next generation is ready to jump into action. “A big part of sustainability that people don’t think of is the structure of the business,” said Dave Thies. “My brother and I are fifth generation, I have a son See DOWN ON THE FARM page 2
Learn & Play
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If Mama ain’t happy...
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