HURON, Ohio – Without question, the most well-known farm in southern Ohio is Bob Evans Farm. Evans began his sausage business in 1948, opened his first restaurant in Rio Grande, Ohio, in 1962 and his operation has flourished since.

In the northern half of Ohio, farmer Lee Jones receives similar notoriety. Jones is the face of The Chef’s Garden, a sustainable, 350-acre family farm in Huron that provides chefs worldwide with seasonal specialty vegetables, microgreens, herbs and edible flowers.

Jones’ farm is amidst 5,000-acre commercial farms, and he does things differently. Instead of chemicals, he uses 15 species of cover crop to replenish the soil.

“American farmers have lost their way regarding food and health,” he said. “They’re following the model that exists and that’s to keep the costs as low as possible and the tons per acre as high as possible. My dad once said that we’re going to get as good as the growers were 100 years ago. It was pre-chemical, pre-synthetic fertilizer, rotating the land and rebuilding the soil.”

The Chef’s Garden is located three miles north of the Ohio Turnpike, halfway between the towns of Milan and Huron, a short drive from Lake Erie. Jones’ farm grows some of the most elegant vegetables in the world. There you’ll find tender pink asparagus, deep purple French beans, exquisite multi-colored microgreens, petite potatoes in eight distinct sizes and tasteful shades. More than 600 kinds of specialty plants make up the vast vegetable extravaganza known as The Chef’s Garden.

And just as Evans was known for his string neck tie and Resistol-style hat, Jones is always seen in the roomy bib overalls of his profession. He always dons a ubiquitous white button-down shirt and crisp red bow tie. His wardrobe fits his folksy style and figure, folks say. He says his dress is his trademark. Literally.

“I wear this everywhere, every single day,” Jones said. “At black-tie events, with Martha Stewart and Julia Child, this is what I wear.”

The many photos on his farmhouse walls with celebrity and influential chefs are proof that he knows and works with celebrities of all kinds. Jones may come across as a down-home country boy, but his knowledge of farming and the fact that he turned his farming methods into a world-class success just shows he’s something other than a typical farmer.

With his parents, Bob and Barbara, and brother, Bobby, the Jones family runs both this endeavor and its offshoot, The Culinary Vegetable Institute in nearby Milan, which attracts 600 visiting chefs a year to share their knowledge and cook together.

The idea for The Chef’s Garden came about in the 1980s, when the Jones family lost their 1,500-acre commercial farm due to economic reasons. Then, in 1982 a hailstorm wiped the farm out.

The family auctioned the farm, the land and even their cars. They spent the next five years farming 50 rented acres and selling at local farmers markets.

But their fortune would soon change. They met a French-trained chef, Iris Bailin, at a farmers market who convinced them that there was a market for specialty products for chefs like him. At that point, The Chef’s Garden was born.

Iris hooked the Jones’ up with some amazing chefs from The Ritz-Carlton, who were heavily influenced by European chefs. The local country clubs began to order from them, and Jean Louis Palladin, who came from France to the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C, took them under his wing. Louis then passed the word and eventually introduced them to numerous other chefs across the country.

“We had the support of so many incredible chefs that we knew we needed to keep up the integrity of our products,” Jones said. “We began to work harmoniously with nature rather than try to outsmart it. We began building healthy soil. Our saying here is ‘healthy soil equals healthy plants, equals healthy people.’ My father told me to find every chef I can and figure out what they want and me and your brother will figure out how to grow it.”

Seeds, plants and soil are systematically studied, tested and improved at the farm’s in-house lab to induce the highest nutritional quality. They farm only a percentage of the land every year, enriching the rest with cover crops, and use composted vegetable waste exclusively to sustainably and safely enhance the soil and the flavor of their produce.

Today, the business grows more than 700 different items at any given time. The decision of what items to offer is a skillful combination of old-fashioned farming and smart business. And it’s no surprise here that orders come from New York, Hong Kong and across the world. Customers included Disney as well as fine dining chefs like Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud.

The operation has 150 employees.

When COVID-19 struck, bars and restaurants across the nation closed. Jones, too, felt the impact of this pandemic. “It was like we had fallen off a cliff,” Jones said. “Overnight our entire customer base was gone. We needed to adapt.”

And adapt he did, transitioning his business from chefs to home cooks, though he still services many cooks across the country. He offers produce boxes on his website that ship directly from the farm to private homes.

“We thought it would be a natural way to keep our team going, to have a place for the product to go, and to provide for families something healthy and fresh,” Jones said. “The pandemic has created a fork in the road and we will have two lanes: one for people at home direct from the farm and one for chefs.”

Chef’s Garden doesn’t pick produce until an order is placed. It’s touched by few hands before it reaches the consumer or cook.

Atop it all, Jones’ knowledge about vegetables and growing can be read in his book, The Chef’s Garden: A Modern Guide to Common and Unusual Vegetables – with Recipes. The 640-page book is part vegetable reference book, family memoir and recipe collection.