Our Farm History

Generations of Harvesting Memories

It all began in 1876 when Milo Porter, a civil war veteran homesteaded 160 acres with his wife Lucy and family and received the Land Patent on November,14 1881. Milo and Lucy started a big orchard of Butternut and Walnut trees and produced maple syrup, honey, and ginseng harvested in the woods.  The Porter Farm was one of the many dairy producers in the area. They even had a lime quarry. The land was actively farmed until it sold out of the family on May 29, 1944.

The current Porter farm, which is adjacent to the original Porter Homestead was purchased March 13, 1913 by Milo’s son, Fred, and his wife Nellie. Cliff and Ede Porter purchased the farm July 30, 1923. Roger and Jeanette (Jeep) Porter purchased on May 8, 1948. Allen and Judy Porter purchased sections of the land in 1996, 2000, and 2003. Troy Porter purchased 80 acres, farm buildings and old farm house from Jeep on October 6, 2006.  Troy purchased 60 acres and house from Allen and Judy in 2020.  Lucas Porter the sixth generation became half owner with Troy of the family business (Porters Patch) January 1, 2023 and will be taking the Farm well into the future.  We currently have the seventh generation working at the Farm time to time with the possibility of them being involved in the next transitional phase.  The Farm will continue to evolve through the coming years and provide agri-tainment for all the folks that visit.  In 2013, we were recognized as a century farm in the state of Wisconsin, along with many great family farm memories.

The barn was built in 1910 with dairy, pigs, chickens, horses and beef having been raised in the barn over the years, unfortunately the barn was dismantled in Jan. 2022.  We were able to save most of the Barn and will see it live on throughout the Farm.  The tillable land has been planted with wheat, Rye, various cover crops, soybeans, oats, alfalfa, corn and sugar beets.  We are an active working farm with 95 tillable acres and 85 acres of wetlands and woods. Strawberries were first planted commercially in 1986, Since then, we’ve added raspberries, blueberries, asparagus, peas, pumpkins, beans, cucumber, pickles, tomatoes, lettuce, green peppers, squash, other vegetables, and began our annual Farmtoberfest Celebration in the fall.  In 2015, we added a High Tunnel, which allows us to produce selected vegetables much earlier in the season than planting traditionally.  We want to share the experience of being on a small family farm with your family. Start your own family traditions right here at The Patch. We look forward to sharing our memories with you every spring, summer and fall.

About Us

Our family farm is dedicated to modern, environmentally friendly growing practices that protect your family, and help preserve our precious soil.  We practice sustainability at our Farm, we are stewards of the land and our “Best Management Practices” help us protect the environment, produce abundant safe food and generate a profit. We would like our farm to stay in business so we implement various sustainability practices, which involve preserving resources and increasing efficiencies. We are most often asked, “Are you organic?” No, we are sustainable. We use organic practices that work for us, for example: cover cropping and wood chips on our raspberries and blueberries. Our objective is to provide an ecosystem that is better than we found it for future generations. Our goal is to be ecologically sound, economically viable and socially responsible. We offer our farm to folks for them to enjoy and share in the harvest.

We at the farm think it’s important for the consumer to know where their food comes from and know their farmer and their practices. We offer a couple of farm tour open house dates every season, where you and your family can learn about our farming practices.