I am Steve Buxton. On behalf of the entire Buxton family, welcome to Buxton’s Garden Farm!
For those who may not know this unique and original family, let me just share a few things with you. My wife Paula and I have five children: Megan, Blake, Jenny, Emily, and Abbey. Megan, 19, is finishing her sophomore year at Lincoln Christian College. Blake, 19, is off on his own. Jenny, 18, is graduating from high school; she is also our artist, painting the gourds that we raise and sell from the farm as “Gourdous Gourds”. Emily, 15, loves basketball and is busy with track and field. Abbey, 14, also loves basketball and is hoping to become the tallest in the family. Yes, that is five teenagers. And people wonder why we are crazy.
Buxton’s Garden Farm started in 1995 with just half an acre of sweet corn and a few green beans. People were wanting more varieties of produce, so we decided to put up a shed on our farm on Rt 121 between Sullivan and Bethany. In 1997 we raised 1,000 tomato plants on the farm, all planted and watered by hand.
In 2003 we put up our first greenhouse. Paula loved it: not as much to weed, control the amount of water, and the flowers are prettier than okra. It worked out well and we run out of room in just one greenhouse, so up went the second one. I got excited about perennials and took the lead on them. We also started raising our own mums for the fall.
You would think that five kids, twenty-one acres of garden, two greenhouses—and let’s not forget the pumpkins, my favorite crop—would have been enough, but… in spring 2006 my mom says, “Hey! You need to read this ad in the paper: somebody local is wanting to sell some greenhouses”. So I called, and it was Bill Rich, the owner of Nature’s Bounty. Nature’s Bounty looked like a good fit for Buxton’s Garden Farm, so we struck a deal with Bill, and we now offer a wonderful selection of herbs, scented and unscented geraniums, prairie plants and perennials, along with the goods that we have been providing all these years.
Then in fall 2006, instead of shutting down to recover from our busy fall season, Mr. John Dean, retired from Dean's Greenhouse in Sullivan, showed us the need to move on to the Christmas season, so we started offering poinsettias, Christmas wreaths, and cemetery decorations.
Our customers are such a great family to us, so we want to offer the best product line possible. Thanks to you, we are able to keep growing. At Buxton’s Garden Farm, we are ready to provide you with and expanded line of the quality “Plants, Produce and Pumpkins” (our three P’s!) you deserve and the service you have come to expect from us. We look forward to growing with you this season.
Steve