Bowerman Blueberries is a third-generation family-owned blueberry farm in Holland, Michigan, approximately 3 miles from the shores of Lake Michigan. In our 70 years of operations, we have expanded from a 40-acre blueberry farm to 130 acres, requiring a harvest crew of both hand pickers and machines, a packing house for both fresh and frozen blueberries with distribution in the Midwest and beyond, a farm market bakery and retail location, and a bakery/cafe in downtown Holland. Although we have had to adapt to the changing times, blueberries are still at the heart of what we do.

During your tour, the Round Robin sessions will include:

• Bowerman Blueberries - The Farm: Bowerman’s grows, packs, and ships our own fresh and frozen blueberries. See how we do it with a packinghouse tour.

• Bowerman Blueberries Farm Market - Retail and U-pick Blueberry Location: Our farm market store has evolved from a covered 10x10 cement stand in 1993 to the 7,000 sq. foot farm market we have today. Don’t miss our beautiful bakery where we make our famous blueberry donuts and from-scratch pies and other baked goods. We focus on using our own blueberries and local Michigan fruit for our bakery and retail produce. We offer u-pick blueberries mid-July to mid-August. Our market also sells ice cream and retail items.

• Bowerman's on 8th - Bakery & Cafe: To further diversify our business, we opened a blueberry-inspired bakery and cafe in downtown Holland in January 2022. We took all of our bestsellers from the farm to this location and offer many more items exclusive to this location. The 5 main segments of our downtown location include: Kitchen (breakfast/lunch/dinner), catering, coffee bar, bakery, and retail.

Over 100 years ago, Edwin Dunneback purchased the farm in Alpine Township in 1922. He farmed 170 acres of apples, peaches, corn, hay and a herd of dairy cows, later adding strawberries & the cold storage, now known as our farm market. He had one son and 2 girls, but in 1969, the family was forever changed when Ed’s beloved son was killed in action in the Vietnam War. It was at this time, when Ed couldn’t bear the “& Sons” on the front of the barn, so he changed it to “& Girls”.

Ed’s daughter Suanne & her husband have two daughters, Stephanie & Sarah.

We all live on the farm working to carry on the family tradition started 4 generations ago! We are now a 5 generation family farm run by the Girls, who own and operate 175 acres located 10 minutes from downtown Grand Rapids, MI.

We are open year-round and continue to farm the same ground, offering u-pick asparagus, strawberries, sweet & tart cherries, apples & pumpkins.

The same barn is now home to our fresh produce market, gift shoppe, bakery, kitchen, full restaurant & tap room!

We brew our own beer, and make hard cider, seltzers and wine.

Everyone loves our animals including goats, donkeys, pigs, bunnies and ponies.

Recently, we started charging admission on festival weekends, and we offer lots of experiential classes, themed events, and host a craft show in the fall “Shop the Ridge”.

In 2021, the farm went through a family ownership transition. I, Justin Wendzel, have been full time at the farm since 2008, and my brother, Jared, joined the farm full time in 2011. We always knew we wanted to own the farm someday. It took over a year to work through the details (with the help of a business/transition coach who we still use monthly to this day) and finalize the purchase. I know there are a lot of farms struggling or considering this process, and I would be happy to share when you are on-site.

From January – July 2023, the entire layout of the parking and activity area was re-done. In addition to bringing in new sewer, we added public bathrooms, power, and built two additional barns.

We are one of the only engineered low ziplines that we know of in the country.

We are currently open from August through December with just over 200 employees each year.

Our retail market is open 7 days a week even when our activities are not open, and we offer donuts, cider, home decor, jarred goods, etc. Our biggest draw in the market is our donuts, and our largest order was just over 200 dozen donuts. Each year more than 8,000 school children visit the farm as well.

We offer the following seasonal events:

Summer - Art Fair, Sunflower Festival, Hot Air Balloon Competition (25 hot air balloons)

Fall - This is by far the foundation of our business, and we offer many of the same activities as other farms, in addition to the events we host on the weekends...Touch a tractor, Grandparents weekend, character weekend, all-star stunt Dog Show, Giant Pumpkin Drop and candy cannon.

Christmas - Walk through Christmas light experience. This has allowed us to diversify the farm. The light show began about 8 years ago and has gone through many redesigns, with a substantial increase in 2023. The event is hosted throughout 6 greenhouses (each with a different theme) and a ¼-mile outdoor section. Two separate shows are choreographed to music. We are also known for our Authentic bearded Santa, and tickets this past year to see him sold out in 1 hour. We do a separate special Santa event where children receive a personalized return letter from Santa a week or so after their visit.

•••

Even though we have been doing fall activities for over 20 years on this piece of land, last year the township started working on a new Agritourism ordinance. Although we were involved in the process and thought everything was good with how the new ordinance was written, the ordinance was applied in a way that neither us nor the planning commission had anticipated. After a very stressful experience, including multiple renditions of the ordinance being re-written, we worked through the issues, our planning commission was great to us and amended much of the language to allow us to continue as we had been operating.

Lewis Farms is a 5th generation farm growing 700 Acres of Apples, Cherries, Peaches, Pears, Plums, and Asparagus. In 2004, we built a farm market selling our produce direct to consumers.

