(upbeat music) ♪ Hey ♪ Hey ♪ Hey - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

As I travel this country talking to people, people that want to be in agriculture, people that want to start a farm, what some people don't realize is how hard it actually is.

But today we're gonna talk with Sharon Pferschy from Elburn, Illinois, who has done just that.

How you doing, Sharon?

- Doing great, Rob.

Thanks for having us.

- You are the co-owner of Garlic Breath Farm?

- That's correct.

- Yeah.

First of all, if people don't know, where is Elburn in Illinois?

- So Elburn is about 20 minutes west of Aurora.

- Okay, is that where you're from originally?

- No, I'm actually from up north in the Kerry Crystal Lake area.

- In the what?

- The Kerry/Crystal Lake area.

- The Chicago area?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- For those.

Yep, Chicago.

- How long of a drive was it down to Peoria?

- It was a little over two hours.

- Okay.

- Not too bad.

- All right.

Well, you say that's not too bad.

- Not too bad.

(Rob laughs) - You travel quite a bit with your job.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

And you work for the FAA.

- That's my day job, correct.

- That's your day job, yeah.

It's interesting too, we're going to get into it later, about how your husband's been able to just farm full time.

It's fascinating to a lot of people what you guys have done because I've heard it again and again and again when we go to, you know, speeches and that, people, "Oh, we're gonna farm, we're gonna do this."

And I say, "It's great.

I love that."

But as you can probably attest, it's pretty hard.

- There's a lot to it.

There's a lot to it.

And people, I think, oh, we're guilty of making it look more glamorous than it is.

But I guess that's just part of marketing.

But it's a lot of hard work.

It's a lot of dedication.

It's a lot of doing hard work when you don't feel like it.

- Yeah.

So you and your husband, you were both working for the FAA, and how did we get into farming?

- Well, we actually had a pet pig.

I had always wanted a pet pig growing up, and my husband was just wanting to be the best husband ever.

And so he surprised me with little Kevin Bacon back in 2020 and, or actually, no, I'm sorry, 2010.

- Yeah.

- And he surprised me with Kevin Bacon, and it was great.

And so we trained him just like a dog, you know, he's potty trained.

He- - This pig?

- This pig, yeah.

- Yeah.

- This pig, yep.

You can walk him on a leash.

He's great.

I taught him how to use that Staples easy button, push the button, and then we knew that he needed to go outside to go potty.

Everything was wonderful.

- Wait one second.

- Sure.

- So you have a pig, and you have this, I know what you're talking about, like the red button that they use to.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

And you taught the pig to push a button, which means he needed to go potty.

- Potty.

That's right.

(laughs) So, yep, we did that.

And there's actually a video on YouTube about it.

If you search on, I think, easy button pig, it's on there.

It's a much, much younger Kevin Bacon and Sharon Pferschy, that's for sure.

- How old is Kevin Bacon?

- In October, he's gonna be 15, so.

- Which for a pig is pretty, is it pretty old, right?

- It's pretty old, yeah.

- 'Cause what kind of pig?

- It's the kind that you don't eat, and that's why he gets to be so old.

(laughs) - Technically you can eat any pig.

- Technically, technically.

- Right, yeah.

- Yeah.

- No, we thought originally that they go to about 30 years, but we found out a little bit more recently that they usually like 15 is pretty much the max, which makes sense, 'cause he's getting old-man skinny and that kind of thing.

- He's slowing down.

- He is.

- Just like his movie career.

(Sharon laughs) I'm sorry.

I do like Kevin Bacon.

I mean, "Footloose."

- Who doesn't?

- One of the best.

- Yes, indeed.

- Absolutely, yeah.

(Rob laughs) Okay, so you have this pig, and then how does that transition into a garlic farm?

- So my husband had redone our house and did all kind of great work, and we decided that we wanted to sell it for a profit and move closer to work, 'cause, at that time, our day job was just under an hour away from us.

And I just didn't wanna have that kind of drive.

