Foggy Hollow Hoophouse

The plastic cover traps solar heat during the day and increases the temperature inside the house. It effectively gives us an extra month in both spring and fall of no-frost weather. The biggest advantage, however, comes from what it allows us to grow in the winter. The protection and additional daytime heat that the hoophouse provides allows cool-weather crops such as lettuce, spinach, carrots, kale, and chard to grow (although very slowly) throughout winter. We had veggies all winter long last year thanks to free solar heating captured by our hoophouse.

Last January in the hoophouse

The protection it provides from pounding rain and wind can also be a benefit in the summer. Tomatoes, peppers, and squash all grow 50% bigger in the hoophouse.
I have been putting off planting some lettuce in the hoophouse all week long. I kept telling myself that I’ll get in there next time it rained. This morning the sky opened up and it started to pour. Happy to get out of my morning chore of picking beans, I picked up my hoe and headed for the hoophouse. As I cleaned out the beds in the pouring rain, I was reveling in the new level of farm efficiency I had gained. A rain storm would drive most farmers back to the house. Not this farmer! I’m planting lettuce in a storm.
CRACK!!!
Lightning hit the hoophouse. The hoophouse glowed for an instance as crackling lightning followed the metal bows down to the ground. All this transpired just a micro-second before a loud thunder crack and I jumped.
My imagination may have got the best of me. Perhaps the lighting was just very close and didn’t really hit the hoophouse. Either way, I wasn’t going to stand around under a bunch of curved lightning rods in a thunderstorm any longer. I ran up to the shed to get out of the hoophouse. Our shed is made of metal. I ran to the house.
Inside, my wife was reading stories to my 3-year old and his friend. That seemed safe; at least safer than planting lettuce in a thunderstorm.

No lightning in here!

What an amazing day!

Look at the goofy farmer

The band was playing, the sun was shining, and people were walking around with huge bags of locally grown produce.

The turnout was outstanding and the vibe from the crowd was very inspiring.  There were literally hundreds of people from the local community that showed up to support the farmers and artisans.  The crowd was eager to learn about their local farmers and the interesting food they had to sale.  To steal the words from the market organizer, Sean Siple, this area was “hungry” for a farmers market, and boy did it show today. 

It was a consistent sight to see people lined up three to four deep waiting to buy veggies.  These are the kind of days that keep a farmer plugging away in the middle of August. 

That's what it is all about!

Thanks to the West Nashville Community for your support!

Fall Garden

We have reached a point in the growing season in which we have very little coming out of the garden. In fact, for the past week and a half we have not gone to market with any produce. Back in June when the produce started coming in, I was a little overwhelmed. The first week of June I thought, “I’ll just put off my planting schedule for a week so I can catch up.” The second week of June I thought, “I’ll just put off my planting schedule for another week so I can catch up.” This trend continued for two more weeks. This is why I have no produce to sell right now.
While at first I was a little upset about this, I have really enjoyed the break. Harvesting, setting up a booth, talking and selling to customers for 3-5 hours, and tearing down the booth can take more out of me than farming. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the market, especially getting to talk to customers who are enjoying my veggies. I just need to learn to balance the marketing aspect with the actual growing aspect. The good news is that my fall garden is almost completely planted and the veggies are growing again. We’ll be going to market this weekend with produce!
This is just one of many lessons learned so far this year. Here’s a highlight of some of the others:
1. Follow plant spacing guidelines
When setting out tiny tomato transplants, the recommended spacing of 2 feet just seems way too far apart. So, I put them 1 foot apart and had a bushy mess once they were full grown that toppled my trellising system. What a mess. The same thing for squash. I couldn’t walk through the squash patch after the plants grew up (but man did we have a bunch of squash!)
2. Don’t forget to open the coop after moving the chickens
We move our chickens every few days to a new fenced in pasture. This way they can forage, eat bugs, enjoy the sunshine, and be clean and healthy. To move our coop, which is on wheels, I have to close the door or it drags the ground. One morning, I closed the door with a couple of chickens in the coop, moved the fence, moved the coop and moved the chickens. Like a good farmer, I gave the chickens fresh water and feed and gathered eggs. Like a very bad farmer, I forgot to open the coop so the chickens could get in and out. It was very hot that day and two of the chickens that were in the coop died because they could not get water. I felt terrible, and needless to say will never forget to open the coop door again.