Initially, we added an animal barn that was free - to give people a reason to come. We are 30 minutes from a population of 100,000 people and over an hour from an area that encompasses close to a million people, so the challenge that has always existed, is getting people to travel to us since we are in a rural farming area.

We opened our doors 7 days a week May thru October. In the beginning we were slow, but were surprised to see how popular the animals were to our guests. We saw this as an opportunity to expand our petting zoo and look into other ideas to attract guests. In 2007, we went to our first NAFDMA conference which opened our eyes to Agritourism. Let’s just say that was the turning point to start our growth to what we are today.

We are now a destination, with over 100 animals, including basic farm animals, and exotic species like sloth’s, capybaras, kangaroos, etc. The animals are what we have built our agritourism around to allow us to be open 6 months a year. Even though we call ourselves a zoo, we offer attractions for all ages, so parents get to feel good about teaching their kids about animals, and the kids get to wear off energy and just be kids.

Even though our fall season is still the biggest time for visitors, we saw an opportunity to grow our summer season, so in 2023 we added a splash pad which was an instant hit. Splash Acres helped increase our summer traffic significantly, especially on hot days. Alcohol is on tap for 2024 with a new bar and restaurant going in. We will serve seasonal drinks and delicious pizza that allows families a place to recharge on the farm.

Lewis Adventure Farm now has over 40 attractions, a zoo, bakery, 5 food locations, a Farm Market, permanent bathrooms, u-pick apples, corn maze, and a pretty cool corny barn. We look forward to seeing everybody and showing people that you don’t have to be close to a city to become a destination in the Agritourism Community.

We are 5th generation apple growers in west Michigan, growing around 150 acres of apples for commercial production.

Red Barn Market sits on about 14 acres not contiguous to the commercial blocks and includes our home, migrant housing, 2 acre U-Pick apples and our parking. We offer a variety of food including: sandwiches, flat bread pizzas, fries, tenders, ice cream, caramel apples, and a bakery with donuts, and from scratch bars and cookies.

Our u-pick orchard has 23 varieties of super spindle trees planted on 18” tree spacing and alternating 6/9 foot rows. It’s the highest density planting we know of.

The orchard has been featured in Good Fruit Grower (a national fruit publication).

Friends of ours in the apple industry created Painted Turtle Hard Cider in 2015 with the expectation that their kids would take over after a couple years. But when retirement time came, the kids didn’t want the business. So, they came to us in the fall of 2018 and offered it to us. In September 2019, we took over all of their wholesale business, and in October 2019 we put in a kegerator so we could have an on-site tasting room. That winter we built our production space and moved the full-production to our place in summer 2020.

We use only the apples we grow, have them pressed (100-120 bins at a time), and then we ferment, age, flavor, keg, & distribute.

It already had a really good following, so we didn’t rebrand. They had 7 flavors when we bought it, and we have created 8 more - and are working on more!

We have a tasting room at the market, provide it on tap to 60+ locations around West Michigan, and self-distribute all of the products.

Beyond the Barn we started charging admission for the first time in Fall 2023. Admission includes: Petting Farm, Play area, Sunflowers, U-Pick Orchard, Yard games, 2-acre Corn maze, and Pumpkins.

We host a wide-variety of events over the year including:

• Valentine Date Night (4 course dinner)

• Painting Nights

• Father/Daughter, Mother/Son Date Nights

• Easter Egg Hunt

• Birthday Bash (Going on Ten years this spring!)

• Mothers Day Tea

• Fathers Day BBQ

• Fun on the Fourth of July (slip and slides)

• Trunk or Treat

• Christmas Craft Show

• Direct Sales Show (Tupperware, etc.)

• Breakfast with Santa

• Believe - A North Pole Experience

Robinette’s Apple Haus & Winery is a year-round farm market, bakery, and cider mill located just outside of the Grand Rapids city limits.

Established in 1911, Robinette’s grows apples, peaches and cherries, and markets all goods directly to the consumer at the farm.

Seasonal agritourism activities include a corn maze, hay rides, you-pick apples and cherries, and school tours.

We are a small farm in Northern Indiana. Our busiest time of the year is in the Fall with our corn mazes, pumpkin patch and other farm entertainment.

Over the last 5 years, we have been adding more flowers to extend the season. Currently, we open in mid-June with our lavender field consisting of about 4000 lavender plants. In early July, our Sunflower & Zinnia Field starts blooming. We charge admission and emphasize people come to take pictures in the field. We are constantly adding new props to the field to attract photographers. We will have the props out in the field for the farm tour. The sunflower field is about 5 acres. We also have about 1/2 acre of Cosmos and 1/2 acre of a Poppy/Bachelor button mix. We are testing out Larkspur this year to see how it does.

We also grow about 4000 mums to sell in the fall. We will have just transplanted the plugs into pots shortly before the farm tour. If anyone would like to see how we plant and water, that area will be available for viewing.

In our gift shop, we sell lavender products, our homemade fudge, kettle corn, locally made wood signs, magnets and much more.

Our activity area consists of 2 jumping pillows, a large slide, pedal car track, a trike track, 2 apple cannons, a cow train, an indoor jump pad (not setup for the bus tour), a 20x30 ft indoor corn box, a tire mountain, and numerous smaller activities. The activity area is only open in September and October, but we will try to get as much operational as possible for the farm tour.