So we did that, but we were having trouble, a lot of trouble, finding a neighborhood that would allow us to have a pet pig.

All those associations were just like, "No, no farm animals."

- Well, I mean, but it's a pig, but you- - Potty trained, yeah.

- raised it like a dog.

- Right.

And pigs are actually cleaner than dogs, but- - That's an opinion.

- Well... - Yeah.

(Rob laughs) - And smarter.

But, (laughs) you know, they weren't looking to dispute it.

So we started looking around, and our realtor luckily found this three-acre land, and it had this little house on it.

And it was not really a farm, it was mostly land.

And it did have some farm field on it.

It had previously been part of a larger farm.

And then they split it off when the husband had passed away.

And then they were just trying to sell it off.

So we got that, and it was great 'cause we had a place where a pig could be a pig.

But it was kind of funny because in our old neighborhood, I'd walk Kevin Bacon around the neighborhood on his leash, and people would stare at us like, what are they doing?

- I imagine.

- And now at our farm, if I walk Kevin Bacon around on a leash, the farmers look at us like, what are they doing?

- I imagine.

- So we just gotta create our own world, I guess.

- So now you have ground.

- Mm-hmm, we got land.

- And you're looking to do something with it.

- We didn't know what to do.

Our background was in technology, computers.

We were not farmers.

We've got no history of farming whatsoever.

And so my husband actually did a Google search saying, what is the, you know, what's a good thing that you can grow on an acre of land for, like, a micro farm?

You know what can you make a lot of money?

- Opium poppies, yeah.

- Well, yeah, opium is hard to get, and yeah, so.

Tariffs.

But the problem was that it pretty much came up with two different options, lavender and garlic.

And we didn't know what to do with lavender.

So we thought, "Well, garlic's great."

- What do you do with garlic?

- Well, you eat it, Rob.

(Sharon laughs) (Rob laughs) And we decided our master plan was to become garlic farmers and, in addition, like, you know, a side gig, 'cause that's cool.

It's cool to have a side gig.

And whatever we couldn't sell, we would eat.

- Okay.

- That was our master plan.

Yep.

- I mean, that sounds good.

Sounds fantastic.

- Foolproof.

Couldn't have.

Yeah, no.

- So you just went to Walmart, you bought some garlic seeds, and you're in business.

- It was a little bit more complicated than that.

So we knew that we wanted to be certified organic.

And so I began to look into what that would take.

And I had to transitional land first from conventional to certified organic.

And part of that began with having seed.

You have to actually acquire seed that's certified organic to begin with.

And so we did that and started everything off and had to learn, you know, all the ins and outs of the certification process and how to become farmers.

And Google was very much so our friend.

- I bet, yeah.

- But then we also had to reach out to other businesses to try and learn.

But how do you do that without, you know, creating a situation where you look like competition?

- Yeah, I wouldn't help you.

- I know.

- Yeah.

- I can already tell, yeah.

- Even if I didn't grow garlic, I'd be like, "No, you're on your own.

Ask your pig."

(Sharon laughs) Yeah.

- Right.

So I found a farm out in Canada actually.

I was like, "Okay, that's far enough away.

They're not gonna worry about anything I ask."

And as it turns out, he had previously lived in Illinois, so he thought it was pretty cool to be able to help another, you know, person from Illinois.

And he just told us the ins and outs of everything, like, you know what to do.

And it just, it was so helpful.

And it's kind of funny because not only did that help us get started, but it also planted the seed in us to help other farms.

Because what we did not like was we did not like in the farming community that it seemed like everybody had silos, like literally, but also figuratively, where you just, the information sharing just wasn't there.

- No, we don't like to talk.

Yeah.

- So we decided that we were going to redefine that part of how we do business in our community.

And so we were just going to share it all.

Just tell anybody, anybody who wants help, we'll help you.

There's a farm just about, shoot, a quarter mile down the street, and we helped them start a garlic farm.

- Competition right there.

- Don't even care.

We're here to help.

