Just a short note to let everyone know that we are in the process of updating the website, changing hosts and getting everything in line for the jumping off of our Farm business. Thank you goes to everyone who has been with us in our development stages as we have been preparing to go all in!

Sitting here planning the rest of the fall and winter plantings is leading me to reflect on our first summer actually doing this for real... When you dream about stepping out and becoming a farmer for so long it is hard to see where the line is of actually doing it. The dreaming includes years of planting personal and family gardens, seeing what grows and how it grows, tasting what you grow, figuring out where you stand on the organic/conventional scale, tasting more, growing more and changing how you feel about what is the best way to do it more times than you can count.... But once you send that application in and are scheduled for Farmer's markets there is no turning back... (well, I guess there is but being farm people we don't work like that) 

This summer has been the BEST SUMMER EVER!!! (I know Robert, you are going to patent that phrase but anyway....) 

We started the summer a little slow as to all of the fun spring rains and the late cold snap but once it came - it was all guns blazing. That slow start may have given both Cameron and I a heart attack or ten as we saw that first market day looming over us and wondering if our little plants that did make it would produce in time to have something more than an empty table.

They did and I cannot begin to tell you how relieved we were when we had enough to overfill our table. We learned a lot of lessons along the way about picking and prepping and then merchandising our plants - a few big ones:

• Always bring water - Yes, for the plants - but also for you. Both get dehydrated and floppy in humid North Carolina summers...
• SAMPLES are your friend - I learned this trick in my cake ball days (shout out to my MAD Cravings crew!) but it is so important when you are trying to sell  delicious Heirloom veggies. Because the facts are even with all their gorgeous colors - they aren't "conventionally pretty" (the whole its on the inside that matters is really true with Heirlooms) Once people try them THEY JUST GET IT.
• You can never educate enough. I know we are selling vegetables - what in the world am I talking about educate? But this is the deal: Heirloom vegetables are not even close to the same as other vegetables, and Sustainable growing is not Organic. (there will be more posts about this but that is what it boils down to. ​And for us to sell our vegetables are important - but even if they don't buy from us - an educated consumer is better for all of us.
• Network and Give - Basically we are all in this together and sometimes you are the giver and sometimes you are the receiver - but what it comes down to is its not all about you (It's about me - j/k) I loved learning about the other farmers and crafters and sampling their stuff and its better to send someone their way then to by locally even if I am out or don't carry what they need.