“It’s been an amazing journey,” said Hugo resident Aaron Zellmer, noting that this December will mark five years since the Zellmer family began operating Four Acre Farm, their lifestyle farm in Hugo.
Aaron was born in Hawaii but moved often because he grew up in a military family. After graduating from Fridley High School, he enlisted in the Air Force for four years.
He eventually moved back to Minnesota — specifically, to Lino Lakes — where he met the love of his life, Kelly. She had grown up on a farm in Hugo and, she says, “was itching to get back to farm life” once they started having children.
“We wanted our kids to experience something unique and different that most kids don’t get to experience,” Kelly explained.
While residing in Brooklyn Park, the family would often visit and help with Kelly’s family farm. The children sold the harvested produce at a barn stand in their driveway.
While driving through Hugo, the Zellmers spotted a home and fell in love. The only problem: it wasn’t on the market. Aaron and Kelly wrote a letter to the homeowners years before they purchased the home, letting them know about their vision for the property.
“We told them about our intentions,” Aaron said. “We are actually still really great friends with them.”
The name Four Acre Farm pays homage to the couple’s four children: Lillias, 10, Theodore, 6, Genevieve, 8, and Wendell, 3.
When they moved to Hugo, they had three children. “We just knew in our heart that we were going to have four kids someday,” Aaron explained. Kelly and Aaron experienced a few losses in early pregnancy, but eventually Wendell completed their family.
Aaron describes the farm as a “lifestyle” farm.
“It’s a lifestyle that we’re doing. It’s not a hobby or a job, but it’s a mindset that we are tirelessly trying to change amongst our friend group and our community,” he explained. “In today’s society, it does take intentionality to seek healthy alternatives. We have become so complacent with convenience. The pillar of our lifestyle farm is that we are trying to create products that are free from chemicals, they have intentionality behind them, and we want to make sure that we’re respectful and good stewards of the land.”
The farm produces raw honey, pasteurized eggs, poultry and seasonal produce — all grown with care and a focus on sustainability.
Aaron said he has always been fascinated by bees. “If it weren’t for pollinators, we wouldn’t have the food diversity that we have today. Pollinators pollinate one out of every third bite of food that we have,” he said.
The farm started off with three colonies and grew up to 20, but over the winter of 2024-24 the farm, like many other beekeepers across the country, experienced significant losses. The farm currently has five colonies, but eventually hopes to get to 100. In addition to Four Acre Farm, the couple has access to over 200 acres in Hugo (Kelly’s family farm) as well as a farm in Aaron’s family in Staples, Minnesota.
Aaron is an accountant by day, while Kelly homeschools the children. Aaron said he enjoys the “balance” between working at a desk all day and being active on the farm before and after work and on weekends. Sometimes, he said, his day job offers a “nice break” from the daily grind of the physical labor and farm chores he experiences at home.
In addition to educating their own children, the couple often host community Junior Beekeeper events for other homeschooled children.
“It’s such a great opportunity for our kids to learn some really unique skill sets with not only the hard work that they are doing on the farm and the manual labor they are putting in, but also seeing the tangible benefits of all their hard work when it comes to receiving money for the product that we grew and provided to our community,” Aaron said.
Within the next couple of years, Aaron said he hopes the farm can have a presence at more community events, such as Marketfest.
The hope is that years from now, when Aaron and Kelly are ready to step back a bit from the farm, their children will want to continue its operation.
“Our long-term goal for the farm is to establish something that our kids can really take over and grow beyond what we could make it grow to,” Aaron said. “We are really hoping that this is something our kids will run with and be able to be successful with everything that they have learned from us.”