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Since you've found us it's probably a safe assumption that you have some interest in economic self-sufficiency, agriculture, environmental health and/or cooking/preserving, and gardening on some level! Those are the major focuses of Gardens on Glen. We are an urban or micro farm located in the heart of Council Bluffs, Southwest Iowa and our operation includes the intensive and organic gardening of approximately 2,000 square feet of raised bed garden space with five fruit trees and a small flock of egg-laying chickens supplemented with broilers we raise for meat to both eat and sell. Recently we have started to develop value-added products as well. 

As a kid I would get to go to a family friend's farm in Nebraska and help them out every Spring with their calves. I thought it was a blast and from the first visit I was hooked on wanting to be a farmer. Later I decided that farming would probably have to come after college and a career in civil service. Well, life happened and plans didn't workout as my 12-15 year old self envisioned but that's okay, most people can relate to that. 

I am now a father to 3 wonderful children. My eldest is James, he's closing in on 16 now, and he helps out a lot as part of his chores and projects he and I work on together. I have two daughters, ages 6 and 5 years old and they LOVE helping daddy water or plant the crops, holding/feeding the hens, and counting the eggs collected each day.

I bought a house in my hometown in 2016 with a nice big corner lot. The County Assessor calculates the lot size as 0.22 acres but more about that later. The first thing I did was cut in a nice big 20x20 foot garden and boxed it in. Then I planted five fruit trees, established my perennial crops like asparagus and several different berry shrubs... and the list goes on from there. As we've grown into the property over the years we decided to become more and more self-sufficient and environmentally friendly in our behaviors and purchases.

The primary objective with my blog, Stories on the Glen, is to show you what, how and why we do things the way that we do them. If something you see us doing gives you an idea you will try at home, with your family, then wonderful, we've accomplished our objective. To date we have no endorsements for or from or partnerships with any companies or products. So we aren't benefiting financially from anything we promote in our posts outside of our own products. 

I am both a life-long learner and educator at heart so when I research something, test it out, make it work for the situation and like it you, our readers, will know about it for the simple reason that it makes my feel great to think that I can inspire others to make the changes that have improved our 4 lives.

I always look forward to new conversations so please leave comments or email us directly at gardensonglen@gmail.com. I love to hear about new ideas and experiences, and of course make new life-long friendships!