Tony, who grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago, had spent a lot of time remodeling their house in a subdivision in Plainfield, Illinois, and in 2015 sold it for the highest price in their neighborhood.

Eventually, they found a small house with about 3 acres of land in unincorporated Elburn, Illinois. It was sectioned off from a working farm at that time, and it came with 1 acre of an already prepared field.

Tony said that despite having no farm experience and not sure of what he wanted to do, he Googled what was the best crop to grow on a micro farm. The results consisted of lavender or garlic, he said. At that time, they had no idea what to do with lavender, but they definitely enjoyed garlic and knew it had incredible health benefits.

For the first four years of their business, they would work full-time, then head home and work at Garlic Breath Farm. That proved exhausting and straining, they said, and in 2019, Tony quit his job with the federal government in order to work at Garlic Breath Farm full time. They said they were curious to see how the business would do if at least one of them working at it full throttle, and they also wanted to start growing their own food for health and sustainability reasons.

Today Sharon still works full time, then focuses on the business’ back-end stuff after work and on weekends. They also work at farmers markets or craft shows most weekends. Garlic remains their main crop, though they also grow tomatoes and peppers, along with a few other plants to fulfill their health and sustainability goals.

After Tony was certified as a Homegrown By Heroes-certified producer they revamped their Garlic Breath Farm sign displayed at the markets by adding the Homegrown By Heroes logo.

“By simply having that up on display, it has created so much valuable conversation with folks in our community — from people simply taking the time to thank Tony for his service all the way to having other Veterans know that they have ‘someone who gets it.’”