We turned our yard into a farm.
Let’s create community through fresh food and inspire curiosity in the garden.
We are Benjamin and Cori Rowley. Co-Owners of Yellowood Design Studio LLC. We are a husband and wife team that started our business journey by crafting and restoring vintage axes and tools. A decade ago, when we first got started, we lived in a condo in downtown Columbus, OH. Back then, we shared a workshop with a friend so we didn’t keep the neighbors up at night. Downtown was an odd fit for two people who loved the outdoors, but the city is where we met. It was where we grew up together, where we fell in love and started a family. Fortunately, our small tool restoration business was taking off and our downtown condo was becoming too crowded with the additions to our family, so we packed up and moved to the country!
In February 2020, before the world came crashing down, we were working on a plan to expand our passion for helping affect more significant change in our community. We were seeking ways to give back to the people who needed it the most while building a business that would become intertwined in the communities we work within.
Our ideas and passion also inspired our best friend, Tony. He saw what we were trying to do for our neighbors who needed support, and he wanted to be a part of it. Tony had been feeling the same as we had - he had a strong desire to give back to inspire change.
How We Became Farmers
Our new country home came with a chicken coop, and we thought, "What's a chicken coop without chickens?" Then came the garden. Our garden ended up being larger than our house (over 2000 sq. feet). Our ambitions were more extensive than our experience or knowledge, but we learned, and we grew. As we grew, so did our business. We began crafting and designing all sorts of things; if you had an idea, we would make it a reality. The more we learned and grew, the more we wanted to share our knowledge and love for gardening and tool restoration.
When we moved to Canal Winchester, our home already had a chicken coop fit for 40 chickens. Over the years we raised hens, roosters and ducks. Who knows where the next year will take us. Currently, we are raising them for eggs (and entertainment) only.
The Canal Winchester Garden Exchange located at Yellowood Farm, opened in August. In late summer was full of garden harvests, fresh flowers and potted plants. In the fall it was overflowing with pumpkins from our community.
The Pumpkin Drop (pictured earlier on this page), allowed neighbors to keep hundreds of pumpkins from becoming food waste. All of the pumpkins are either used as food for our animals or composted in our garden.
Cori Rowley | She’s passionate about learning to grow food in every way possible, so we can help ANYONE garden their own dinner. She’s also an expert at listening to the needs of our community, which she’s garnered through her 12 years of product development strategy work.
Benjamin Rowley | He brings a decade of axe and tools restoration to the farm, as well as the ability to build just about anything. He has 15 years of design and construction experience, having worked in architecture and retail design.
Tony Thomas | Learn about Tony’s journey to becoming a farmer on our blog. He’s a graphic designer by trade and brings energy, positivity and fresh thinking to the world of agriculture. He’s a master at bringing stories to life through music and visuals.
An evening view of the sheep grazing near the barn. The barn was constructed largely out of upcycled materials and acts as a shelter for the sheep, as well as a place to process and store harvests from the garden.
Our location has made it easy for Central Ohioans to get away without going far away. We are situated just outside of the city of Canal Winchester, but still within the school district. We are around the corner from Downtown Historic CW.
When the universe planted the seed of starting a farm in our heads, it quickly flourished. Working hard, we turned our few acres into a fully functioning farm. However, there was still one thing missing. After starting our farm, we spent almost two years creating community and teaching resilience, and it still wasn’t enough to feed our giving spirits. We wanted to do more, and reach further.
Where We Are Headed
Wellness workshops
Food resilience education
Mobile farmer’s market
Community Hoop House (large greenhouse that will grow food to give directly back to the community)
Cultural Focus Hoop House (working directly with communities whose traditional cuisine might not be catered to in the midwest)
Experiences and events allowing central Ohioans to get away, without going far away.
Garden experimentation experiences - teaching visitors how to grow no matter where they live
General store
We’ve shortened our list for this presentation of our work. If you would like to learn more about our ideas for land use, we would love to chat with you.
Our community needs connection. Our country needs to change. We have to Grow Together.
Our farm has grown to meet the needs of our community. It has become a place for people to escape from the chaos.
In 2020, we saw how people began to depend on the farm and the sense of community it provided, we realized we needed to dig deep and start making changes so our plan could be sustainable. We built a fence and purchased our first sheep. We raised a barn to hold future livestock. We diligently started planning for what would come next. Our small farm was becoming a place where the community could come together. It was becoming a place where we could all heal together.