- Huh.

- Yep, yep.

We believe in abundance.

And the truth is, that's never been a problem for us.

In fact, when they sell out, they send customers over our way.

- Really?

- Yeah.

And we would do the same.

Yeah, we're all here to help.

- You're not just like starting 'em up, so like, eventually you can take 'em over.

- No, no.

(laughs) I don't want more work, Rob.

(Rob laughs) (Sharon laughs) I'm good.

I'm good.

- So this is a huge change.

A huge learning curve.

- Yeah.

- How do you start selling garlic?

- Well, we started off by looking for farmers' markets and trying to figure out what that was gonna take, because we didn't have a market.

We didn't, you know, we didn't understand how to get into stores, or anything like that.

So we started applying to farmers' markets.

And prior to all this, I had never even been to a farmers' market.

Like, I just hadn't.

It wasn't part of my life.

And I didn't- - Oh, I forgot.

You're a vegetarian, aren't you?

- I am.

- I had to look that up, what it was.

You don't eat meat.

- No, no.

- That's the damnedest thing.

Literally.

- It's weird.

I know, and I'm still alive.

It's amazing.

- For now.

- I know.

- Yeah.

How long have you been doing that?

- Well, we were vegan for seven years, and then- - Vegan?

- And then just this past December, we started consuming eggs, which converts us to vegetarian, so.

- So you can't be a vegan and eat eggs?

- Correct.

- Okay.

- Yeah, with vegan, yeah.

Nothing with a face.

- You can eat ham though, right?

- No, not so much.

- It's weird.

- I know.

- Yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna make fun of you, but I kind of want to.

(Sharon laughs) Vegetarian.

(Sharon laughs) I don't know what to do for the rest of the interview now.

- I don't know.

I don't know.

I'll eat extra broccoli for you.

Now what?

- Really?

No meat?

- No.

- Okay.

- No.

- All right.

- No.

- And your husband too?

- Yeah.

It was actually his idea.

Yep.

For health reasons.

So we wanted to, when his mom passed away in 2017, he started realizing, looking at his family tree, that they just did not have longevity in their family.

And so he decided that he was going to take matters into his own hands and change everything that he could.

And so he was like, "What do you think about being vegan?"

And I was like, "What?"

Because for years I was like, "I don't really like meat.

I think we should be a vegetarian."

And he was like the biggest carnivore ever.

We used to have meat chickens.

He would be all like low carb, eating all the meat and everything.

And he was like, "No, that's crazy."

And then when he said, "I think we should go vegan."

I was like, "What's wrong with you?"

(Rob laughs) - Was that hard?

- Well, we started it with low to no pressure.

It was October 1st, 2017.

We agreed that for 30 days, or actually 31, we were going to be completely vegan and just go that route and absolutely no meat.

And then on the 31st day, Halloween, if we decided that this is horrible, let's not do this, we're gonna go out and have a burger and whatever.

Like, we don't care.

But about, it wasn't even two weeks, it was like 10 days into it, his inflammation had gone down so much.

He started feeling so good that he just looked at me, and he said, "I'm not going back.

I don't know what you wanna do, but I can't go back to eating meat.

I feel too good."

And I was like, "Okay, well, I will support you."

- I'll be damned.

- Yeah.

- Oh good.

I guess more for us.

- There you go.

More for you.

Absolutely.

- All right, I don't know much about garlic, right?

I buy garlic salt.

- Okay.

- I mean, what do you do with them?

- Well, with garlic, I mean, there's so much you can do.

So there is, I mean, you can eat it raw even.

A lot of people like to roast it.

We pass out a roasting recipe card so people can throw it in the oven, some olive oil, salt, pepper, just kind of cook it for, shoot, it's only like 20 minutes for 450.

But a lot of times people like to chop it up and put it in stir-fries and all that.

But I recommend eating it raw.

- Is it really strong, isn't it?

- It can be.

So there's hundreds of different varieties of garlic.

- Yeah.

