getting started organic farming
Up and running!
05/12/09 09:04 AM
Wow! I can't believe our farm has a web site now.
Thanks to my wife, Becca, and son, Hank, it has
really happened. I would never have been able to do
it. I thought you had to hire someone and pay lots of
money to get something like this.
I'm excited about all the possibilities this brings. I will tell you up front that I'm better at digging in the dirt than I am at writing or using the computer. Hank had to show me how to do this part too. I think I will keep this as a journal about what kinds of things are going on here on the farm.
I suppose I should give you some background about me and my family first. I grew up just outside Nashville on the Cheatham County line. We lived in a house in the woods where my father had also been raised. We didn't do a lot of farming there although I spent almost all my time in the woods or fishing. During the summers I would stay on my grandfathers large farm in Cannon County. I would pick beans and tomatoes, haul hay, and just about everything else kids can do on a farm. My cousins and I rode horses and sometimes even wrestled calves when no one was looking. Just about all my mothers relatives had farms so I experienced a lot of different aspects of the farming life. After high school my parents bought a farm in Coffee County where we raised beef cattle and a large garden. I spent many mornings bottle feeding calves we had gotten from a dairy down the road. I would often get to class at the local community college and realize I had calf stuff on my pants legs.
Not long after that I left for a bigger university, and thought I was putting the farming life behind me forever. It was paved roads and clean pants for me. Ten years later I met my wife and we soon started our own family. We bought a house in a nice subdivision and settled in. When my daughter turned 2 (Hank was 4) I started to grow tired of the city. I was worried about them playing outside on our fairly busy street. I started a little garden in our backyard because we were craving something fresh. I was also wanting to grow things for myself. We had poor soil and too much shade so all we got were a few cukes and a couple of sad tomatoes. Becca and I started talking about going back to the country. She too had grown up on a farm in Columbia, TN. We both wanted our kids to have the same life we had enjoyed when growing up. Woods to roam, creeks to wade, and most of all, dirt to dig in and grow our own food. Like most farm kids we had grown tired of it by the time we were teenagers, but now were feeling the call to return home.
So after two long years of looking at every falling down shack in a 80 mile radius we found our farm. The first day we drove up following our realtor I turned to Becca as we made our way up the winding, shade covered driveway, and said; I sure hope this is it. It was...
We moved in in April and I got out my hoe and headed up to the field one morning. I stood in the middle of the green field and turned in circles. I was very excited about getting our garden going. It then dawned on me that I had no idea how to get started. All those years on the farm hadn't prepared me for this. I had always worked on the farm, but had never actually planned a big crop or prepared the ground for one. I had been just cheap labor. I struggled through those first few years and made lots of mistakes. If not for my wife's teaching salary we certainly would have starved. All while sitting on some of the most fertile ground I had ever seen. Kind of like dying of thirst floating on a raft in the ocean.
After a while I started figuring things out. I read books and questioned anyone I thought could help. I broke things and planted things that never came up. I will always remember the first year I grew enough things to have a meal consisting entirely of vegetables we had grown. I felt like I had hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth!
Since then our farm has continued to grow. About five years ago I grew a crop of beans and potatoes that proved way too much for us to eat and store. I began selling baskets of produce to some friends. Then the next year I grew too much for them and us. I found a restaurant willing to buy anything I had. Now we supply the restaurant with some things and have a CSA. I still learn new things every year and keep trying to grow more as well as newer varieties. I can also say I enjoy it more than anything I've ever done. My children have been learning right along with me and seem to love it as well. Hopefully when they feel the call to return home after their young adult adventures they won't be as clueless as I was.
I always tell people; I traveled a long way to get right back to where I started. Home, on the farm.
I'm excited about all the possibilities this brings. I will tell you up front that I'm better at digging in the dirt than I am at writing or using the computer. Hank had to show me how to do this part too. I think I will keep this as a journal about what kinds of things are going on here on the farm.
I suppose I should give you some background about me and my family first. I grew up just outside Nashville on the Cheatham County line. We lived in a house in the woods where my father had also been raised. We didn't do a lot of farming there although I spent almost all my time in the woods or fishing. During the summers I would stay on my grandfathers large farm in Cannon County. I would pick beans and tomatoes, haul hay, and just about everything else kids can do on a farm. My cousins and I rode horses and sometimes even wrestled calves when no one was looking. Just about all my mothers relatives had farms so I experienced a lot of different aspects of the farming life. After high school my parents bought a farm in Coffee County where we raised beef cattle and a large garden. I spent many mornings bottle feeding calves we had gotten from a dairy down the road. I would often get to class at the local community college and realize I had calf stuff on my pants legs.
Not long after that I left for a bigger university, and thought I was putting the farming life behind me forever. It was paved roads and clean pants for me. Ten years later I met my wife and we soon started our own family. We bought a house in a nice subdivision and settled in. When my daughter turned 2 (Hank was 4) I started to grow tired of the city. I was worried about them playing outside on our fairly busy street. I started a little garden in our backyard because we were craving something fresh. I was also wanting to grow things for myself. We had poor soil and too much shade so all we got were a few cukes and a couple of sad tomatoes. Becca and I started talking about going back to the country. She too had grown up on a farm in Columbia, TN. We both wanted our kids to have the same life we had enjoyed when growing up. Woods to roam, creeks to wade, and most of all, dirt to dig in and grow our own food. Like most farm kids we had grown tired of it by the time we were teenagers, but now were feeling the call to return home.
So after two long years of looking at every falling down shack in a 80 mile radius we found our farm. The first day we drove up following our realtor I turned to Becca as we made our way up the winding, shade covered driveway, and said; I sure hope this is it. It was...
We moved in in April and I got out my hoe and headed up to the field one morning. I stood in the middle of the green field and turned in circles. I was very excited about getting our garden going. It then dawned on me that I had no idea how to get started. All those years on the farm hadn't prepared me for this. I had always worked on the farm, but had never actually planned a big crop or prepared the ground for one. I had been just cheap labor. I struggled through those first few years and made lots of mistakes. If not for my wife's teaching salary we certainly would have starved. All while sitting on some of the most fertile ground I had ever seen. Kind of like dying of thirst floating on a raft in the ocean.
After a while I started figuring things out. I read books and questioned anyone I thought could help. I broke things and planted things that never came up. I will always remember the first year I grew enough things to have a meal consisting entirely of vegetables we had grown. I felt like I had hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth!
Since then our farm has continued to grow. About five years ago I grew a crop of beans and potatoes that proved way too much for us to eat and store. I began selling baskets of produce to some friends. Then the next year I grew too much for them and us. I found a restaurant willing to buy anything I had. Now we supply the restaurant with some things and have a CSA. I still learn new things every year and keep trying to grow more as well as newer varieties. I can also say I enjoy it more than anything I've ever done. My children have been learning right along with me and seem to love it as well. Hopefully when they feel the call to return home after their young adult adventures they won't be as clueless as I was.
I always tell people; I traveled a long way to get right back to where I started. Home, on the farm.