Homestead Preserves

Homestead Preserves Grow local, sell local. Encouraging people to support their local farmers. Justine Johnson of M-J Farms is a 4th generation farmer.

The family farm primarily focuses on corn and soybeans but during the summer Justine helps out in her family's garden. Hating to see good produce go to waste, Justine started to tinker around with canning. As her husband, Brett, assists with harvest and the farmer's market, he has started to get a green thumb himself. Example of canned products we sell at the farmer's market are Jams, Pickles, Relishes, and pie fillings. Each year we try adding a new product as time and mother nature allows us.

As we all know it's Henry County Fair Week! The Farm Bureau Young Leaders are putting on their annual kids pedal pull. H...
06/17/2026

As we all know it's Henry County Fair Week! The Farm Bureau Young Leaders are putting on their annual kids pedal pull. Hopefully the rain will stop and that beautiful sun will come out and join us. As far as I know, the pull is still on. Just remember to bring your boots and stop at the pork producers stand to get one of those delicious pork chop sandwiches 😍

Hope to see you there!

Happy Fair week! Hope to see you all this Wednesday!

There's a huge farmer's market about 30 minutes from us. Some of the vendors have gotten caught purchasing product that ...
06/09/2026

There's a huge farmer's market about 30 minutes from us. Some of the vendors have gotten caught purchasing product that is not in session yet, even with a green house, and turn around and resell it as their own. Farmer's love to educate and talk about what their passionate about. Never hesitate to ask questions. Shoot, I have even offered a sample of apple/peach/pear if they are questioning the product.

06/05/2026

Hello Facebook friends and followers! Tomorrow is Geneseo Farmer's Market 1st market of the season. Unfortunately we won't be set up. This pretty normal for us to not set up for the first few weeks because we are patiently waiting for our garden to grow. But don't let us not being there stop you from going! I'll be there shopping, hope to see you there too! ☺️

05/29/2026

Hooray!! We can finally announce another change we have been planning to do. I finally got my cottage food certificate and we thought this was a good time to go ahead and change our business name! We are wanting to focus more on the canned goods side and less on the fresh produce.

Now I will have fresh produce still but keep a look out on my page. I can set up meet up or drop off times with what ever I have available. I gave this a trial run last year with the peaches and apples and thought it worked out great. Especially for the people that live out by our farm.

We look forward to seeing everyone this Geneseo Farmer's Market season πŸ˜€

New name: Homestead Preserves

Justine

πŸ˜† 100% accurate. The struggle is real out here. Yesterday I forgot it was Friday, then went into a panic because I thoug...
05/16/2026

πŸ˜† 100% accurate. The struggle is real out here. Yesterday I forgot it was Friday, then went into a panic because I thought I missed my edward Jones meeting... that isn't till next Monday πŸ€¦β€β™€οΈπŸ€·β€β™€οΈ

And we're off! Got a late start on the planting yesterday but we got our first 30 acres done last night. My dad was a li...
04/25/2026

And we're off! Got a late start on the planting yesterday but we got our first 30 acres done last night. My dad was a life saver yesterday and got the end rows and heavily weedy spots worked in the corn ground while i filled the planter. Now I don't have to stress on getting out there right away to spray the weeds 😊

I also stopped to inspect the fruit trees. We did a pretty heavy pruning on the trees. I was kind of nervous we got a little too aggressive on the trim, but I'm excited to see some beautiful looking blossoms on all the trees. πŸ₯°

Once again the city of Geneseo is trying to give the Farmer's market a bunch of red tape before signing a contract to ha...
04/14/2026

Once again the city of Geneseo is trying to give the Farmer's market a bunch of red tape before signing a contract to have on Pearl Street.

If your unable to attend it tonight like us, the city of Geneseo does post it YouTube. I have the link at the bottom. If you hear or see ANYTHING you don't agree with, email the Alderman's and mayor. Let your voice be heard. Remind them they work for the residents of Geneseo and need to vote the way their residents expect them to.

https://www.youtube.com/live/DqDMxwh7lTo?si=PjI9t6XB_NWAa81N

Thank you,
Justine

04/14/2026 Regular Council Meeting

Working on some new farmer's market items πŸ˜‰ putting some delicious maple syrup from my aunt and uncle's maple trees to w...
04/11/2026

Working on some new farmer's market items πŸ˜‰ putting some delicious maple syrup from my aunt and uncle's maple trees to work.

So some of you may have heard that the "M" in M-J Farms is retiring. My parents are still planning to be out on the farm...
03/28/2026

So some of you may have heard that the "M" in M-J Farms is retiring. My parents are still planning to be out on the farm helping out where they can and when they can but they are excited to be focusing more on being grandparents. That being said, we thought this was a good time to start making some changes.

First up... the semi! Brett and I bought my parents semi and grain trailer last fall. I finally found some free time to change it over to my name and DOT #. I asked Brett if he wanted his name on it too. His reason was, since he's not driving it, he doesn't care if his name is on it.

I would like to give a HUGE thank you to Underground Graphics. They did a great job and were super flexible on changing the appointment when we got that random snow storm couple weeks ago.

Today's the day! Taking my food protection management test. Wish me luck!
02/24/2026

Today's the day! Taking my food protection management test. Wish me luck!

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Geneseo, IL
61254

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