- And the kind that you get at the store is not the kind that we grow here in the Midwest.

And it's actually quite a bit more bitter than what we sell.

And so it just, we do recommend that if you're gonna be eating it raw, that you'd want to, you know, check on the variety, 'cause sometimes it's gonna be a little too spicy for that, for a beginner at least.

- Can you do it?

Are you immune to it now?

You can just slam it.

- No, not completely immune to it.

I mean, there's still some times where it just, you know, it makes me squint a little bit, and I'm like, "Woo, that's a lot."

My favorite variety is Romanian red, and, ugh, that guy's spicy.

Real spicy.

(Rob laughs) So we always tell people, 'When you're starting out, have the Porcelain music.

It's a little bit more mild."

It's- - Porcelain music.

- Mm-hmm, Porcelain.

It's actually our bestseller.

- That's- - It's a delicate name.

- I know.

- For garlic.

- I know.

It's actually a guy's last name.

He came from, I think, Italy.

And it was just his last name, and he brought the seed, and he was like, "I'm gonna name it after me."

(Rob laughs) All right.

- What are you selling at the farmers' markets though?

- So we do typically sell garlic in the month of July, which is when we harvest it.

So right now we have garlic scapes, which are the flower part of the garlic plant.

And those taste- - That's what these are, right?

- Yes.

And those taste like a garlicy green bean.

- I've never had one.

- Yeah, they're pretty darn cool.

- Oh, they're long.

- That's just the flower part.

So the actual rest of the, that'll be my model.

- Your model?

- Yep.

- Okay.

- So the garlic bulb is still in the ground until July, when we harvest it.

And so then there's about a two, two to two-and-a-half-foot stalk for the garlic, and then this guy's on top.

If we were to leave this alone and let it go to flower, which it will do if we don't break these off, this is the bud.

It will actually spend so much energy going to flower to reproduce that our garlic bulb will be small.

So we break these off, and they're nice and edible and delicious.

And you can only get 'em for a couple weeks in the month of June.

So it's like a big delicacy, and gourmet places love it.

And it's just a lot of fun.

- I've never had one.

Never even heard of 'em.

- So if you eat it raw, it's pretty spicy.

But if you cook it, it does mild it out quite a bit.

So now you have garlic breath.

(Sharon laughs) Sample time.

- My first time too.

- Your first time too?

- What's it called?

- Garlic scape.

- Just eat it.

Yeah, don't worry about what it's called.

- I think it's pretty good.

- Little kick to it.

- Yeah, little kick to it.

Yep.

- I was expecting worse.

- No, no, no.

So you can tell that there's, like, it's like a garlicy green bean.

- Here, we'll get, I don't want... - I was gonna say, I feel like everybody's swapping germs.

- We got plenty.

- I mean, you know?

- Don't blame me.

(Rob laughs) (Sharon laughs) - That's fascinating.

- Yeah.

Don, do you want a bite?

(Sharon laughs) - Everybody's gonna have garlic breath.

- We'll get you, you can take this home with you, Don.

- Oh, thank you.

- Yeah.

(Sharon laughs) It's not bad.

- No.

- So how do you, I mean, you supposed to eat 'em raw or?

- You can.

So the number one thing that folks like to make with garlic scapes in the month of June is garlic scape pesto.

There's like a cult following for it.

It's so popular.

- Okay.

- Yep.

And so at our website, garlicbreathfarm.com, we do have a recipes tab, and we've got, of course, the pesto.

But even just yesterday I made garlic scape bean dip.

I just posted the recipe this morning on our Facebook and Instagram page.

It's wonderful.

- So you guys build a farm.

Successful.

Your husband actually quits his day job.

And was that a good decision?

- It was.

So in 2015, we started Garlic Breath Farm.

Then in 2019, he quit his federal job to work full-time at Garlic Breath Farm.

And it was scary and exciting all at the same time for him.

But when you have the opportunity to follow a dream, you know, you gotta go for it.

- Yeah.

