Produce that Schells in northwest Illinois

CHADWICK — There’s a lot of color in John and Janice Schells’ lives.

Reds, greens, purples, yellows, oranges, browns — there’s a whole a palette of produce on their family farm that are as rich in nutrients as they are in nature’s hues, and the Chadwick couple invite you to taste the rainbow.

For around 25 years, the Schells have made a business out of selling what they coax from the soil on their rural Chadwick, at Schell Farm Produce. The couple grows a wide variety of vegetables and fruits on 3.5 acres that they sell at the small shop on their farm and at farmers markets in Lanark, Milledgeville and Sterling.

When they aren’t taking their climate-controlled storage and sales trailer on the road to the markets, you can usually find the Schells outside, tending to their collection of crops and helping nature nurture their produce, taking a hands-on approach to bringing farm-fresh goods to their customers — just not too many hands, though.

“You don’t know who handled it in a grocery store at all,” Janice said. “We’re the only people who handle it. For me personally, that’s why I like to have my own garden. You know exactly where it’s coming from. The flavor of the food is so much different. It’s so much better. It tastes like what it’s supposed to be.”

The Schells grew up in rural Milledgeville and both enjoyed working in gardens when they were younger. Now they’ve been married for 35 years, but they still enjoy working in their garden — it’s been a labor of love, they say. They’ve established their routines and set-ups like a well-oiled machine, but that doesn’t mean they can’t switch gears. When customers ask them if they can grow and sell a certain something, they like to be able to make that happen.

The garden has expanded over the years, and so, too, has their customer base. Schell Farm Produce grows and sells the following fruits and vegetables: Apples, asparagus, beets, broccoli, broccolini, cabbage, cantaloupe, cauliflower, carrots, cherries, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, garlic, grapes, green onions, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, onions, peppers (incl. pablano, jalapeno and colored bell), pears, plums, potatoes, radishes, spinach, squash (incl. acorn, butternut and delicata), tomatoes (incl. slicer and cherry) and zucchini.

“[There’s] anything you want in a salad,” Janice said.

Tomatoes and pickling cucumbers are among their hottest sellers, but “we try to put in a variety of things. Since we’ve been going to markets, we have people’s feedback on what they like, and we make sure that we have it, especially certain squash and different kinds of cabbage. We go by what the people want.”

When it comes to tending to their crops, the Schells like to work with the lady who started it all: Mother Nature. Instead of tap water, they like to use rain water they collect instead, which helps give the produce a better nitrogen balance, Janice said. The fertilizer? Don’t look for bags and sprayers of chemical concoctions. The Schells prefer manure that they get from the chickens they raise, which helps provide high amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

The Schells are always looking for ways to make their jobs more efficient while improving the kind of quality their customers have come to expect. Take their trailer, for example, which they keep cool for each harvest, from garage to market. It’s a substitute for sliding-door coolers: When they pick their crop, they go right into their designated place in the trailer and cool for the next day’s market, which eliminates the need to load everything right before they take off.

The trailer is a step up over what they used to haul their wares in.

“We used to travel with a pickup and a canopy on it and everything,” John said. “Now we have a produce trailer, and you can make it any temperature you want to. We get a lot of product prepped instead of going over to the cooler, it goes right in the trailer.”

Things like that go a long way toward keeping their product as fresh as possible, and customers notice, John said.

“I like growing a good product to sell to the customers,” he said. “You’re meeting new customers and the same people every time. It’s busy but relaxing. When you have people returning year after year after year to your trailer selling produce, you know you have a good product. They’re happy with it.”

While the trailer is nice, some customers just couldn’t wait to get their hands on the Schells’ produce each year, and would make arrangements to pick up orders at the farm. That led to the addition of a small shop on the farm about 15 years ago. When they’re not at a market, the Schells can be found at the shop, which is equipped with a cooler to keep things farm fresh. They also sell cheese, butter and honey from nearby farms. In addition to customers they’ve met at the markets they set up at, the shop has also been a benefit for locals, Janice said, since Chadwick doesn’t have a store of any kind.

“We had people coming to the house and they were asking if we had any extra stuff,” Janice said. “I didn’t like the thought of having something organized for them to come and then [possibly] get it out and stick it in a fridge. We put up this little shed and it has a cooler in it so we can put the stuff in there. We get a lot of people who come. We used to do markets in Morrison, Savanna and Dixon, and now they just come to the house.”

The couple also looks forward to hosting school field trips, with kids roaming around the garden, discovering produce that some of them haven’t seen or heard of before. Golden beets — just as nutritious as regular beets, but sweeter tasting — were an example of that during a recent trip.

“We had kids out here last year from second grade in Milledgeville taking a field trip, and they went all over the garden and asked a lot of good questions,” Janice said. “They were smart. We’d pull up something and they’d try to eat it and see if they liked it. I said, “I wish we had some beets because I would sure like you to try them,” and this one little kid said, ‘My mom made me eat those. I don’t like those.’ I said that maybe you didn’t have the golden beets. He didn’t want to eat it. They were good kids.”

Growing and selling fresh, quality products has made their name a familiar one to many customers throughout the decades, and customers will even visit them at the markets just to chat.

“We love the people, and how happy they are,” Janice said. “They bless us. I know for John, too, he feels so happy knowing that all of this is going somewhere, for them. People appreciate it, and appreciate us. I get more hugs in a day from the farmers markets than what we would at church. I love the people, and they love us. That’s the best part. They miss you when you’re not there, and that’s something.”

Schell Farm Produce, 1988 Morrison Road in Chadwick, is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Thursday and Friday; 9 a.m. to noon Tuesday and Wednesday, and 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday from May to October. Only cash and checks are accepted for payment. Find it on Facebook or call 815-266-1345 for more information.

Schell Farm Produce sets up at following farmers markets:

• Lanark: 3 to 6 p.m. Tuesday from mid-May to October, 101 N. Broad St.

• Milledgeville: 3 to 6 p.m. Wednesday from May to October, 18 W. Fifth St.

• Sterling: 8 a.m. to noon Saturday from late April to October, 106 Avenue A.