Sugar Bush Farms

Just to put this little place on the map; I dropped through here on a recent trip into southern Michigan.
There are a lot of little places like this along U.S. 12. Little local hobby farms and food shops selling local products and Amish butter.
What set this one apart was the U-​Pick strawberry field. Now, I’m a big fan of sustainability and advanced horticulture. This little place had it in spades, from their little poultry pen to their biomass pellet furnace. But the real show-​stopper was the hydroponic vertical strawberry field.
Stacked six pots high and irrigated from the top, this place had it together. NIce modular planting towers and an incredible thing to see. I remember grubbing along the rows of densely crowded strawberries in a conventional field as a kid, dragging along my flat to be filled. This place was a far cry from that back-​breaking experience, more like shopping than picking.
The place had a great welcoming ambience, with one of the better prices on local apples I’d seen, an inviting little pumpkin stand (a young couple with three small boys were picking theirs out. Definitely an «awwww» moment) and a nice selection of local produce and Amish products like roll butter and bread.
Things are a little pricey here, admittedly. It’s a tourist kind of place and the prices are indicative of the quality of the produce offered. But sometimes, it’s not about the bottom line or finding a simple «bargain.» It’s about making sure that those who produce excellence can earn a living doing so. Excellence is to be found in abundance here, and its more about acknowledging that effort than anything else.