Your husband was a veteran?

- Yes, of the Navy.

- Tell me what y'all are doing with veterans.

- We are just trying to give back.

So the military gave so much to my husband that he just wants to make sure that he gives back as a thank you.

And so we are working with the VA, and we're helping veterans transition from military life to civilian life and provide farm therapy for them and just an opportunity to- - What is that?

- get outside.

- Farm therapy?

- So if you have stresses, a lot of times just being out in the dirt, and in the sun, and doing physical activity, and working towards a bigger purpose outside yourself.

It helps provide internal peace.

So a lot of folks call that farm therapy.

- Okay.

- Helps decrease anxiety and stuff like that.

- Now you'll have to help me out 'cause I do not live in the city.

So is it an escape from the city life, or I guess I'm not following.

- It's an escape from your brain.

Yeah, it's not from.

For a lot of people, it's just sometimes we all get a little too stuck in our heads.

I mean, we're all guilty of it.

And so when you're working on a farm and doing something physical and you're knowing the good purpose that you're working towards, it just feels good.

It feeds your soul.

And a lot of, yes, we do sell at farmers' markets.

We sell online, we do all this kinda stuff, but a lot of what we do ends up going to food pantries and stuff like that and just helping people.

And so they know that they're being part of something that's helping the greater good.

- Mm-hmm.

How do you get set up with something like that?

Because I imagine a lot of people want to help veterans, but, you know, probably some people aren't qualified.

Is there a process?

- Yes.

So we weren't really sure how to start at first.

My husband does belong to the Farmer Veteran Coalition, and he kind of reached out to them, and he also reached out to the VA themselves, the Veterans Administration, and the VA came back and said, "Yeah, we've got this program.

We can set up a contract with you guys as long as you're, you know, registered to do business with the government and all this kind of stuff."

And I had already gotten the business backend set up previously just part of my admin duties.

So I was like, "Yeah, we're good.

Let's do it."

- Do you think your husband can relate to them better than, like, say, I could, just because he knows what they've, well, you can't ever compare it, but he would know better what they've gone through than other people that hadn't served.

- Yes, I would say so.

I think that it's, there's a brotherhood regardless of gender.

There's just a brotherhood, sisterhood of people who get it, who understand.

I mean, that's something that, you know, I was not ex-military, and so there's just things that I'm not gonna get that they all get, and they can all just sort of bond and connect over.

And I think it's important for them to feel part of that community.

Especially when they have, you know, gotten out of the military.

It's like you're part of this really tight group, this family, you're doing important things.

And then (imitates explosion) you go out to regular life, and it's like, "Well, what's my purpose now?"

- Mm-hmm.

So with this farm, is there more of a sense, everything's a business, right?

You gotta make money.

Gotta be profitable.

But is there a bigger purpose for you two?

- Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

For us, we're here to just serve people.

We're here to serve the community, we're here to change the world, make an impact.

And there's so much that we do.

Like, for example, here today, I'm not here to sell a thing.

I'm here to plant a seed.

- That's good.

- 'Cause here at PBS, we don't have any money.

- I know.

Nobody's gonna watch the show anyway.

I know.

(Rob laughs) (Sharon laughs) But I'm here to plant a seed to help people start thinking about, "Oh, maybe I would like to work with the VA." Or "Oh, maybe I would like to grow food and give tomato plants to food pantries," and stuff like that, you know?

And just to plant the seed, 'cause you never know which seed's gonna take off.

But the more you plant, the more your probability of growth occurs.

And so that's a lot of what we do is we just spread the word and try to grow others.

- How do you become nice?

I'd really like to know.

Hey, you're nice.

You wanna do good for people, and that's just so foreign to me.

(Sharon laughs) - Well, I don't know.

There's probably a lot of people that say I'm not that nice, but I don't know.

(Sharon laughs) - So your husband?

(Rob laughs) (Sharon laughs) - Nah, he likes me.

- What's the majority of your business?

