Lakeview Gardens

Benny and Ada Stutzman
W4882 Meadow Road, Bonduel • 715-745-2253

The lush vegetable garden visible on Hwy 22 at Lakeview Road between Shawano and Cecil is flourishing and so is the new business called Lakeview Gardens.
Owners Benny and Ada Stutzman plant, raise and sell the produce with the help of several of their children. This year, Benny built the produce wagon that stands in their yard at W4882 Meadow Road, Bonduel. The base is a large refrigerator unit that they put a roof on, and each of the long sides hold eight enclosed bins filled on a recent visit with carrots, beans, beets, cucumbers, potatoes, corn, pickles and more.
“I put holes on the inside to let the cold out (into the bins) so the vegetables stay nice and cool. I thought that was an important thing, because I don’t like to leave the vegetables out in the hot sun,” he said.
Earlier in the season, the bins held more greens and kohlrabi.
“We had lettuce and radishes, but we put that away when sweet corn came,” he said.
Their Galena peas, a compact shelling variety with long pods, were a very hot item this spring.
The peas will be back next year, grown from seeds saved from this year’s crop. They also save seeds from heirloom tomatoes.
The vegetable stand is a change for the Stutzmans, who used to sell their produce to Cedar Wedge Farm in Bonduel.
“This is the first year we’re doing it this way. We used to raise for Cedar Wedge, and they are getting so deep into the meat (sales) that we were hoping to push off by ourselves,” Benny said. “We were not sure how people were going to respond to it, but we’ve had a lot of new customers every day.”
On a recent Saturday they had 23 customers.
“We were super happy with that,” he said.
He also supplies a few farmers market vendors, including one at the Shawano market that buys his kohlrabi to sell.
“There’s another one that goes to Green Bay. When he stops in, he takes quite a bit, a little bit of everything. Then we have one wholesale buyer who takes a lot of vegetables,” he said.
On a recent Monday, that buyer took two pallets of zucchini.
“That was a lot of picking!” he said. “It keeps us busy, very much so right now,” he said.
He, Ada and the older ones of his nine children are out by sunup to fill orders and stock the bins of their stand, working until about noon, with a break for breakfast.
“The four oldest ones are usually out there every morning with us, maybe the fifth one too if she’s not in taking care of the little ones,” he said.
July was a busy month for them partly because of supplying pickling cucumbers to the many buyers seeking them.
“Pickling cucumbers are another very hot item. It takes a lot of work, but it’s definitely worth it. A lot of people call in for that. We like to take orders for that,” he said.
He needs about a week lead time for a small order and more for bigger orders.
“We have people who order 60 pounds at a time, so you’re talking maybe a week, week and a half, two weeks or so,” he said. “We’ve been doing the pickling cukes for quite a few years now, and people really like them.”
They had supplied them to Cedar Wedge and knew they were popular, but didn’t realize just how popular until they went on their own and Cedar Wedge directed calls for orders this year to them.
“It was just unbelievable how many. I didn’t realize. There’s just more than we’ve ever done. A guy calls and gets 50 pounds, and he calls back and says he wants another 50 pounds.”
Cooler weather can affect their ability to fill orders.
“A little cooler weather with vegetables really makes a difference, so we try to make sure that people are aware when they call that they might not get (an order) due to cooler weather all of a sudden, because that can really affect your crops,” he said.
Planting begins mid-May, or sooner if they can, and they start some crops around March in the greenhouse they put up this year at their property to replace the one they had used at Cedar Wedge.
“It’s been very nice to have the greenhouse at home where we can start everything. When it’s ready to plant, we can just take it out in the field and plant it,” Benny said.
They use biodegradable plastic row liners in their production field to keep weeds at bay.
“By the time fall rolls around, you don’t see much of it,” he said.
They also have an irrigation system, which was key during the dry weeks this July. The lines run under the plastic and are replaced each year.
“It’s a pretty inexpensive system that we use,” he said.
They are thinking about expanding their offerings with flowers.
“Where my wife grew up, they had flower greenhouses,” said Benny, who also has a background in vegetable farming.
Mums would be the plan for going into the fall, possibly taking on the business from another local grower.
“Adding greenhouses, that’s what our goal would be, to be financially able to do that,” Benny said, adding that they are working with the county to change their zoning.
The stand is usually open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with no Sunday sales. He put in a circle driveway to make it easier for customers to pull in, shop and pull out on the other side.