About Us
A rich history, a hopeful future
Our love of farm life, horticulture, and family found a home in this place we call Red Granite Farm.
From our family to yours, thank you for your continued support of our family farm. We are passionate about growing a quality product for you and we couldn’t do that without the support of our community and customers like you.
-Steve, Nicole, Claire, Gabe, Nolan and Kelce (the pup)
Red Granite Farm is owned and operated by Steve and Nicole Jonas and is located in rural Boone County. The farm is a short 10 minute drive from Story City, 15 minutes from Boone and 15 minutes from North Ames. Red Granite Farm is a diverse operation, including 5+ acres of vegetables and pumpkins, 800 laying hens in the summer months and over 300 varieties of hardy perennials, vines, shrubs, annuals and succulents for sale in the garden center.
This is our story…
After graduating from ISU with Horticulture degrees, we looked for a farm we could call our own. With a dream of growing produce for the community, but also selling perennial plants to avid gardeners, we combined our two passions and worked tirelessly to build a business. Coming from conventional Iowa farms of corn, soybean, cows and pigs, we knew we wanted to give our children a farm life. We started small, and each year have literally grown a family and a business side by side.
We are blessed to have many of the farm photos of our acreage from generations past. What they have taught us about this place we now call Red Granite Farm has been so helpful in the plans we have made along the way. The nostalgia we have heard from people near and far about our farm and the big rock with the infamous cardinal that used to sit on top of it has led to many conversations from strangers turned to friends.
That big rock, a glacial erratic to be exact, was the inspiration for our farm name. It has been around for all the generations that have farmed this land. If it could only tell the stories of the agriculture that has evolved around it…
Horses have pulled plows through these fields. Cab-less tractors planting 2 rows of corn at a time, probably took weeks to put in the crops for some generations. As time has gone on, equipment has gotten larger, but the love of the farm has stayed constant.
In the past 10+ years we have watched as the owner of the land surrounding RGF has pulled in and planted with multiple planters and harvested with multiple combines in only hours, not days or weeks. Farmers these days don’t love the land any less, or work less hours to make a living, they just do it on many more acres.
We are making a living on less acres, but not without the love of the land or without putting in the long hours like the many generations before us. Iowa agriculture needs all types of farms. We’re not going to feed the world with what we produce at RGF, but we are going to help feed our community.
Obtaining land and then using that land to best suit our growing needs has always been a hurdle to overcome. Purchasing an acreage that was once part of a Century Farm (a farm owned and operated in the same family for 100 years) was a good start. We were blessed with buildings we could work with and a house we could live in to start the process of developing RGF into a viable business. After many improvements over the years, we are finally slowing down on the building phase of our operation. The opportunity to expand onto 5 additional acres in 2022 was a dream turned to reality. We look forward to seeing what this opportunity will lead us to growing for you!
Red Granite Farm has been a slow to develop dream, with plenty of blood, sweat and tears. Growing a business while growing a family has many challenges, and many rewards. One thing has remained constant, our love of family and farming. Our way of giving our kids a farm life looks much different than the traditional Iowa farms we grew up on. Whether you are growing corn and soybeans or cucumbers and tomatoes, you are planting a lot of faith each year!
We appreciate your continued support of our dream!
-Steve and Nicole Jonas and family
Red Granite Farm is located on what once was a Century Farm- owned by one family for over 100 years. The Moeller family was generous enough to give us the early farm photos. Those combined with the ones we’ve added since we’ve owned the farm show great progress through the years. We treasure the history that they hold, and hope that Red Granite Farm has 100 years of history to share someday.