Is it mainly at the farmers' market, or are you guys selling elsewhere?

- It is mainly at the farmers' market.

We did get our wholesale license, and I thought that that was something that we're gonna wanna do.

But the profit margin for that is just so thin.

But that's not even the biggest deal.

The biggest deal is you don't get to actually be part of the community.

There's a gift that going to a farmers' market and working at a farmers' market that exists that nobody really talks about.

So we've been doing this for about 10 years.

We've seen couples get married over time.

We've seen pregnant bellies show up one summer.

The next summer, there's, you know, a little baby in a stroller.

Couple years later, next thing, you notice- - It is 'cause of the garlic?

- It's the garlic, I know.

- Is it an aphrodisiac?

- It takes nine months to grow garlic.

Takes nine months to grow a baby.

Everyone's like, "Let's," yeah.

Clearly.

- The problem I would have with farmers' markets, and I've never done one, but I would know how much work it takes me to grow whatever, right?

- Yeah.

- And then you get someone there, and it's like, "Well, I'm not paying that."

And that would tick me.

I'll just like, "Okay, I'll show you where to stick it."

- So I get that.

And I tell you what, it's funny because we have had a few people that are like, "I'm not paying that much for a garlic bulb," you know?

And I'm just kind of like, "Cool, see ya," you know?

But my husband's like, "Well, I'll tell you why it costs that much.

It's because you're looking at the person who put it in the ground and took it out, and, you know," and so he's much more patient than I am.

I'm just like, (mouth clicks) on your way.

(Rob laughs) (Sharon laughs) But truth be told, it's just like, it will sell itself.

So we actually have some people that are like, "I don't know, why is it really worth it?

Whatever."

We'll take a small garlic bulb, and a lot of times we'll just say, "You know what?

Do you have garlic at home already from the store?"

And they're like, "Yeah."

"Take this.

Just take it.

It's our gift to you.

Please do a side-by-side comparison."

- Get 'em addicted to it.

- Well, pretty much, like a good drug dealer.

- Yeah.

- Yep, yep.

So we just send it home with them, and it speaks for themselves.

And we almost always see them back.

- Garlic Breath Farm.

If people want to find you, social media, websites, where do they go?

- We are on Facebook, we're on Instagram, LinkedIn.

I think X is called now.

Garlic Breath Farm.

- It's always be Twitter.

- I know, right?

- Always be Twitter.

- Yeah, I know.

So we're @garlicbreathfarm, and then our website is garlicbreathfarm.com.

- And is there a certain farmers' market up north that you hit?

- Yeah.

- A lot of times on Saturdays, we're at the Batavia Farmers' Market.

And on Sundays, we're at the Oswego Farmer's Market in the summers.

- Okay.

Sharon, I think you and your husband, first of all, congratulations on being first-generation farmers.

- Thank you.

- That is very rare.

And to be, like, truly successful enough to where your husband can, you know, that's his main gig now.

And it sounds like, we talked before, maybe when you retire you're hoping to do the same.

- I would like to very much.

- It's very rare in agriculture.

It's very rare, so.

But besides the money part of it, you guys with your attitude towards wanting to help other people, help other farms, that's also rare too.

So I think you're a breath of fresh air, breath of garlic breath air.

(Sharon laughs) (Rob laughs) - Thank you.

- To agriculture.

I don't understand the vegetarian thing, but I'm thrilled that you talked with us, yes.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, it is.

It's so hard to find someone that really wants to help other people.

And you made an impression- - We do.

- on me and my wife, and, yeah, I definitely want to thank you for that.

Sharon Pferschy.

- P-F. - P-F. - Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Maybe you should change that.

That would help.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

- Okay, I'll work on that.

- We didn't talk vampires at all.

- We did not.

We did not.

I have this garlic-scented candle here, and we actually have a second one that says Vampire Test Kit.

- Fair enough.

- Just saying.

- Sharon Pferschy, thank you very much.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.

(epic music) (epic music continues) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to explore more of our local content.

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