Notice door IS open

3. If people offer to help, let them.
Early in the year, I was turning down requests to help because I wanted to do it all myself. I guess it is just my nature. Plus, I felt guilty about people coming out and sweating for half a day pulling weeds or planting potatoes for no compensation. Man, have I changed my tune, now. Anytime anybody asks if they can help, I scream “Yes!”
4. Make sure the tractor is in forward before releasing the clutch
My tractor is a “walk-behind” tractor which means it looks like a tiller on steroids. It does many things a large tractor can, but only has two wheels and you walk behind it rather than sit on it. I chose it because they use less gasoline than a larger tractor and sounded a little safer. They may sound safe, but I found out how much power 14 h.p. actually is one spring day. I was in a hurry to get out to the field to till before rain set in. Normally I put the tractor in low gear to get out of the barn so I don’t run into something. This day I felt rushed so I put the tractor in high gear and let her rip. I took one step forward as the tractor rushed backward at me. It lifted me up in the air and pinned me to the wall of the barn before I could engage the clutch and stop it. By that time it put a large gouge in my shin and slightly twisted my ankle. All in all, not much damage, but I gained a healthy respect for my “tiny” tractor.

Looks safe enough

I’m sure I’ll have more lessons over the next few months. Hopefully both farmer and livestock will not be harmed with my further education.

Critter Fencing

Last year in our vegetable garden, I took the approach of not fortifying my garden’s defenses unless I had proof that there was a need.  It didn’t seem nice or neighborly to the animals to fence them out when they had done nothing to me.  Plus, putting up a fence is work.  “Oh, you’re going to need a deer fence,” was the advice offered from our neighbor who has lived in the holler for over 30 years.  As a holdover from my teenage years, I have trouble taking advice that I didn’t ask for.  So, I planted peas, spinach, carrots, and beans with nothing to protect them but my goodwill to the animals.  Needless to say the deer were very gracious of my goodwill, but apparently have no honor at all, as they demolished most of what I planted early that spring.  

Up went the electric deer fence. 

I installed an electric fence around the garden powered by a solar panel and battery.  I put electric wires at 2 feet and 4 feet high.  It worked great, no more deer and my vegetables grew unmolested, until summer.  That was when Mr. Groundhog moved in.  I didn’t know anything about the metabolism of groundhogs, but I quickly learned about their appetite.  In two nights, the groundhogs wiped out my beans, two fifty foot rows of beans.  About the same time, the raccoons found the corn.  Apparently, raccoons will push over the stalk, peel back the husk and eat the corn right off the ear.  They don’t eat the whole ear, either, they’ll take a few bites off of one, then another, then another.  What started as pretty rows of corn looked like a crime scene.

Up went the electric netting.

They make plastic netting fence that has electric wires weaved in it that is very effective at keeping small four-legged creatures out of the garden.  I had it up within a week.  After that, I had no more critter problems.

After learning my lesson last year, I was proactive with installing my fence this year.  I currently have 2 acres fenced in where I will be growing vegetables.  I used cedar posts I bought from a man clearing his lot in Lebanon, TN (another craigslist purchase) and have tried to design a fence that will keep everything out.  It is also an electric fence, but has wires spaced every few inches at the bottom to keep the small critters out and spaced every 18 inches or so toward the top to keep the deer out.

