SOME HISTORY OF FASSNIGHT CREEK FARM
Dan Bigbee had been a gardener his entire life. Raised by gardening parents and influenced by gardening grandparents, he spent spring & summer months helping to plant and cultivate large garden plots. Fall & Winter months rewarded his hard work with yummy green beans, sweet corn, peach cobblers, etc. due to the hard work his family did canning and freezing the summer's harvest.
Dan loved horticulture so much that he worked as a landscaper for Wickman Gardens, Inc. while attending college at Southwest Missouri State University (now MSU) and earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Horticulture.
Shortly after graduation, he purchased seven acres across the street from Wickman Gardens on S. Fort avenue in Springfield, MO that was already in vegetable production and had a small sales barn.
In 1986, Fassnight Creek Farm began it's story.
"The Farm" , as Dan refers to it, actually has a long legacy of producing vegetables and fruit. Dan and wife, Kelly, are the 4th family to operate the Fassnight Creek Farm property as a vegetable farm. It's history goes back most of a century!
Today, Fassnight Creek Farm has doubled it's size and produces a large array of vegetables and fruit. Beginning in May, Dan harvests lettuce, spinach, radishes, broccoli, asparagus, green onions, strawberries,& peonies. Very soon after, there are cabbages, beets, potatoes, sugar snap peas, green beans, summer squash, cucumbers, blueberries and blackberries.
Hot summer brings the best: vine-ripened tomatoes in all shapes and sizes, sweet and hot peppers, eggplant, sweet watermelon and cantaloupe and the juiciest peaches! Fassnight Creek Farm grows some of the best sweet corn in the area. 'Peaches and Cream' and similar varieties brings long lines to our farmers' market stands. Sunflowers and zinnias grown in 300 ft. rows and are a sight to behold.
As Autumn nears, customers marvel at the array of unique heirloom pumpkins, gourds and winter squash. The farm looks like a picture right out of Martha Stewart Living magazine! We are well known for our fall decor including straw bales, corn stalk bundles, Indian corn, pumpkins, gourds, squash, bittersweet, wreaths and dried flowers.
Sadly, the farm must rest and with that we close our doors for the season at the end of the day on October 31. There's still plenty of work to do: fall plowing, firewood cutting and selling, cleaning up and planning for the next season.
Farmer Dan spends Winter poring over seed catalogs and it's easy to see the excitement of the upcoming planting season in his eyes. The children gather 'round and gaze at pictures of the newest varieties of tomatoes, corn, strawberries, peppers and their favorite: PUMPKINS!
And, thus, the cycle continues.....
Visit our farm and visit a legacy: FASSNIGHT CREEK FARM.
