(upbeat rock music) - Welcome to "A Shot of AG."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

I'm a fifth-generation farmer from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

Do you like pumpkins?

Have you ever wanted to grow one of those giant, huge, humongous, big pumpkins?

We're gonna talk to someone that does.

We're gonna talk with Kaylee Heap from Heap's Giant Pumpkin Farm.

It's a great name.

- Isn't it great?

It's a mouthful, but it's great.

- I mean, not all your pumpkins are, they're not all giant, are they?

- Not all of them, they're all great, but no, we do grow a lot of giant pumpkins as well.

- All your pumpkins, are they certified great?

- Certified great, yes.

- [Rob] Okay.

(laughs) - That's a thing.

(laughs) - [Rob] All right, you are from Manuka.

- Minooka.

- [Rob] Manuka.

- [Rob] How?

- Minooka.

Everybody else calls it Manuka though, so whatever feels right.

- But it's really Minooka.

- Minooka.

- I looked it up, do you know what it means?

- I don't.

- It's a Pottawatomie name.

- Oh, yes.

- That's Native American, and it means... Now here's the thing, one place says it means, "good earth."

Wikipedia said it means, "maple grove."

- Oh, well, I wouldn't describe either of those as the soil or the environment on our farm.

- [Rob] You don't think it's good earth?

- Um, you know.

- I mean, it's good for growing pumpkins, right?

- It is good for growing pumpkins, but it's not the best soil in Illinois, but we do what we can.

- Is it black?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, then you're doing okay.

- Yeah.

- (laughing) Now, is that where you're from originally?

- I'm not, I'm from Wilmington, so about 40 minutes southeast of there.

- Okay, but Minooka is up by Chicago.

Is it a suburb?

- It's on the outskirts of the suburbs, I would say.

It's just about an hour south of Chicago.

- A suburb of a suburb.

- Yeah, something like that.

Yeah, we're right on the outer edge of that.

- Gotcha, now you did not grow up on a farm.

- I did not, no.

I met my husband in college.

- How'd you guys meet?

- I played softball in college, and a teammate of mine was his sister, and she introduced us.

She's like, "I think you would get along with my brother."

I have three brothers, I'm not- - [Rob] You have three brothers?

- I have three brothers, I was like, "I probably wouldn't introduce you to any of 'em," but she thought that her brother and I would get along.

- Did she like you, or- - I think so, but, yeah.

- So you guys met, was it like fireworks and love at first sight?

- Well, I thought it was really cool that he was this really cute farmer.

I thought that was a neat part, but he was really busy, so that was actually a little challenging, and that's kind of how I got involved in farming.

- [Rob] Was he farming?

- Yeah.

- What position did you play?

- I played outfield in college, so I went to college as a third baseman and was actually pretty terrible in college as a third base- - [Rob] What college?

- University of St. Francis in Joliet.

- Oh, okay.

- Yeah.

- Is it bad that I've never heard of that?

Is it a real school?

- It's a practice school- - Or are you just making that up?

- It's real, no, it's real.

It's in that NAIA division.

It's not really televised or anything like that.

- But you must be good if you played in college.

- I was okay, yeah, not too bad.

- Did you ever pitch?

- I did not.

I played right field, and basically bunted the ball every time at bat and got on base, so just ran really fast.

- Oh, so you're speedy.

- I was a speedy, yeah, yes.

- Did you steal a lot?

- I did.

- Really?

- Yes.

- Headfirst, or do you leg slide?

- Mostly, little bit of both, depends.

- [Rob] Okay, says a lot about you.

- (laughs) I don't know how to take that.

(both laugh) - Okay, you did not grow up on a farm.

You meet this guy, and you're falling in love, and you've gotta be thinking, if I'm gonna marry him, I'm gonna live on a farm.

Was that a concern?

- It wasn't.

I saw a lot of similarities to, you know, I didn't grow up on a farm, but my family was a family of small business owners, and so I actually saw a lot of similarities between the two.

It's a farm, but it's still a business.

And when we met, it was still just a farm stand in his parents' front yard.

So, he was growing pumpkins, giving some hay rides out to the pumpkin field at that time.

And he's a couple of years ahead of me in college, so once he graduated, he wanted to give it a shot and try to do this full-time, so we continued.

We kind of grew up and grew a business together at the same time.

(Rob laughs) We were very young.

It was hard to get people to take us seriously at first, but we just chipped away at it over time and grew it into what it is today.

He does that full-time, and I always planned to come back to the farm and work full-time alongside him, but started to grow my career off the farm as well and do both still, so.

- Is that the plan, to go where you're both working full-time or?

