Our Story
Hello neighbors, Don and Donna Sherman here!
We are the owners of FLP Acres in Hampton, NJ. We wanted to take the opportunity to introduce ourselves and let you know what we are up to. Our hope is to grow our community, to become your friends and to protect this beautiful neighborhood and those that dwell in it.
Who Are We?
Don is a semi-retired civil/environmental engineer and current co-owner of Soups On Main in Hackettstown. He was born and raised in Upstate NY. Donna was a virtual holistic health coach for the past 15 years and now co-owns Soups On Main with Don. She lived in the Hunterdon County area for most of her life, moving to Glen Gardner in 1968. She left the area in 1980 and returned with Don, moving to Hackettstown in 2016 to care for Donna’s father who was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. Don & Donna opened Soups On Main located in Hackettstown in December of 2018.
We Bought the Farm
We met the former owner of 70 Mackenzie Road in 2018 while looking for organic produce for our Soups On Main restaurant. We fell in love with Mike’s vision and the quality of the food that he was producing. When we discovered that it was for sale in 2020, we were so sad that we started to inquire into owning and operating the facility ourselves. We could see the writing on the wall with current day events approaching quickly and wanted to be part of a solution to the challenges that we saw coming. While it has been a big hurdle for us to jump, the efforts of our labor are starting to show. We are gifting you with some of those efforts today. The lettuce is the first to be harvested from our “grow house” as we like to refer to the building that sits next to our revitalized farm home.
Soups On! Eat Healthy Stay Healthy
With Donna having been a health coach and understanding the importance that food plays on the health of society, we wanted to help our community to thrive and get through these trying times. After various challenges that we experienced at our soup store in Hackettstown, we became acutely aware that buying even “organic” food didn’t mean we were getting the best food. The “organic” label has been demonized and corrupted. We quickly realized that fresh food that was not sourced locally, usually meant our food had been harvested weeks or even months prior to us receiving it often times ripening off the vine instead of on the vine as nature intended. Consumers need to understand that food begins to die the moment it is harvested. The fresher you can purchase fresh food, the better the retention of the vitamin and mineral content. And, if the food has not fully matured, it isn’t given the opportunity to come to full flavor or have the full nutritional value that it is capable of producing.
Enter FLP Acres
Don and I had a vision. The farm was named FLP Acres as a commitment to the freedom loving patriots that have taken on the task of helping to save America and specifically our community. Enter FLP Acres, an organic aquaponics farm. We are excited to share with you and your family. Lettuce, chard, kale, tomatoes, peppers, and squash and more. All sorts of herbs, including basil, oregano, thyme, and so on. More will be on their way soon and available year-round.
We’re up to two dozen laying hens, and sheep are recent arrivals to the farm. The harvesting of organic tilapia fish begins in November.
On Farm Market
Come visit our Farm Market and “Growhouse” for a tour or to buy just-picked, organically-grown produce at 70 Mackenzie Rd in Hampton/Lebanon Township. If you want to learn more, have something you want us to plant for your home or restaurant, let us know. You can already find our produce in local restaurants, such as The Inn at Glen Gardner, and Arctic Foods in Washington NJ. If there is something you’d love to put on our store shelves or have a trade that we can use, have questions, anything you want to share, you can find us in the Growhouse or the Farm Market. In 2023, we will be offering classes and internships on aquaponic growing along with supplies and equipment to build your own.
Talk to us. We are all in this together.
We are striving to be a reminder and an example to other communities as to the power that we were born with and that it is our constitutional duty as Americans to protect and uphold our birth rights. I assure you, America and our small community, our children of today, the adults of tomorrow, are worth the effort.
We need your support. Talk to us. Join us!
Our costs for organic seed, feed, materials, supplies, and equipment are roughly $50/day or $1,500/month. Local taxes, fees, licenses, and insurance are about $60/day or $1,800/month. Energy remains our biggest cost to keeping the aquaponics growhouse running and the farm operational, at an average of $70/day or $2,100/month and we can really use your help.
In addition to focusing on energy cost reductions, by expanding our solar energy system and converting our propane boiler propane to solar/electric, we also need to focus on:
1. Planting a fruit orchard
2. Creating outdoor raised vegetable beds to help support what we can’t grow indoors such as potatoes, carrots, spinach and other “in-the-dirt” fresh food products
3. Fencing the entire property so that sheep can graze more freely and wild animals are kept at bay.
4. Acquiring farm vehicles such as a delivery vehicle, tractor, ATV, fuel and storage tank, etc.
5. Building construction and maintenance for various projects such as – building a barn/education center, building additional sheds, coops, road side farmstand, etc.
6. Grow house upgrades to maximize efficiency and increase production
WE NEED YOUR HELP, YOUR SUPPORT, if we are to continue. Please consider donating or contact us regarding refinancing, purchasing farm stock, brainstorming toward other options.
We are striving to be a reminder and an example to other communities as to the inalienable power granted to us by God. It is our constitutional duty as Americans to protect and uphold our birth rights. I assure you, America and our small community, our children of today, the adults of tomorrow, are worth the effort.
God Bless You, Your Families, and God Bless America!
Don & Donna Sherman
