TRAVERSE CITY — It’s 46 degrees with pelting rain, and Bailey Samp and John Dindia are thinking about their mounting project list — the organic plant sale is coming up, and the rain is a dreary setback to the umpteen tasks needed to prepare a northern Michigan farm for its seasonal heyday.
Then again, they’re farmers.
“Weather is a never ending, relentless challenge for all farms,” Dindia said, ticking off this year’s short spring, last year’s drought, insect pressure that comes with mild winters, when Samp breaks in with a laugh.
“We talk about weather a lot around here,” she said.
Here is Lakeview Hill Farm & Market on 8236 E. Lakeview Hills Road where the couple have been organic-certified farming since 2017. They work on 58 acres that was once cattle pasture, a plum orchard then left fallow for decades.
Samp and Dindia didn’t grow up on farms. Samp, 35, a downstater near Flint who moved to Traverse City in 2007, got a business degree. Dindia, 34, of Petoskey, got his degree in horticulture.
“I was thinking I was going to be a plant scientist,” he said.
They connected while traveling separately in Ecuador when a mutual friend suggested a meet-up. After traveling together, they returned to northern Michigan, and worked together on a farm in Boyne before deciding to buy a farm of their own. When they arrived, there was nothing, and today, Lakeview Hills Farm and Market specializes in year-round greens, early-season greenhouse tomatoes, hoop-house strawberries and flowers, microgreens, cherry tomatoes, mixed produce and cut flowers.
“It worked out really well,” said Samp of their converging paths. “I think it’s why we’ve been able to thrive as a partnership.”
While they started with a self-serve farm stand in 2018 and no employees, their operation has grown to include a year-round business with wholesale sales to Oryana, Edson Farms and area restaurants, a retail expansion into a one-room schoolhouse, multifarm CSA participation and 20 employees. The purchase of the 1890s schoolhouse in 2023 ramped up drop-in sales and they hired professional chef Miriam Geenen to grow their commercial kitchen.
This year they’re adding more to their plate — and their customers’ — with prepared foods like grab-and-go sandwiches, salads, dips and cold-pressed juices with seasonal ingredients.
But they’re also encouraging visitors to grab and stay, with a new walking path through the flower gardens and options for guided farm tours.
The tours, by reservation only, have caught on quick and the couple have already led eight or so, even in Michigan’s brown season.
“I think people want to understand how our and other farms operate,” Dindia said. “A lot of people want to have a better understanding of where their food comes from, and this gives them a better connection to that.”
Adding tours came of both growing traffic off the Leelanau Trail and giving the customers what they want, Samp said.
“Over the years, it was our biggest request, but it’s hard to do with a working farm in the busy season,” Samp said. “So we thought we’d try guided tours and see how it goes.”
Adding a walkway through the cut flower garden and adding more picnic tables to the property also allow for more ways to hang out, she said.
“We’re making it into a more walkable farm property,” Samp said.
Samp and Dindia use sustainable practices like a solar panel array for renewable energy, a high-efficiency wood boiler to heat the greenhouses and production space, a 7-acre wildflower and pollinator habitat and work with an area beekeeper to keep bees on the land with the overarching goal of creating a healthy farm ecosystem.
“It’s how the farm interacts with the land as a whole,” Dindia said.
This ecosystem approach also sends out shoots into the agriculture community, as half of what’s for sale in the market comes from other local farms, and Lakeview Hills’ produce and flowers are also sold at other farm markets. Collaborating with other farms — like Second Spring Farm in Cedar, Providence Farm in Central Lake, Anavery Fine Foods in Traverse City, Danu Hof Farm in Mancelona, Pristine Acres Farm in Missaukee County and others — allows small farms to benefit from each other and buttress against low profit margins, Dindia said.
The same principle applies to the MI Farm Coop, a multi-farm CSA, where customers can customize summer shares that incorporate goods from six to nine different growers with add-ons like eggs, bread, beef and pork into boxes for 16 weeks of local pickups.
“We’re really proud of trying hard to support our entire agricultural community — because we are a community,” Dindia said. “I don’t think it’s good for one farm to have to do it all — there’s already so much to do on a farm — just do a really good job at the crops you grow and support all the other farms and farmers.”
Direct-to-customer sales also allow them to keep more year-round, full-time staff, Samp said.
And while weather is always a factor — spring gusts wreak havoc on greenhouse sheeting and cause strange sounds in the No. 7 schoolhouse. (“The original windows,” Samp said) — the Lakeview Hill Farm and Market couple expect their agritourism moves to bear fruit.
“Since we opened (the retail market) in 2023, we’ve gotten a little busier every year,” Samp said. “We’re expecting to be busier with the grab-and-go sandwiches, salads and dips. We’re excited.”
Lakeview Hill Farm and Market’s annual plant sale runs May 9–31 with certified-organic produce starts, cut flowers, native plants from Birdsfoot Nursery, compost and garden tools. Lakeview Hill’s flower subscription program begins June 20.
Six- and 12-week shares of farm-grown bouquets are available for purchase on the farm’s website. Lakeview Hill Farm & Market is located at 8236 E. Lakeview Hills Road.
For more information or to schedule a tour, email info@lakeviewhillfarm.com or visit www.lakeviewhillfarm.com.