New Critter Fence

Irrigation

We are very fortunate on our farm to have a year-round spring coming out of the side of the hill.  There is a spring house with a pump, and I plan to use this to irrigate my crops.  I will use trickle irrigation, which uses small plastic tubes with tiny holes spaced every foot to slowly water the crops.  The trickle irrigation tubing runs along the rows of vegetables and places the water right where you need it, around the root zone of the plants.

Foggy Hollow Farm Springhouse

Farmer’s Markets

I have signed up to sell at the Franklin Farmer’s Market this year.  It is, in my opinion, the best farmer’s market in Middle Tennessee and one we have shopped at for the past 5 years.  The farmers must sell only product that they have raised, and the farm must be located within the region.  The local community is very supportive of the market and local farmers.  It will be a great place to “learn the ropes” of direct marketing my vegetables.

The market will open the first Saturday in May. 

What’s Growing

Most of the work I have been doing for the past two months has been clearing the land where I will be growing vegetables.

Growing Fields

I have also started to seed the early spring crops of sugar snap peas and spinach outdoors.  I finally received a small reward for that effort as the sugar peas poked up through the ground.  It is always exciting to see the first thing growing in the garden.

We have Peas!

The hoophouse is full of fresh greens and I have continued to sell a little bit to friends.  Over the past week I set out the early tomatoes in the hoophouse.  At the moment they are covered with an additional layer of light fabric to help keep them warm enough at night.  Hopefully, I can get to market with early tomatoes this year.  They are always a big hit.

Spring in the Hoophouse

Greenhouse Capacity: 1

That’s the news from the farm.  I’m staying pretty busy, but it has been great to watch the spring blooms and listen to the birds singing again.  The bees have come back out and I’ve even seen a few snakes around.  The farm is coming back to life again!

Finally, I’m actually growing something!  My first seedlings have sprouted.  Some are in the hoop house where I have planted some mesclun mix, spinach and radishes.  Hopefully in about a month, I’ll have some fresh baby lettuce to sell.  The others are my tomato transplants.  I hope to be able to transplant them into the hoop house at the end of March.  The varieties I’ve planted are some of the fastest maturing tomatoes available, so if I’m lucky, I can offer tomatoes around the end of May (very lucky).

I have made my first official income as a farmer over the past couple of weeks.  I’ve been selling some of the surplus from our unheated hoop house.  I had planted winter vegetables in the hoop house last fall to supply our family with greens and carrots all winter.  As it gets closer to spring, it appears that I will have more than our immediate family of four needs, so I’ve been selling to friends and extended family.  It was very exciting to sell the first order of veggies from Foggy Hollow Farm (Thanks Emily and Wade!). 

 The lower field has made the transition from pasture to garden this past week.  With all the sunny weather we have had, things were dry enough to break ground.  I was pleased to see that the soil was very dark colored which is a good sign.  I’ll be sowing peas and spinach in a few weeks out in the field.

Broken Ground

I’ve heard the following expression from several market farmers, “Don’t plant anything that you don’t have a market for.”  If I followed this advice, I would never be able to get started so I’ve decided to ignore it and instead heed a different expression, “If you grow it, they will come” (which I did not hear out the corn field…….yet).  It will kind of be a leap of faith that I will be able to sell my produce but I can’t create a customer base without anything to sell, kind of a chicken vs. egg situation. 

So, I will be attempting to sell at the Franklin Farmer’s Market this year.  It generates a lot of traffic and there is a high interest in organic produce at the market.  We’ve been shopping there for years and love it.  They even have a band playing while you shop!  It is open on Saturdays, so I’ll also be looking for other markets to sell at during the week, but I have not decided on where, yet.

