Phelps Farm

10/03/2026

Just a reminder that the Dubuque Farmers’ Market starts at 8:00 AM for the remainder of October!

We’ll be there tomorrow, 8:00 AM to noon.

We’ll also be in Guttenberg as usual, 8:00 AM to noon.

See you tomorrow!

⏰ New market hours start tomorrow!

Beginning tomorrow, the Dubuque Farmers’ Market will run from 8:00 AM–12:00 PM for the remainder of the season.

Same Saturday market, just a little later start. 🍎🥕☕️

We’ll see you downtown tomorrow morning!

09/30/2026

One step closer to having another 4,500 square feet of protected growing space on the farm!

Sunday afternoon, the weather finally cooperated. No wind, nice weather, and we FINALLY pulled the plastic on our 4th high tunnel greenhouse.

We had some great help and were able to get the big job done. Since then, we’ve spent the past couple of days getting the plastic officially secured and finishing up some of the details.

We’ve installed the skirting along one side, and next we’ll move on to installing the roll-up side hardware and equipment.

There’s still plenty of work left before High Tunnel #4 is finished, but getting the plastic on was a pretty big step. Eventually, this tunnel will give us even more space to extend the growing season and keep vegetables growing when Iowa weather decides not to cooperate.

09/28/2026

Saturday afternoon, we co-hosted a farm-to-fork fundraiser for the Grid Iron Club, which supports student athletes in the Clayton Ridge School District.

It was a five-course dinner with drinks, served out in a pasture atop the bluff overlooking Osterdock and the Turkey River. It was a pretty hard setting to beat, especially with perfect weather!

Food and drinks for the evening included donations from Guttenberg Brewing Company, Cherne Angus, and Phelps Farm.

It was a beautiful evening with a great group of people, and we’re grateful for Kendrick’s generosity and for making the evening possible in support of the Grid Iron Club.

09/25/2026

We’ll be at the Dubuque Farmers' Market tomorrow, Saturday, September 26th, from 7 AM–Noon!

We’ll have a good variety of vegetables along with plenty of fresh ginger and turmeric. The ginger is looking especially nice right now!

A friendly reminder for our Guttenberg customers: we will not be at our Guttenberg location this weekend due to Germanfest and the street closures. We’ll be back next weekend as usual.

If you’re heading to Germanfest, have a great time—and if you’re heading to Dubuque, come see us at the market!

09/24/2026

A quick heads-up for our Guttenberg customers — we will not be set up in Guttenberg this Saturday, September 26th.

Several streets downtown will be closed for Germanfest, so we’re taking the weekend off from our usual Guttenberg location.

But don’t let that stop you from heading downtown! Germanfest will be going on throughout the day, so come out and enjoy the food, music, and festivities.

We’ll be back at our regular Guttenberg location next Saturday!

09/24/2026

Spent a bit of time out in the woods this afternoon.

We checked over some of the maple lines, marked a few more maple trees, and did some work fixing up the path through the woods after all the recent rain we've had.

We’re hoping to tap some additional trees this coming season, so we’ve been slowly identifying good candidates and figuring out what supplies we'll need.

Maple season is still a ways off, but this is the kind of work that makes things a whole lot easier when February rolls around and we’re hauling sap through the snow and mud.

09/19/2026

Well, the weather won this one.

The Dubuque Farmers' Market has been canceled today, September 19th, due to the weather.

But we’ll still be set up in Guttenberg as usual from 8 AM–Noon.

If you were planning to see us in Dubuque today, come on up to Guttenberg instead—we’d be happy to see you!

Today’s Dubuque Farmers’ Market has been cancelled due to severe weather.

With thunderstorms, heavy rain, and potential flash flooding expected throughout the morning, we’ve made the difficult decision to cancel today’s market for the safety of our vendors, staff, and visitors.

We know many of you make the Farmers’ Market part of your Saturday routine, and we appreciate your understanding.

Stay safe, and we’ll see you back downtown next Saturday.

09/10/2026

Another batch of maple syrup finished and bottled!

When we make syrup in the spring, we don’t finish and bottle everything at once. Instead, we store some of our “almost finished” syrup in stainless steel canisters.

As we run low throughout the year, we pull out another batch and finish it. We carefully dial in the exact density (Brix), then pump the syrup through our filter press to remove the naturally occurring minerals that can settle out in finished syrup. From there, it goes into the steam bottler and into bottles.

The video is only 8 seconds, but that’s pretty much the whole finishing setup in one shot — evaporator → filter press → bottler → fresh maple syrup.

We have just ONE batch left in storage. Once that’s gone, we’re officially out until the maple trees get back to work next spring!

09/03/2026

This is what we're harvesting this week! 🍅🌶️

Tomatoes, peppers, onions, and cilantro are all coming out of our high tunnels and making their way into our fresh salsa! It's a mild salsa, so everyone can enjoy it!

It's been pretty satisfying being able to turn a bunch of vegetables that we grew ourselves into a finished (and delicious) product!

We'll have a fresh batch of salsa available Saturday at the Dubuque Farmers' Market!

08/31/2026

Ew........but cool thing of the day... 🐛

A tomato hornworm covered in parasitic wasp cocoons. (This is actually on a jalapeno pepper plant ironically)

The past couple of years, we've released parasitic wasps in our high tunnels to help control insect pests. We've known they're out there doing their job, but this is the first time we've actually seen something like this in action!

The wasps lay their eggs in the hornworm, and after the larvae develop inside it, they emerge and spin these little white cocoons all over the outside.

Pretty gruesome if you're the hornworm...but pretty cool if you're the farmer whose plants the hornworm was eating.

We'll happily let nature handle this one!