Known for their cherry tomatoes, Quinta MKE was born out of owner's world travels

When he wants to show you what he does best, Mason Jarecki Nimmo might just hand you a cherry tomato. The sweet treats have become a kind of calling card for the founder of Quinta MKE (quintamke.com), a small vegetable farm that sells at local markets along with offering seasonal CSA boxes.

Nimmo grew up in Wauwatosa. After earning a degree in economics he traveled through Europe, finding work on farms in exchange for a place to stay. He eventually began to think he might want his own farm.

He found land in East Troy, part of what was the Michael Fields Agriculture Institute, and began renting gardens. After four years he left, worked at another farm for a bit, and met Robyn Blahnik, who founded Terra Mana Gardens, a separate business.

The land Nimmo and Blahnik use for their farms today is on the former Michael Fields site, with the organization now a tenant in the building. Jason and Jodi Neu purchased the property and it is now home to Honey Creek Collective, N8030 Townline Road, East Troy. The building hosts office and event space, plus various food, health and wellness businesses.

Nimmo’s CSA boxes are sold out, but he does maintain a waiting list for future customers. He doesn't use any single-use plastic, and he delivers reusable tubs filled with produce to customers’ doors. A recent box contained pears, carrots, kale, cucumber, zucchini, lemon cucumber and a variety of cherry tomatoes and heirlooms including green zebra and pink boar.

Nimmo and Blahnik sell together at the East Troy Farmers Market, held 3 to 6 p.m. Fridays on part of the property.

Quinta MKE also sells at the Tosa Farmers Market, 7720 Harwood Ave., Wauwatosa, from 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays through Oct. 14, and the Riverwest Market, 2700 N. Pierce, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays through Oct. 29. Blahnik’s Terra Mana is at the Brookfield Farmers Market at Brookfield Central High School, 16900 Gebhardt Road, Brookfield, from 7:30 a.m. to noon Saturdays.

The couple, who are expecting their first child in January, recently walked us through their gardens and shared their story.

Growing gardens into a career

Nimmo: I got into this traveling through Europe, backpacking. I had finished teaching English in Morocco and hit the road, and I was WWOOFing, doing the worldwide organic farming. You volunteer to work on a farm in exchange for a place to stay, room and board. It was a great, cheap way to travel, and I loved organic farms. I absolutely loved it. I ran out of money, came home and worked in the service industry, worked on other farms. ...

I really wanted to start my own thing. There was a lot of failure and support from family and friends. I just kept at it. I got better year after year. Gardening is such a nice creative outlet. It is easy to have small successes.

Blahnik: It has a lot of variables, and many rewards. We are trying to grow nutritious food.

How much space they have

Nimmo: We rent all of the gardens. It is about one acre of tilled garden space. It is not a lot when you think about it, but we grow intensively, really tight spacing and we flip beds constantly. ... The hoop house means our plants can keep going a little longer. Once it gets a little cooler I will close this up and I will have tomatoes all the way until December. We use a trellising system for the tomatoes.

If he can get you to try a tomato, chances are you’ll like it

Nimmo: I grow over 35 varieties and 75 sub varieties of vegetables, including kale, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, winter squash, chard, carrots.

My favorite thing, and by far my most popular, are cherry tomatoes. They put me in business at markets. I started giving samples. Nine out of 10 people that pass will take a tomato, and eight of 10 would say it is the best tomato they’ve had. I thought I had something going.

The power of peppers

Nimmo: The tomatoes are really my biggest crop, then the peppers. This is my first year growing eggplant. This one is called Turkish delight. This is the first week I will get to pick them. I have probably six different hot peppers and two sweet peppers.

Shishito peppers are amazing, kind of cool, a fan favorite. We play a little game of Russian roulette with the shishito peppers. One in 10 is a hot pepper. The person who gets the hot one is the lucky one.

Blahnik: They're really good blistered on the grill.

The fruits of their labor are coming

Blahnik: The fruit trees are here, but we’re not doing much with them yet.

Nimmo: The fruit trees here have been neglected for a bit. Robyn just pruned a bunch this year. We’re going to start trying to get them back and healthy. We are not going to spray them or anything. We are not certified organic, but we grow organic.

Farmers get excited about coolers

Nimmo: Our first cooler was gifted to me years ago from The Hive Taproom, our friends next door. I also purchased another one this year and rebuilt it. Now we have two different temperatures, which is really exciting. We’ve always had to juggle the tomatoes and other vegetables. I’m excited to have the right temperature zones.

Why they love East Troy

Nimmo: We love it, and we want everyone to know about it. We do the East Troy Farmers Market on this site on Friday afternoons. We bring in about fifteen vendors and we have a food truck every week.

Blahnik: There is a vision for the place. The building has been revamped, we have event space, an acupuncture spot, an outdoor children’s school, and the gardens and market.

Why they skip sprays and chemicals

Nimmo: I grew up gardening with my parents in Wauwatosa, and I never found the need for it.

Blahnik: The goal too is to produce the most nutritious food we can, not the prettiest.

Nimmo: I emphasize flavorful stuff. I want the stuff in and out. I harvest Tuesdays and Wednesdays, deliver my CSA box Thursday. Most things are one to two days from the field when they are delivered. Tomatoes and zucchinis are harvested through the week to keep up with the fruit on the vine, potatoes and carrots can be stored for month, but we don’t want to, we want to get them out to the customer.

Finding success after failure

Nimmo: For me, the most difficult thing running and starting this business was the technical knowledge of growing food. When I was growing up, I learned to build a website. I learned marketing. I can sell something. Those are skills that come with the younger generations, and all those are the easy part for me. The hardest part was growing.

My first years were pathetic. My carrots looked like pencil shavings. Now, carrots are one of the things I’m known for at the markets, after tomatoes. I took a year off having a CSA. You really have to have skills to grow a variety of seasonal produce to fill a box consistently. I took a year off and buckled down to master tomatoes, carrots and leafy greens. I saw other farmers struggling with carrots, and it was the hardest thing to grow. So if I can grow that, I can grow anything.

If you want a CSA box

Nimmo: We have the waiting list. We do a medium-size box. It is too much otherwise, and people think they are wasting. I also have an online farmers market where people can add on and purchase stuff. The online market is set up for CSA customers, those who want to pre-order for market, and also for chefs and restaurants to order.

Fork. Spoon. Life. explores the everyday relationship that local notables (within the food community and without) have with food. To suggest future personalities to profile, email clewis@journalsentinel.com.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Known for cherry tomatoes, Quinta MKE was born out of owner's world travels