I’ve completed my organic application and sent it in.  The next steps are a review of my application and an onsite inspection.  With fingers crossed, we can be USDA certified Organic by this summer.  A ladybug landed on my application while I was sitting at the dinner table filling it out.  I’m taking this as a very good omen as ladybugs are one of an organic farmer’s best friends.  They eat bugs, not plants, most importantly aphids, a big garden pest.  I actually was able to witness what ladybugs can do last growing season.  The aphids had attacked my tomatoes with a vengeance shortly after I had transplanted them.  I had been keeping them at bay by blasting the plants with water every few days.  This knocks the aphids off and it takes them a while to mosey their way back up and into dining mode.  After about a week of this I started noticing hoards of ladybugs.  They had found the aphids on the tomato plants and began having a feast of their own.  After another week, I had no visible aphid problem with the tomato plants!  I have no idea what the ladybug was doing in my house in early February, as I have never seen an aphid in the house.  I think he just wanted to help with the organic application so he would have plenty of aphids to eat this year.

See, right in the middle of "Farmer's Market"

There you go!  Things are starting to get busy around here and stuff is growing.

Planning 

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of planning.  Winter is the time of year when the farmer decides what he will be growing for the next year.  On days like today, 35 degrees and sleeting, sitting inside and planning is a great idea.  I thought it would be an easy task, but as I have found out, there is more to it than you might think.

 To farm organically, you have to practice crop rotation.  This means you don’t grow the same or similar plant in the same plot year after year.  Since each plant draws differently upon the soil, rotating the crop families helps the soil remain healthy.  I’ve worked out a 10-year rotation, which means the same type of crop will not be grown in the same field but once every 10 years.  This also helps to confuse the pests, which makes sense, because it has certainly confused me.

Once the rotation is planned comes the fun part, selecting the varieties of seed to purchase.  The creativity of those that name vegetable varieties amazes me.  Here’s a sample of some of the varieties that I’ll be growing this year:

Provider Bush Bean

Detroit Dark Red Beet

De Cicco Broccoli

Fordhook Giant Chard

Lemon Cucumber

Black Beauty Eggplant

Lacinato Dinosaur Kale

Red Russian Kale

Renegade Spinach

Champion Collards

Arkansas Traveler Tomato

Brandywine Tomato

Cherokee Purple Tomato

Moon and Stars Watermelon

It’s not just the planting date that must be planned.  Date to break ground in order to get the soil ready, date to seed transplants and date to set out transplants all have to be planned.  For some beds, there will be multiple crops, so this is all planned twice.  Plus, there are cover crops to be under sown with the cash crops, but I’ll save that for another blog.  

Although it has been more difficult than I originally planned, it’s been a lot of fun.  Next year should be easier, as I’ll just have to make adjustments to the rotation, not build it from scratch. 

……I hope 

Organic Certification

I’ve also been working on my organic certification application.  The application process takes some time, but it is not too cumbersome.  I knew I was going to get certified organic so I had been researching the certification requirements for a couple of years. 

 There are a number of small farmers out there that grow organically and could be certified organic but choose not to.  One of the biggest reasons is the paperwork involved.  Everything you do must be recorded, from each time you till the field to every transplant you plant out to how many pounds of tomatoes you harvest each week.  I must admit, it seems a little overkill, but coming from a finance background I can see that most of the paperwork will help me better assess my farming business.  Had I not spent the last the last 10 years working with records similar to the ones I’ll be keeping, I probably would forego the certification, as well.

 Greenhouse

I love Craig’s List.  It’s a free web-based classified ad site that has gained in popularity over the past several years(www.craigslist.com).  I have made numerous purchases for the farm on Craig’s List.  The latest being a greenhouse.

For the past couple of years, I’ve just put my seedlings into sunny spots around the house.  With the exponential increase in production I’ll have this year, I needed a different option.  It’s only a 6 foot x 10 foot greenhouse, but I think if I put in an extensive shelving system, I can get quite a few seedlings in there.  It came with exhaust fans, a heater, and thermostat.  It should do for a couple of years.

I’m planning on putting some old 60 gallon barrels in the greenhouse and filling them with water to provide thermal mass.  The water will absorb heat during the daytime and radiate it back out at night requiring the heater to work less.  Here’s the progress to date.  I’ll be putting the plastic on this week.

