How We Grow

We spent several long, stressful years shopping for the right property to set up our farm on. In an already difficult housing market, it began to feel impossible to find an appropriate piece of land. At the start of 2024, we leased land in Green, OH and started our farm on less than a 1/4 of an acre. This first season was a great learning experience and we were planning to continue expanding on the leased land until the end of that year when we finally found our property. We purchased 10 acres with a house and barn just outside of Garrettsville, OH and immediately began the long process of setting up permanent infrastructure and turning pasture into garden space. Our land consists of beautiful topsoil overlaying thick clay- we learned the hard way that when everything thaws in the spring, our property holds water well into early summer. This delayed our first plantings in 2025 because the soil was just too wet to work. However, since setting up our first fields of permanent raised beds, we're hoping to not face this same setback. 

Although annual tillage is still common practice on many farms, it is becoming much more widely understood that tilling damages the soil structure and health. Something we're passionate about is nurturing a "living soil," where soil structure is retained and the symbiotic relationships between plants and the microorganisms that live in the soil are promoted. We do till to break new ground but are planning to eventually transition into an entirely no-till farm. The primary way we plan to do this is by building permanent raised beds out of compost with woodchip walkways in between them. We currently have 46 of these beds built, with plans to continue adding more. The deep compost provides nutrients to the plants while helping to decrease weed pressure. Additionally, all of the beds are 3 feet wide and 50 feet long; this uniformity simplifies nearly every aspect of growing by allowing for simple calculations for seeding/planting and interchangeable row cover, irrigation tubes, and trellising. 

The first big project that we tackled on our property was building a deer fence. Our land is a 10 acre field that is primarily tree-lined and it is thoroughly enjoyed by many deer, rabbits, raccoons, and other forms of wildlife. While we love living among diverse wildlife, they can cause catastrophic damage to crops in no time- while working on other farms I saw instances of deer eating through an entire season's worth of romaine lettuce in a single night. The deer fence we built is 8 feet tall, made of woven wire (which has a longer lifespan than welded wire) and we fenced in 1.27 acres. Rather than using commercial chemically pressure-treated wood, we had a local lumber mill custom cut 5" x 12' posts for us. Building the fence was a huge task that took many months longer than we anticipated but it is essential to keeping our crops safe without any chemical deterrents. 

Although our deer fence works to exclude most medium-large mammals, it does nothing to prevent bugs. There are pesticides that are approved under organic certification but we are not comfortable using any pesticides on our food. Some of those products may be safe for humans but are just as harmful to beneficial insects (including our essential pollinators) as they are to the target pests. We would rather have crops with some bug damage and we love chatting with customers about why vegetables have some blemishes! We also love to accept help from our avian friends. We hung birdhouses all along the deer fence and within several weeks, nearly all were occupied! Birds are excellent at helping to control bug populations. For example, tomato hornworms can decimate tomato and pepper plants but they're a favorite snack of cardinals and blue jays. 

We direct seed as many crops as we can. Direct seeding is when the seed is planted into the soil that it will live in until harvested. This method is by far the most efficient because it reduces the time (seeding by hand into trays, which then later need transplanted into the ground, is much more labor intensive than direct seeding with our Jang seeder) as well as the cost; seeding into trays requires a large quantity of good quality potting soil to be purchased up front. The Jang seeder was a larger one-time investment that will bring value to the farm for many years. 

To make the most out of our growing season in Ohio we start many crops in Feburary, March, and April indoors. We have a 14' x 24' hoophouse that we use as a nursery space throughout the season. While transplanting does take more time and money than direct seeding, it is essential for slow growing crops like onions, celery, tomatoes, peppers, and most of our flowers. For many of these crops, if we waited to seed them until it was warm enough outside, they would not have enough time to grow to maturity.

By planting our produce extremely close together, it does not take long for the crop to block out light to the soil which discourages germination and growth of weeds. This simple process helps mitigate most weed pressure. The crop spacing is something we are always tinkering with. We also devote a lot of time to weeding with hand tools or just by hand. With this method (and not tilling in between crops), our weed pressure will decrease throughout the years because weed seeds are not continually being brought up from underneath the soil and new weeds are not given time to grow and drop seeds. Eventually, the only weed pressure we'll face is from seeds carried in by the wind or dropped by birds. 

We're often asked what occupies our time in the winter; in addition to necessary adminstrative paperwork and infrastructure projects, a large portion of the winter is spent analyzing the previous season and planning for the next season. A lot of thought and calculations go into: what crops to plant (and which specific varieties), when to plant them, how much to plant (and how many seeds to order), and where on the farm to plant them. All of this allows us to plan out the season ahead, as well as to calculate how much potting soil and other essentials (harvest containers, packaging, etc.) we will need to buy. Of course, there is only so much you can do when dealing with nature and the plan must be adjusted throughout the season to deal with weather, pest and disease pressure.

We do everything we can to reduce waste in all aspects of our farm. It is inevitable that there will be some amount of produce that is not marketable (due to bug or weather damage, disease, etc.) and we sometimes grow more than we can sell. Whenever possible, we donate food that is in saleable condition. Our pigs also enjoy plenty of excess produce and whatever we cannot give to them is composted. 

We try to avoid plastics (especially single-use) wherever we can. One way we do this is by not using the "plastic mulch" that many farmers employ for weed control, opting instead for hand weeding and covering bare earth with wood chips or straw. An area we are hoping to improve on is packaging. We avoid packaging products in plastic unneccessarily (such as root veggies or tomatoes) but crops like loose-leaf lettuce do need to be contained. We currently still use plastic bags/containers but are hopeful to find a suitable alternative in the future. There are compostable packaging options available but these are expensive and tend not to be compostable for the average person- they require commercial composting facilities to propertly break down. 

The right amounts of water at the right times are crucial to efficient plant development. With the weather patterns in recent years, we would not be able to grow most of what we do without supplementing natural rainfall with irrigation. Drip lines are the most efficient way that we accomplish this. We place 2-3 lines per bed and run them as-needed depending on that specific crop's water needs. Drip lines use low pressure and deposit water right at the ground, greatly reduce the amount of water lost to evaporation in comparison with sprinkler systems. This is perfect for plants that have starting developing a root system. We do water by hand with the hose or use sprinklers after direct seeding because the seeds need consistent moisture across the soil surface in order to germinate. 

Drip line systems are costly and very time-consuming to set up but we're hoping to have them set up across all of our beds by the end of the 2026 season because their improved efficiency will certainly be worthwhile in the long term. 

"This is farming, not gardening!" - Rosie Standish. 

That was one of the first lessons I learned in my journey into farming and it is still one of the most essential. Building and maintaining a sustainable business model is one of the most important, and often overlooked, aspects of a small farm. So many young farmers start down this path because we love growing, not because we envisioned a career in business management. 

We strive to keep our food affordable but it will never be the cheapest option. In growing clean, healthy, sustainable food, we are using methods that are labor-intensive and more expensive than food produced through modern factory-farming. 

A farm is a constant string of nonnegotiable situations. On 95 degree days after 8 hours of farmers markets, the seedlings in the greenhouse still need watered. On -10 degree days with a foot of snow coming down, the pigs and ducks still need food, water, and fresh, dry straw. On the day of a friend's wedding, the crops still need to be harvested and sold. A farm waits for nothing. 

But as a farmer, you live a life that is full not just of sacrifices, but of beauty and abundance and fulfillment. We are incredibly thankful to be able to live this life while providing alternative food options to our local communities and making our own small impact on the way food is grown and our environment is treated.