- No, so I was always planning to come back to the farm, but started to grow my career, kind of more on the ag tech side of things and was able to find a career where I could work from home too and still help on the farm, and so it's complimented- - [Rob] The insurance is nice too.

- The insurance and benefits, nice.

- [Rob] Oof!

- Yeah, the consistent income.

It's a good way to diversify things, especially in the falls that it does nothing but rain, but- - What was your degree?

- Accounting.

- Okay, so I guess that kind of falls, but I mean, was it just marrying into a farm, that's how you got into agriculture?

- Yeah, basically.

I started to really enjoy the industry and started to take a big interest in agriculture and actually started out in banking as just working with farmers underwriting loans.

And it was a good perspective into the entire industry and what was going on, which kind of led me to the next step when I worked for FS Grain as an originator and spent about seven years there.

- So, people don't know what an originator- - Yeah, so I bought grain, essentially.

I reached out to farmers, went and sat down, did marketing plans, and tried to get their grain to the best place.

- Farmers are kind of jerks, aren't they?

- (laughs) Well, yeah, I mean, not always.

It takes a minute.

- [Rob] You said yes.

- Yeah, (laughs) they're tough, they're good.

They're tough to get through to a little bit, but we got there over time.

- You had the worst job, because we raise these crops, and then the last thing we wanna do is sell 'em.

We want the money, and we want top dollar, but we don't actually wanna sell it.

- You really don't wanna give it up, no.

- And I can't describe why.

- Yeah, there's definitely a high level of attachment to it.

- So when you were doing that and you were working, you'd call up a farmer and say, "Hey, let's sell some grain to me, "because it's a profitable level."

And they would say, "No, because I think it's going up."

Was that like every day?

- It was every day, especially, my favorite was when people who would submit offers and then call and we're like, oh, we had called it that they canceled the close.

So it's getting close, I better up it, but it's gonna go higher, and it was always tough to convince everyone to keep their offers in at the level they liked originally, so, yeah.

- That would be funny if I didn't do that myself a lot.

- (laughs) Yes, yeah.

- I can't explain it.

- You're not alone at least.

- I can't explain it, I don't know why.

I know it's a, anyway... - Yeah.

- Okay, so the pumpkin, was it his family farm, was it always the pumpkin farm, or was it like corn, soybeans, that type of thing?

- It wasn't, yeah, it's actually has evolved over the years.

It's always been corn and soybeans pretty consistently.

His dad had pigs for a while, stopped doing that when my husband was in about high school, I think, or entering high school, and then Kevin started growing pumpkins when he was about 13.

So, I call him one of those weird farmers that loves growing specialty crops.

- This was always kind of his deal then.

- He's always grown pumpkins and started selling 'em in his parents' front yard.

With that front yard operation, put himself through college, which is kinda neat.

- You're kidding me!

- Yeah, no- - That's awesome.

- He paid for college, yep.

(Rob chuckles) So, and then, yeah, just wanted to give it a shot and somehow we convinced a banker to give us some money to build some buildings when we were 20 something years old.

- Buildings for what?

- For the pumpkin farm, to really get a standalone operation for people to actually come visit.

- So, I don't want to compare, but for like people to understand, like a tanner's orchard.

I mean, you have people come out.

Do you have all the other things like goats and- - We do, yeah, so we have a petting zoo, we have playgrounds, we have hay rides, mazes, we have a haunted corn maze, that's interesting.

- [Rob] You do?

- We do.

- Was there an incident there that happened at one point?

- We like to make people think that.

- So, it's a fake haunted?

- It's fake haunted.

It's like a haunted house, but through a cornfield at night.

- It's a little deceiving if you ask me.

- Yeah, and then we have the flowers and all the you-pick stuff.

- Did you start all this other stuff?

Pumpkins, gourds, squash, mums, sunflowers, cut flowers, playgrounds and mazes, good night!

- (laughs) Yes, that's all our adds to the farm, yeah.

- Do you try to add something every year, or are you just insane?

- We do, no, we do try to add something every year.

It kind of helps the draw of the people that have been coming to us and new people over the years to come back and see something new.

- You know what you need, jousting.

- (laughs) Jousting, I don't know how country companies would feel about that.

- Don't tell 'em.

- (laughs) Yeah, that's a challenge.

- Is it hard to get insurance for something like that, 'cause you got all these... And I don't, you know, our city friends, right?

Sometimes they just don't know what not to do, especially the kids, I'm talking, like on a farm.

They'll just jump up on a bale of a straw and think they're Superman and jump off.

- You know, the funny thing is, is we literally give them giant straw bales to do that.

