-Submitted photo
The Jonas family, shown here outside their 1915 barn at Red Granite Farm, includes (left to right) Nolan, Gabriel, Claire, Steve and Nicole Jonas.

BOONE — On any Century Farm with a building site, there are certain structures that have defined the property for generations. At Red Granite Farm northeast of Boone, those features include the windmill, a massive boulder and the classic, 1915 gable-roof barn.

“The barn is too iconic not to use it in our business,” said Nicole Jonas, who owns and operates the garden center with her husband, Steve, and their children.

Red Granite Farm is located in Harrison Township in northeastern Boone County, between Iowa Highway 17 and the small burg of Mackey. For generations, the farm belonged to the Moeller family. After Virgil and Irene Moeller retired and the family put the farm up for sale, Steve and Nicole Jonas saw a big opportunity.

“We graduated from Iowa State University with horticulture degrees in the early 2000s and were looking for a farm we could call our own,” said Nicole Jonas, who focuses on ornamental horticulture, while her husband specializes in fruits and vegetables. “We both grew up on conventional Iowa row-crop and livestock farms, and we knew we wanted to give our three children a farm life.”

They were interested in buying land in central Iowa, since this would put them closer to customers in the Ames/Des Moines area. This area is also about halfway between DeWitt (Nicole’s hometown) and Remsen (Steve’s hometown). “In the fall of 2006, when we purchased this acreage, our love of farm life, horticulture and family found a home here at Red Granite Farm,” she said.

The farm takes its name from a gigantic stone (a glacial erratic, to be exact) that extends 17 feet deep into the ground west of the barn. “It has been around for all the generations who have farmed this land,” Jonas said. “If it could only tell the stories of the agriculture that has evolved around it!”

For the past 17 years, agriculture at the farm has included fresh produce. The Jonas family raises onions, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplants, zucchini and more and sells them at the Ames farmers market, as well as direct to customers who come to the farm.

“Iowa agriculture needs all types of farms,” said Jonas, who also offers landscape design consulting services. “We’re not going to feed the world with what we produce at Red Granite Farm, but we are going to help feed our community.”

Red Granite Farm is a diverse operation, including 800 laying hens in the summer months and 300-plus varieties of hardy perennials, vines, shrubs, annuals and succulents for sale in the garden center, which is based in the barn.

This former dairy barn was in good shape when the Jonas family purchased the property. “Thank goodness the Moeller family put metal siding on it when they did,” Jonas said.

Parts of the barn have been adapted to fit the garden center, including a checkout area in the northeast corner. Attached to the west side of the barn is a lean-to made with translucent panels. Filled with benches and shelves, the space functions almost like a mini greenhouse. The old concrete floor outside the south side of the barn offers a prime display area for larger containers of shrubs, hardy perennials and other garden plants.

The interior portion of the south half of the barn (which still includes some old dairy stanchions) provides a comfortable place for the family’s barn cats, as well as Nolan Jonas’ market lambs and Gabe Jonas’ heifers.

The opportunity to expand Red Granite Farm onto five additional acres was a dream come true in 2022. “We started small, and we continue to grow our family business,” Nicole Jonas said. “The barn has always been an important part of this.”