Tiny, aint' she?

Farming Conference

Audrey, Dad, and I just got back from the Southern Sustainable Agricultural Working Group’s (S.S.A.W.G.) Conference in Chattanooga.  It was a great experience where I met many small farmers from around the South.  Many were organic, some were not, but most seemed to be committed to producing quality food for their communities.   

I learned many new growing techniques and ways to help my farm become more sustainable.  I have been overwhelmed at how eager small farmers are to share what they have learned.  You don’t see that kind of cooperation between competitors in the corporate world. 

 Construction

Construction has officially started on Dad’s house.  They have roughed in the road to the top of the hill where his house will be.  Here’s Finn on the bulldozer.

Finn the Builder

 Planting

At last, I’ve been able to actually plant some seeds!  The first tomato seeds were sown in soil blocks which will be placed in the hoophouse in March.  Grow little seeds, grow!

The last two days have been spent cleaning out the hoophouse in preparation for sowing mesclun mix.  I learned how to do this at the S.S.A.W.G. conference and I’m anxious to see some winter crops.  Hopefully, in about a month, I’ll have my first mesclun mix for sale.

More to come …

Ready for Seed!

Farmer Eric

Our chicken flock started a couple of years ago, when I bought my sons 4 chicks for Easter in lieu of the dog they really wanted.  I brought the tiny birds home from the local feed store and we raised them in the garage until they were ready to move outside into the portable chicken coop I had built.  At the time we were living in a subdivision.  It was not a strict subdivision, no one took offense when I waited too long to mow the grass and five of my immediate neighbors had large vegetable gardens.  I had read the subdivision restrictions and there was no poultry allowed.  In my attempt to sidestep these restrictions, I built the prettiest chicken coop I could.  I even gave it a two-toned paint scheme to match our storage shed.  My neighbors were great, but chicken coops don’t exactly increase the resale value of a house and I didn’t want to upset them. 

I wanted the coop to be portable because I had read that if chickens are allowed fresh grass and bugs each day, they will stay healthy and produce more nutritious eggs.  Plus, if they were moved daily they could spread their manure around the yard instead of concentrating it in one spot.  This should keep them from becoming an olfactory nuisance. 

The plan worked great.  The neighbors were curious about the coop, but nobody had any problems with it.  The chicks began laying eggs around 20 weeks of age and we have had home grown eggs ever since.  Fresh eggs from chickens that have had access to grass and bugs are the best eggs you’ll ever eat.

Purdiest coop you ever saw!

That’s why I was getting upset.  I missed my home-grown eggs.  The ones from the store had pale yellow yolks that wouldn’t stand up in the frying pan.  They would break every time I tried to flip them.  Not like my chicken’s eggs.  My ladies would lay eggs with big orange colored yolks that tasted…… well, like eggs.  I didn’t know what to do.   I knew they had been going through their molt, where they replace their feathers.  This happens once a year and I thought it only lasted a month.  It had been almost 8 weeks since the chickens started molting and I thought they should be finished (turns out it can take up to 12 weeks).  Besides, we had raised an additional 4 chicks this year and they would not molt until next year.  Where were the eggs from these “spring” chickens? 

In the summertime, each chicken was producing about 6 eggs a week or a little under one egg a day.  Egg production decreases with the amount of sunlight during the day, so I expected a decrease in production over the winter, but I was expecting maybe 3-4 eggs a week from each chicken, not the 1 I was getting.

As is often the case, my wife had the solution.  She had been trying to convince me for some time that the chickens were not comfortable.  “They are cold”, she said, “Last year you put blankets over the coop when it was cold.  Plus, the nest boxes are not built very well, because they are drafty and the chickens don’t have enough privacy when they lay their eggs.”  I responded how I often do when someone criticizes my craftsmanship – sarcasm.  “These are birds,” I said, “Would you have me go put a blanket on every bird in every tree?”  The coop was plenty to keep them happy.