We literally tell them to do it, but (laughs) it can be challenging.

I think what has been good for us is everything we do, we work with our insurance company, make sure that it's kosher.

We're kind of thinking of all the right things, talking to the county and making sure that we're following all the guidelines we need to.

We've stayed away from some of the riskier things like- - [Rob] Jousting.

- (laughs) Jousting, pumpkin cannons, all that kind of stuff- - [Rob] Ax throwing.

- We don't do ax throwing.

- The chunking, the pumpkin chunking?

Because I guess they don't do it at Morton anymore.

It could be your thing.

- Yeah, I don't know that we have the space that they do for that one.

- Again, it's overrated.

(Kaylee laughs) Once that thing leaves your property, it's somebody else's problem.

(laughing) - Yeah, I think those canning pumpkins that they grow are the right kind of pumpkin for those things too.

- [Rob] Yeah, the tough ones.

- Yeah, there's a special kind.

- (laughing) Do you enjoy it?

- I do, yeah, it's really cool.

We get to be really creative with it.

We built this giant, I say, "we," my husband and his dad built this giant castle, and when they told me they were going to build this playground, I thought of- - [Rob] Didn't have that on my notes!

I think I would've remembered a castle.

- (laughs) It's a castle, and when my husband said, "I kind of wanna build something different.

"Nobody else has this castle."

And I was like, "Oh, okay," I'm thinking a playhouse, right?

- Yeah, the little plastic, the Playskool.

- Yeah, like real cool.

I come home one day and they're framing this thing out.

It's at least two times the size of my house, at least, way cooler than my house, for the record.

It's like a fortress, it's huge.

- Do you live in a trailer or like a bigger house?

- No, I live in just an old white farmhouse.

- But I mean, how big is your house?

- It's a two story.

- So how big is this castle?

- It's massive, I'm telling you, it's a fortress.

So when I came home and saw this, I'm like, "Oh, you meant like a castle-sized castle.

- Outta stone and all that?

- No, it's wood, it's wood.

But it's got the look of it and everything.

It's really cool, lots of stairs.

They can see the whole farm from the lookouts.

It's really neat, yeah.

- (sighs) I want a castle.

- Well the funny thing is we named it after Kevin's grandpa, Milo, so it's Milo's Castle.

- Oh, that's cool.

- But that's also my oldest son's name, so he thinks he has a castle.

- Does he ever just stand up there, "This is mine now."

- Yeah, well, it's a problem with my other two kids, 'cause they don't have a castle, so you can imagine.

- Well, what are you gonna build them?

- Yeah, we're workin' on it.

We built this giant hill.

I tried to name one of the kids after the giant hill, but I haven't- - [Rob] Okay, what would you rather be named after, a castle or a hill?

- It's this awesome slide!

- [Rob] Here's my hill.

- Giant slide.

- The slide would be okay.

- It's a pretty cool slide.

We spent a lot of time on it.

- What the hell were we talking about?

- I don't know.

- Okay, it has to be pretty cool though, because how many acres are you building on?

- Oh yeah, so I think we started with like...

So, we've always had about 25 to 30 acres of pumpkins.

We got about 10 to 15 acres of you-pick flowers.

The play area or the storefront side of the farm started at about probably three acres, and is now, has gotta be up probably 10 to 15 acres too.

- [Rob] Wow!

- So, it's really grown.

- [Rob] It's a city.

- Yeah, it's grown, yeah.

You could spend the day there.

- I think you're younger than I am, but it was the Jefferson Starship song, "I built this city on rock and roll."

- Oh, well I have heard the song.

- I built this city on giant pumpkins.

- On giant pumpkins, I think I should work with that.

- We can get one of those other guys to do a parody, Farmer Derrick or something.

- Yes!

- I'll give a call.

- Yes, that would be great.

- Okay, you're also into ag leadership, because apparently you aren't busy enough.

(laughs) Why get involved in stuff like that?

- Well there's a couple of reasons.

I enjoy it, but I think it's important to... Well, there's a lot of opportunities for leadership through the farm organizations, but also, it's really helped grow a network and has helped what our mission is on our farm with connecting with consumers as well.

So, it's kind of on a few different fronts there.

- Mainly with Farm Bureau?

- Yeah, mainly through Farm Bureau stuff.

- They kicked me out, did you know that?

- (laughs) I did not know that, what'd you do?

- We don't have time for that.

I promise you, we don't have time for that.

(Kaylee laughs) So you're on what, the Young Farmers?

- Yeah, I was just appointed to the AFBF YF&R Committee that I'll start that in March.

- [Rob] That's a big deal!

- I'm excited, yeah.

