Didier Farms in Lincolnshire closes retail operation
LINCOLNSHIRE, Ill. (CBS) -- A family favorite in far north suburban Lincolnshire is shutting down for good.
Didier Farms announced Thursday that after generations in business, it is closing its retail operation permanently.
Didier Farms has been a top destination when it comes to fall activities – offering fresh locally-grown vegetables at their farmstand, pumpkins and doughnuts at their Pumpkinfest, and flowers from their greenhouses.
Halloween on Monday was the last day of the retail business.
The land for the farm on Aptakisic Road – then only two miles long – was originally purchased by John Link in 1912, according to the Didier website. Link ran a dairy farm shipped milk by train to Chicago, and also raised pigs and chickens and grew some small vegetables, the farm said.
Link later quit the dairy business and raised purebred hogs.
In 1948, Link's daughter, Mary Sue, married Herb Didier – and they began raising sweet corn and cabbage with their children, the farm said. The vegetables were shipped around the country through Chicago's South Water Market, the farm said.
For retail operations onsite at the farm, the family set up folding tables in the front yard back in the 1960s and had the children run them. By the early 1980s, the family's onsite produce sales had expanded to the point where they moved to the front half of the farm's old dairy barn, the farm said.
A new greenhouse for flowers and vegetables opened in 1991, and new generations took over the farm as the years went on, the farm said.
The greenhouse offered annual and perennial flowers, gardening accessories, and hanging baskets. The Pumpkinfest featured a corn maze, pony rides, children's carnival rides, and an animal land zoo. County fair activities were also offered up on weekends.
With the retail operation closing, the Didier family says it will now focus on its grain farming operation instead.
