Southern Illinois Produce & More
Wish our Southern Illinois CSA pickup location was more convenient for you? Want to get a discount on your CSA share costs? You can become the Host of a Ryder Family Farm CSA pickup site! Site hosts make our share pickup more accessible for others […]
Since moving out to the country I’ve really had the opportunity to expand my poultry flock. It’s been a blast, we’ve hatched our own babies in the incubator, I’ve also made a few hatchery orders and some broody hens have hatched us babies. Below is […]
For the last several years we have partnered with various Southern Illinois clubs/ schools with our popular mum fundraiser program. Your Southern Illinois club, school or group can raise an awesome profit of up to 50% selling fall mums that are locally grown by our family farm.
Everyone loves to adorn their porch, mailbox and yard with mums and pumpkins as fall weather nears. Customers usually rush out on the first cool crisp fall day to buy up all the decor they can find. This always includes mums!
Your mum fundraiser will get a jump on this trend while securing your group the sale. This is because your customers will reserve beautiful, Southern Illinois grown garden mums from you before they even appear in the stores!
Fundraising clubs/ schools will begin the order taking process right as school starts in the fall. Fundraiser final numbers are submitted to The Ryder Family Farm during the last week of August or first week of September.
Our Southern Illinois grown mums are natural season mums so in most cases they will begin to bud prepare for bloom bloom in September. The September bloom time is because of the weather and the natural shortening of days.
To offer customers and fundraiser programs with the best, most long lasting garden mums, our fundraiser mums are distributed during the first or second week of September. This is ideally before the mum’s “peak bloom time” so customers can enjoy the most beauty from their plants.
In October, after fundraisers end, we will sell these colorful, decorative garden mums to the public on our farm, often with quantity discounts and bulk pricing available upon request.
We welcome fundraiser/ wholesale order inquiries from January through May 1st. Orders made within this timeframe will have ample color choice options and a wonderful profit return for your fundraising needs. Other benefits to early ordering are:
Orders made after May 1st will have limited quantity/ color availability options. In many cases we will not have fundraiser availability after May 1st as everyone has already reserved their plants.
Ordering your fundraiser mums is easy, all it takes is for you to tell us what colors you want to sell and how many of each color you estimate needing. We will also ask you to schedule your pickup/ delivery date then we will put together a estimate for you to approve. In some cases we will need a deposit to finalize the fundraiser order.
How the fundraiser flows:
Fill out the form below so we can talk with you more about mum fundraising opportunities!
In October, a Southern Illinois farm hosts an annual open house where visitors can choose from a mum and pumpkin patch for fall decorations. The event also features local vendors, farm animals, seasonal produce, and unique activities such as goat yoga. Vendors interested in participating can apply online.
Joining our Southern Illinois produce CSA program secures you 12 or 16 weeks of locally grown Southern Illinois produce for as little as $12-$24 a week. Each week you’ll get a “share” of our weekly harvest that is reserved and picked specifically for your family […]
The goat milk soap we make and sell is from unprocessed, raw goat milk that our family hand milks from our own small herd of Southern Illinois dairy goats. This is an important distinction.
Our soap is NOT made from powdered, canned or store bought goat milk, it is not from a soap craft kit and we do not outsource our goat milk production. This all safeguards the goat milk and allows us to provide a superior product that will nourish and feed your skin.
Since switching to homemade goat milk soaps for our family, our rashes from food sensitivities, the dry skin issues and the breakouts- are all gone! Our lotion usage has decreased, our skin feels and looks better. We basically hate how drying and harsh regular soap feels now.
“Why don’t you make some to try selling?” Nathan (my husband) asked when we needed to use up of another stockpile of frozen milk way back in 2014. I agreed to make a batch to test sell and we also gifted some soap to family and friends. Slowly we began to get some great feedback from folks.
One lady said her daughter’s sun spots are clearing up thanks to the goat milk soap. Another gal who has very sensitive skin and breaks out in reaction to most everything says her skin loves the soap too. I’ve seen how my husband’s dry skin has disappeared, he no longer needs lotion after each shower! My kids aren’t getting weird rashes anymore…
I’m not making soaps to fix ailments but I certainly believe that goat milk is very healing and nourishing, it’s why we drink it! The skin is your body’s largest organ, why not clean it with something nourishing, naturally moisturizing and free of harsh chemicals?
Over time I’ve tried various soap fragrances and colorants, they all sell quite fast but I’m always whipping up new batches. Our handmade raw goat milk soap contains no sulfates, no phthalates and of course are cruelty free (we love our goats). Our soaps are for sale on our southern Illinois farm, at some local retailers and also online!
Due to popularity, our inventory is constantly changing but you can see the latest soap scents that are for sale in our online store. Additionally, subscribing to our newsletter will get you alerts of soap restocking and the newest scent announcements.
Our farm’s goat milk is always raw, to preserve the nutritional value. We started with our Illinois dairy goats to provide drinkable raw goat milk for the family to consume. You see, only one person in our house can stomach pasteurized milk and in Illinois, buying raw milk can be pretty tricky where the law is concerned.
Pasteurization is a way to sanitize but it also destroys nutrition, probiotics and also changes the protein molecules in milk. We personally raise our goats and do hand milking so that we have a much more control over our sanitization practices and we have a solid view of animal/ herd health. This is why we keep our herd small and we don’t outsource milk production.
When we moved to Illinois and our raw milk sources were gone we knew we’d have to be our own milk source. No better place than a farm for that right? So we got a full sized, registered French Alpine dairy goat and we ended up with a gallon of raw goat milk a day.
I pretty much had a whole fridge of just raw milk. We made cheese, ice cream, kefir, yogurt and still have leftover milk, lots. Eventually our surplus raw goat milk gets frozen to preserve it but even the freezer gets too full of milk! This is how raw goat milk soap began on our family farm.
One day I made up a completely from scratch, uncolored, essential oil scented soap from our fresh raw goat milk for our family’s use. It cured for ages (almost a year!) and we finally tried it out. We’ll be forever hooked.
On social media I shared some photos of the kiddos helping me make a new batch of soap. I was amazed by how many folks wanted to order the soap we were working on. That is basically how I arrived at offering soaps for sale here on the site that we ship to you. Click here to browse our online store.
Here is my most colorful soap yet, Sparkling Snowdrop:
The Southern Illinois mum farm grows and sells a variety of locally grown mums. The farm, which started in 2017, offers hardy, uniquely colored, naturally blooming mums that are not stressed with growth regulators. Not only does the farm sell directly to customers and through events, but it also supplies to other local growers, florists, and garden stores.
We are The Ryder Family Farm, a first generation farming family in the heart of The Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois. We are a family operation in the beginning stages of building our diverse farm up from scratch.
Our farm hosts public events and sells directly to our customers on the farm, via our online store and at seasonal farm markets.
We are diverse and naturally minded family farm that works very hard to produce our offerings in a natural, sustainable way. We aren’t just out to make a buck selling you food, we are farming to improve the land, our community food economy and the welfare of our local ecosystem while also feeding our family and a few others. We offer a bit of everything so that our customers can secure diverse, farm fresh, locally produced foods and products right in their community.