I think being so involved at the state level for a while, it'll be good to branch out and get a greater perspective as the industry across the United States.

- Because it's not 50 people on there.

- No, there's not 50 people.

I'm not sure as how many exactly, but they do try to spread us out.

- If I remember, it's like 20-ish, right?

- Yeah.

- But my point is, you'd not only have to be the person from Illinois, but it's less than that.

- Right.

- So that's quite an honor to get... You're gonna have to do a lot of traveling?

- There can be.

It's not as bad as I would've thought.

But, you do have opportunities where you could take more opportunities to travel through it, so you do get some opportunities to travel to different states and maybe participate in some of their programs that they have going on as well, but.

- That's really cool, especially because, I mean, agriculture is a very small industry, but the diversity of it is amazing.

We've interviewed people in agriculture for five years, 3,000 interviews, still people amaze me at the different stuff they're doing, and now you get a chance to not only learn about it, but go and visit.

- Yeah, for sure.

I experienced that through Illinois.

I'm from the northern part of the state, and I quite honestly had no idea until I met farmers and ag professionals from the rest of the state what else was going on.

And so, I'm excited to see that same kind of effect by being part of that national committee.

- Tell me about the award that you won.

- Yeah, so I won at the state level, the Excellence in Agriculture award, which is for people that work or earn the majority of their income off the farm.

And so, I work in the ag tech industry and had the opportunity, won at the state, and got the opportunity to go to Puerto Rico and go through a series of presentations and ended up placing fourth, so it was a great- - Fourth, out of the whole country?

- Out of the whole country, yeah.

- Why was it in Puerto Rico?

- What's that, why was it?

- Why was it in Puerto Rico?

- Well, I think it rotates around the United States, and then I think every so many years, I think it was about 10 years ago it was in Hawaii, I think, and then going to Puerto Rico was a- - [Rob] Hawaii is a state.

- Well they're a US territory in Puerto Rico.

- Well, regardless or irregardless for our Canadian viewer, it's very impressive what you did, because I used to go for those awards.

I know the level of competition that you have to do to reach that level, so it has to be something you're really proud of.

- You know, I am, and I almost didn't try.

It's one of those things where you get up, and you talk about your accomplishments, why it matters, and the issues you care about and tell your story.

And I can can probably stand up and talk about just about anything, but talking about myself was really challenging, and Farm Bureau had to, quite honestly, help me get there to be okay with trying to smooth out my story and get comfortable talking about it.

But I spent years being incredibly inspired by people that have gone through that program too.

And so, it got to the point where I was like, "Maybe I'll go for it," because maybe that inspires somebody else to share their story or get a little bit more involved or even try to go for the award someday too, then that helped me get there too, so.

- Well also, it gets you a chance to get opportunity, well like this, right?

Because now you get to talk to people that are not inside agriculture, people that are interested in what you do and to get to know the people that are involved, and that only does farming, ranching, agriculture, that only does us a lot of good, because now we're putting a face to somebody that comes out there and buys your 9,000 pound pumpkin.

- For sure, man, maybe next year with the 9,000 pounds, maybe 1,000 pounds, oh man.

No, I think that is what makes it important.

You put the face to and that conversation, that direct contact to those stories or to what we're doing, and I think we connect with people, and it's hard to connect on anything other than that otherwise, so yeah, it was a great experience, and I think going through it with such a good group of people, one of my best friends from Farm Bureau, Evan Holte, he got third in the Achievement- - He's my president.

- He is?

- Yes.

- Okay, yes.

Yeah, so he did great, he got third, that was cool.

We got to go through that competition together.

We served on the Young Leader committee together and- - Oh cool!

- Yeah, it was a really cool experience all around.

- So if people are at home, and they're watching this, and they're like, "Kaylee looks familiar.

"Where did I see her?"

Tell me about the Super Bowl commercial.

- Yes, yeah, so we'll have about a second in the Super Bowl commercial of the Heap Family.

But, we got to participate in this, the, "We are the 96" campaign, with Illinois Farm Families and the other, Illinois Soy I think, and other organizations and the whole goal of it is to connect farm families throughout Illinois to consumers and that 96% of the farms in Illinois are family owned, so that's the whole initiative, is there's this misconception that there's corporate farms and actually, 96% of 'em are family owned like us.

- Yeah, even we have hunters come in for outfitter, and they'll drive around, and they're like, "Who's the Pioneer Farm?

"Those guys must farm everywhere."

- Oh yeah, 'cause of the signs on the side.

- 'Cause they're seeing the seed signs.

So there is a misconception that, yes, that you and I, as family farmers, are really the vast minority when we're the vast majority.

