Long ago before we wanted to make money growing vegetables, the family garden was a tradition we did with our kids and shared with our neighbors and family. My wife and I both grew up in the country where a garden was a way of life and production techniques were passed down to us from our parents and grandparents. After studying agriculture at Clemson and working many years with large scale farms, I noticed the trend to no-till production and saw the benefits for soil health, resilience to drought, reduced labor and more efficient use of chemical and fertilizer. I kept asking the question, how can we do this on a small scale and create a more sustainable market garden system.
I tried year after year to incorporate various techniques of no-tillage in the garden with huge failure. Only after we decided to stop any form of tillage did we see our first success. My wife and I started researching no-till production on the World Wide Web and found a wealth of information. We tried every technique and system and finally settled on what worked for us. Today, all open-land production of produce is done with cover crops terminated with hay and crops planted directly into the resulting residue. Additionally we have tried matted hay and no-dig techniques in the high tunnel areas. This has maximized soil life, water retention, reduce fertilizer and better weed control.
In 2019, during the heart of the COVID crisis, my wife decided she wanted to leave her office job to focus full time on the farm. I encouraged her by reminding her of the improvements we had with the garden and with the belief that we could make a living off the farm with the added attention. The first year we replaced her office income with selling produce from the farm. The year after that, I decide to change jobs and took a huge pay cut. The garden continued to provide. Even though we are not where we want to be with the farm income, we could not be more happier with the lifestyle changes that our increased attention on farm production has brought to us.
This year, 2023, we hope to continue the upward trend of producing high quality produce using no-till, soil regenerative techniques that produces the best tasting produce. We are currently working on our organic certification. We have practiced organic techniques for a long time. We just need to keep better records. We hope this will help us create separation from the re-sellers at the local markets we have to compete with.
At the end of the day, we want our customers to know they are getting all locally produced vegetables and fruits that are grown using organic techniques that regenerates the soil and maximizes nutrition and flavor.