WATCH: Family owned Alexandria business marks major milestone
The Ward family held a centennial celebration Saturday for John Ward Ace Hardware.
- Andrea and John Jaskowiak started Jasko’s Farm to promote healthy living and give back to their community.
- They sell organic, free-range eggs from chickens and geese raised on a healthy diet.
- The Jaskowiaks also offer various homemade products like jellies, jams and pickles, all without artificial ingredients.
- They plan to expand their offerings to include fresh produce grown on their farm.
Keeping and promoting a healthy lifestyle for themselves and the community is why Andrea and John Jaskowiak started their business Jasko’s Farm.
“My husband and I started a farm together,” Andrea said. “The big thing is, we want to be healthy. And we want to give back to the community.”
Andrea is a respiratory therapist, and John is an Army veteran and nurse. On Saturdays, they can be found selling their products from 9 a.m. to noon at the Cabrini Farmers Market in the parking lot of St. Francis Cabrini Church on East Texas Avenue.
At their booth, you’ll find organic farm raised eggs. Andrea said their chickens and geese are not raised in cages and are free range and produce “high quality eggs.”
“They’re pesticide free — gunk free — all the bad things we don’t want,” she said.
The Jaskowiaks lived in East Texas, where Andrea said there were “egg farms” and all the chickens lived in buildings where they don’t see the sunshine.
“They don’t get all that healthy sun and grasses and bugs,” she said.
Their chickens are healthy, she says, because “they get all kinds of bugs and treats and flowers like healthy dandelions.”
“And we give them red pepper flakes, which is good for their guts — which is good for our guts, too,” said Jaskowski. “And it makes for a healthy chicken which produces healthy eggs. Same thing for the geese.”
Both the chickens and geese are raised on the same feed.
“They’re given an all-organic diet,” she said.
The Jaskowskis plan to bring more fresh produce to the market that they’ve grown such as tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers and okra. The only thing they won’t have is corn because they don’t have the acreage on their farm to grow it.
They also have jellies, jams, salsas and relishes and different flavors of pickles.
“I do it just because I like it and they taste good,” she said. Plus, everyone requests them and is happy when they see she makes some.
Andrea says she also makes healthy white bread without preservatives. This past year, she also made applesauce. Jaskowski likes to point out that she doesn’t put anything artificial in any of her products.
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