- Right, and I think too, what's cool, especially in Illinois is you farm and I farm, and we're actually nothing alike either.

We farm in different ways, and there's such a diverse group of farm families throughout the whole state.

And I think they did a good job trying to capture that as well through that campaign.

- Did you just insult me?

- Did I?

- Saying we're different?

You said it with such conviction, like you were proud of it.

Like you and I are nothing alike.

- I bet you you're proud that you don't grow pumpkins.

- I would love to grow pumpkins.

- You we wanna grow pumpkins?

- Yeah.

- Oh, okay.

- What's the biggest pumpkin you grew?

- We have been in the 900 pound range.

But we do host the Illinois Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off, so we see some almost 2,000 pound pumpkins come through the farm.

- You need a reality show, like the 600-pound life.

You could do the 900-pound pumpkin.

Is there a small guy named Peter that lives in those pumpkins?

- No, there's not.

- Or is that the nursery, or am I thinking the old lady in the shoe?

- Is that a peach?

I thought it, oh no, that's James and the Giant Peach.

- Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater.

- Peter, Peter pumpkin eater, yeah.

- I don't remember the rest of it.

You should know that!

- I know, you know the funny, I don't actually like the taste of pumpkin either, which is probably strange.

Everybody expects that I would like pumpkins, 'cause we raised them, but I don't, squash is okay.

- There's a basic white girl joke in there that I really wanna say, but we'll let it go.

- Yeah, no pumpkin spice lattes for me.

- Somewhere, someone at Starbucks is dying.

(laughs) - Yes, yeah, but I'm sure glad people love pumpkin spice lattes.

It's good for pumpkin business, so.

- That's probably not made from real pumpkins anyway, isn't it?

- I don't think so.

I don't know, yeah.

- Is it your goal to grow the biggest ever?

- So we tried pretty hard to get some of those, but to be quite honest, when those contests are going on, that's our really busy season, so it's not realistic to.

If we got a big pumpkin, we wouldn't really get to take it anywhere but home.

- [Rob] Well, it's just bragging rights, right?

- Yeah, it's bragging rights.

- [Rob] Do you get a trophy?

- Yeah, but we do work with a lot of businesses and sell those giant pumpkins too, so they get to go on display in a little bit different way.

A lot of people drop 'em from cranes too, so.

- [Rob] Like to see 'em- - Just to see 'em, yeah.

They'll display it, and then it'll be some fall- - Now that I could get behind.

- Yes, yes, yeah.

- Are you on social media or the internet?

- I am, yeah.

- Whereabouts?

- Facebook and Instagram.

- Okay, what's the handle?

- Yeah, so Heap Farms is our farm pages.

- [Rob] Is it Heap's Giant Pumpkin Farm or just Heap's Farm?

- Just Heap Farm, yep.

- [Rob] H-E-A-P. - Yes, H-E-A-P. - It's spelled wrong.

- You spelled it wrong on there.

- Well, no, it should be H-E-E-P, Heep's.

- Oh, yeah, well I think it's right by definition.

The heaps, like heap, like a heaping whatever- - Okay, again, I guess we'll agree to disagree on that.

- Heaping pile of pumpkins.

(Rob and Kaylee laugh) - It's very cool.

We had you on the radio show.

I enjoy you, because you have a different take on agriculture, 'cause you didn't grow up in ag.

So, I assume you probably have a better way to talk to the general public than a guy like myself.

- Well, yeah, I think there's a lot of ways we can connect.

Like similar to how I connected to the farm early on was my family's small business owners, and what we're doing on the farm is a small business too, and so I think coming at it from that perspective has helped relate in a different way.

- Okay, you want people to come out and see it.

What's the best time to come out to your farm?

- About middle of August through the end of October, so early on in the season is flowers, and then we finish out with pumpkins.

- And your biggest seller?

- Biggest seller, well, I think the you-pick flower experience is really cool.

- Really?

- Yep.

- Do you get stung by a bee?

- Well, they're usually are pretty, they're, (laughs).

- You've got confused- - I was gonna say, yeah.

- Confused bees up there.

- Well they're on a pollen high when they're out there, so they're not really interested in you.

- You drug your bees.

- (laughs) Well, the pollen does.

They're out there, and they're full.

- All right, Kaylee Heap from Minooka, which means good earth.

- Yes, there we go.

- Thank you for everything that you do.

Thank you for the way you represent agriculture.

It really means a lot to a person like myself, and thank you for coming on our show, really appreciate it.

- Thank you for having me.

- Yeah, and everybody else, we'll catch you next week.

(upbeat music)