….but one day I found something oval lying on the ground after moving the chicken coop to a fresh patch of grass.  It was an egg.  A chicken had laid an egg on the ground.  I thought it must be a fluke and went about my business.  The next day I peeked inside the coop and sure enough, there was another egg on the ground.  What the heck, maybe my wife was right.  Were these chickens laying eggs on the ground in protest to my shoddy nest boxes?  I spent about an hour tightening up the nest boxes so they could have privacy and be comfortable while producing my breakfast.  I also laid straw down on the floor of the coop and added a blanket above the roosting pole as added insulation against the cold.

The next day, I had three eggs.  The day after that, three eggs.  I’ve been getting three eggs a day ever since I fixed the coop.  It turns out, I was being a poor landlord and the tenants decided not to pay rent until I spruced up the place.

Now the chickens are happy.

My wife is happy, too.  She’s making me a spinach quiche tomorrow.

Now, I’m happy.

It's about time you fixed things up around here!

Wintertime at the Farm

So, what’s a farmer do in winter?  I don’t know.  I’ve only been farming for 2 weeks, but here is what I’ve been doing:

Fencing.

No, not the fancy kind with foils, flying parrys, and lunges .  We’re talking barbed wire fencing.  The previous owners of our farm ran cattle in the pastures.    Over the years, the fence has fallen into a state of disrepair and was overgrown with brush.  Since I plan on having a few head of cattle in the spring, I needed to either repair or replace this fence.  I choose to replace it for three reasons:  half of it was already down, it was too close to the creek and did not provide an adequate buffer area to provide protection from nutrient runoff, and I wanted an electric fence. 

An electric fence will allow me flexibility to create tiny paddocks by running out a quick cross-fence of electric wire.  The fence will not do any real damage to the cow, but will remind them “Don’t go there!”  This will allow me to control their grazing and should increase the efficiency and health of my pastures.  The cows will graze one area down and then be moved within a few days to a new paddock, the old paddock will have adequate time to rest and recover before being munched on again.  In traditional livestock operations, the cows are rotated infrequently and will double-graze some areas, damaging the pasture, while leaving some areas alone to grow up in weeds. 

Or at least that’s what the books say.  It’s all a big experiment at this point and we’ll see how well I put it into practice this year.  So far, I’ve taken about half the fence down, about ¼ mile in total.  Taking down barbed wire fencing is not the most enjoyable job in the world, but I had a few days of decent weather and the fence is right next to the creek.  With the sound of water running in the background, and frequent breaks to sit on the banks and enjoy the scenery, I made due. 

Dad is coming to visit in January and help put up the new fence.  Should be lots of fun!

Garden Cart:

This summer I lost about 20 seedlings of leeks because I tried to load my flat bottomed seedling tray into a curved wheelbarrow.  The tray flipped over and out of the wheelbarrow and there went my leeks.  Leeks grow very, very slowly, so I’d been working on them for about 7 weeks.  There were only 2 lone seedlings that survived the topple.  I picked them up and threw them into the pasture as far as I could.  I considered it leek loss therapy.  That was the point I realized I needed a good garden cart.

We’re talking the square kind with two big wheels on each side.  It would have a flat bottom so I could load lots of seedling trays in it.  It would also serve as a harvest cart to get vegetables from the fields up to the shed for washing and sorting.  I needed one that was 40 inches wide.  This equals the distance between the walking paths between my garden beds and would allow me to wheel the cart up and down the rows as I transplant/harvest.

After looking around for a good cart, I came to the same conclusion I normally do when considering purchasing something made of wood:  “I can make one of those cheaper than that!”  So, that is what I did. 

