Hi, I’m Sara!

and I’D LOVE to teach your family to grow kid-friendly, healthy food at home.

Welcome to Bello Campo Farm! Like you, there are a lot of things on my plate. I work full time at a “regular” job, I’m a published children’s author, and I keep busy with a number of “side hustles” in my “spare time”. I’m also a mom of four kids, and my husband and I run our farm with a big garden, cows, sheep, chickens, cats and dogs! I have been gardening since I was in elementary school, and I love working in the garden and around the farm with my kids and growing a lot of our own food.

How it All Started

I had fun helping my parents in the garden as a kid, and eating the food we grew, but once I went off to college and I started living in tiny apartments, I got away from home-grown food. I had the occasional balcony tomato, and a couple of gifted ornamental plants that I tried to keep alive (not always successfully), but growing my own food wasn’t on my radar.

That all changed once I got pregnant with my first child. All of a sudden, what I was putting in my body was twice as important! Those warnings on raw meat and produce from the grocery store looked downright alarming. The prices of organic, fresh food was also scary. On top of all the normal fears of not being a good parent, I started to stress out about what to eat and what not to eat everyday -even when I didn’t feel like eating everything at all.

I tried Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) plans, produce delivery services, and shopping at local farmers markets. They were all great options, but I still wanted to have more control over how the food was grown and what varieties of foods I got. Sometimes it was hard to find the foods I remembered getting from my family garden as a kid.

I tried gardening at our rental house yard (which I don’t necessarily recommend) and a variety of containers in tiny apartments, which gave us some herbs and some cherry tomatoes, but I wanted more.

Once I got Started – I was Hooked!

We moved back to the Midwest to be near family and bought some property to build our dream house. I actually planted a garden before we broke ground on the house – I was so excited to get started.

The garden has grown every year and now we grow a lot of our own vegetables and have tons of weeds and garden scraps to feed our chickens. As we had more kids, they’ve started to help out in the garden as they have interest.

I really love sharing the experience of growing food with my kids. I want them to know that food comes from gardens and farms, not just the grocery store. I want to pass down what gardening knowledge I have, and also encourage them to learn new things.

Learning how to grow food myself, and eventually teaching my kids, changed our whole family’s relationship with food. My kids now have the knowledge they need to make healthy choices for the rest of their lives (or not, their choice). I want everybody to have access to these valuable life skills as early in life as possible.

To help get kids engaged in learning about where their food comes from, I’ve written a children’s book series. It’s narrated by the chatty spiders that live in different areas of our farm and write letters to each other over the Spider-Wide Web about the crazy antics of the animals and bugs in their area of our farm. The books are designed for 8 to 12 year old kids, but the funny (and true) farm stories help kids of all ages learn about what life on a farm is really like.

The truth is, anyone can learn to garden, but I’m here to help you skip a few trial-and-error steps on your journey. I’d love to be your “Garden Guide” and teach you and your family how to grow your own kid-friendly, healthy food at home.

What you will find on Bello Campo Farm:

Bello Campo Farm is a website devoted to teaching families to grow kid-friendly, healthy food at home. I’ve put together a bunch of resources to help your family go from “newbies” to “ninjas” in no time. Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll find:

• Gardening – At Bello Campo Farm, a lot of our food starts in the garden. But, you shouldn’t have to read tons of books or buy lots of expensive equipment to get started. You can find our gardening posts on the blog under the category “Garden”.
• Preserving Food – When the harvest starts rolling in, you need to figure out ways to “eat it up” or “put it up,” or else all your hard work growing the food could be wasted. You can find our food posts on the blog under the category “Preserving Food”.
• Books – When you’re ready for a fun break from working in the garden, hop over to the books page and check out the latest children’s chapter book in the Bello Campo Farm series. Find out what the chatty spiders in our garden, barn, kitchen, and chicken coop are up to.

The best way to stay connected is through our email newsletter, which offers a free dose of food-growing goodness, as well as links to all our latest blog posts, books, and other events. Get a regular dose of farm life in your inbox! When you sign up, we’ll also send you our Custom Garden Plan as a free gift.

If you’d rather reach out directly, you can email me at sara@bellocampofarm.com – I’d love to hear from you!