Reliably awesome, local produce grown year round that is good for you and the Keweenaw.
Our Story
We’re Drew Cramer and Allison Mills. We got married in May 2009 while taking a permaculture intensive. The farm dream has been in the works for a while.
But surgeries, injuries, inner ear disease, and student debt made us think that a farm wasn’t in the cards. Now, these same realities have given us many reasons to follow our dream. Life isn’t always easy, but we want to be happy and healthy — and know you deserve the same.
Drew is our full-time farmer. He’s the vegetable maestro, general contractor, and critter wrangler. Born and raised in Minneapolis, Drew has degrees in geoscience and education, co-owns Fresh Coast Yoga, and ran his own solar installation business for seven years. While vertigo and roofs don’t mix, the carrots and goats won’t mind when he goes deaf. Neither does the tractor, and while new attachments are fun, Drew is most excited to balance appropriate technology and good, ol' physical labor.
Allison is the farm’s sugar momma. She works remotely as the communications director for an Earth science data nonprofit called ESIP (said: ee-sip) plus she teaches at the Superior School of Dance and Fresh Coast Yoga. She is the farm’s goat snuggler, bouquet maker, and marketing nerd. Born in Nevada, and raised in Montana and Minnesota, she has now lived in the Keweenaw longer than anywhere else in her life. Allison is inspired by the healing powers of nature, movement, and words; she will chat your ear off about weeding biomechanics and cation exchange capacity.
If you want the farm’s full story (and to learn why it’s Ghost House), then check out our Ghost Stories. Hopefully we will meet you at one of the local farmers markets!
Join the Crew
Want to work on the farm? Or interested in skill shares that earn veggies? We offer a couple options for working on the farm to learn hands-on skills and to build local foods connections.
Most of the work is pretty physical (harvest bins can get heavy!) and Drew once tallied 26,000 steps in a single day. But one of our goals is to make good food accessible to as many people as possible, so we are open to collaborating on less physical projects.
Got ideas, questions, or a resume? Send them our way: hello@ghosthouse.farm
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Want to work with us? Awesome! Let us know you’re interested.
We run a lively farm and our seasonal, part-time employees help us plant, harvest, and keep the farm tidy. We start pay at $15/hr and here is our employee agreement.
If you’re interested in farm work more broadly, sign up for the UP Food Exchange newsletter, which has multiple job postings.
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During the growing season, our work share members help us with tasks that keep the farm in tune with the season.
We value different skillsets. From planting to social media, from harvesting to bouquet prep, work share members do two hours per week in exchange for a veggie or flower subscription.
Tell us you’re interested and check out our work share agreement.
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Isn’t a thing on our farm. We are not a nonprofit, so we cannot have volunteers do work that should be paid.
But we know that many people are interested in learning farm skills or seeing a farm in action. Sign up for our newsletter and stay in the loop for farm events. Or reach out and set up a time to come visit!
Our Practices
Soils come first.
Healthy soils lead to healthy plants.
We practice careful crop rotations, use only organic fertilizers and raise farm animals to help close the nutrient loop. We also incorporate cover crops before, during, and after plantings along with silage tarps to create stale seed beds and reduce tilling. We conserve water with drip irrigation, and are always striving to be better stewards of the land.
Salad is our thing.
Our salad mix is ready to eat straight out of the bag because it’s triple-washed. That means we use a bubbler to rinse away dirt, then sanitize and rinse again, then spin dry with a tricked-out washing machine. This process also increases the shelf life of our lettuce mixes.
Add some edible flowers, a pop of basil, and your salad is ready to go.
Food Safety.
In addition to salad, we grow early season tomatoes, cucumbers, and lots of other summer freshness.
We work with Produce Safety Technicians to ensure that we are following leading practices for clean and safe food. And common sense things. No dirty barn boots in the field!
flowers, too.
We love flowers. From some of the original homestead roses and columbines to all the zinnias, celosia, sunnies, and peonies we planted. We also keep tabs on native species in our woods and meadows along with tracking the spread of any known and problematic invasives like spotted knapweed.
The ephemeral beauty of blooms is a reminder to us to be present, be gentle, and go with the flow(er).
Follow Our Journey