There is a guy online named Herrick Kimbal that I consider to be a homesteading genius.  He has written an instructional book for building a garden cart and the dimensions were perfect for what I needed.  He calls it a Whizbang Garden Cart.  Check out his website here.  I had used another set of his plans earlier in the year to make a Whizbang Chicken Plucker (I’m not making this up, I’ll save the plucker story for another blog) and the plans worked out great.  So, I’ve built the Garden Cart and it has turned out to be a very solid design.  At some point, I’m going to try and figure out how to attach it to my mountain bike.  Who says you need a big tractor to farm!  I can’t wait to use it!

Now that's a Whizbang!

So that’s what this rookie farmer does in the winter.  When it is rainy, or too cold to work in the shop, I’ll work on the website or blog.  At night I work on my crop rotation plan or flip through the seed catalogs trying to decide what kind of tomatoes I’m going to grow this year.  With variety names like Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter, Cherokee Purple, and Brandywine, it’s not a decision to be made lightly.

There are many projects planned between now and March:

• Build Fence
• Build Root Cellar
• Build Transplant Row Marker
• Build Harvest Boxes and Transplant Trays
• Determine Crop Rotation and Planting Schedule
• Fill out Organic Certification Application
• Build Temporary Greenhouse
• Design Farmer’s Market Stand (signs, displays, etc.)

Looks like I’ll have plenty to blog about.

-Farmer Eric

Pot of Gold?

“I’m a farmer!” I announced on December 2, 2008 at 4PM when I walked in the door after my last day of corporate work.  This was one in a long line of steps we as a family had been taking over the past four years on our journey to become organic farmers.

It started with me not being satisfied with my current career.  I had been in the finance/accounting trade for roughly 7 years and while not at the top of the corporate ladder, I had a successful career to-date.  While things seemed to be progressing nicely, an idea had been sprouting in the back of my mind.  I wanted to do something that would get me outside, would get me moving again.  Most of my off-work time was spent in the garden or in the workshop on some type of project.  “Hmmmm”, I thought, “these are the things a farmer does”.  After reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, I gained insight into the failings of our current agricultural system, but more importantly discovered there was a movement to get back to a more local food system.  One in which the food did not travel 1,500 miles to get from the farm to the plate.  The best part was there were successful examples of farmers that were using organic, sustainable methods to produce food, and they were making a living at it.  After this, I visited a handful of local organic farms to confirm what I had read and made the decision that I was going to buy a farm.

I was excited to see how my family would react to this announcement.  My wife, Audrey, immediately said, “go for it” (I know, she’s great!), as did most of the rest of the extended family.  Audrey agreed that I could start farming when she finished her Master’s degree and went back to work.  She would support us while I started the farm.  There were some skeptics, mainly those that had first-hand knowledge of what farming is like, but I ignored them.  To my great surprise, my dad and step-mom thought it was such a great idea, that they agreed to change their retirement plans to help us start our farming venture.  They had planned on buying a piece of land in Kentucky upon retirement, and were willing to change to Tennessee instead.  We decided to pool our money and buy the perfect farm.  They will move down to the farm from the D.C. area when my Dad retires in 2010.

Buying a farm was not as easy as I thought.  Not only did we need a place to live, we needed a place suitable to grow vegetables.  I needed a good water source, good soil, and good access to the fields.  After a year of searching within an hour of Nashville I finally found the perfect farm.

It was in Cheatham County and only 25 minutes from Nashville.  The farm was owned by a nice family that had lived there for 35 years.  It had 10 acres of creek bottom that would be perfect for a market garden, a year round spring to irrigate the crops, and creeks bordering the property on two sides. 

We bought the farm and spent the first year growing organic vegetables for ourselves and other family members.  We learned a ton about farming and even raised our own chickens for meat.  A year later, I left the corporate world to become a farmer full-time.

I’m sure this will be the most challenging endeavor of my life with many bumps in the road along the way, but right now I’m choosing to think about the positives and enjoy the excitement while I can.  The endless toils of summer are a long ways away.

“So, how does it feel to be a farmer?” Audrey asked when I walked in the door on that last day of work.  “It feels great!” was my reply.