Hi! We’re Becca and Joe, a farming couple living in Duffield, VA, growing open-pollinated, Certified Naturally Grown produce. Tending the land has always been our number one priority as people, so it only makes sense that it should be the main focus of our life. We’ve been making a go at it on 20 beautiful acres for two seasons now. We just wrapped the second year of our 20 member CSA and market garden, serving customers in Johnson City, Kingsport, Big Stone Gap, Norton, and Whitesburg. Our flock of 20 chickens keeps us well stocked in eggs, and our 13 acres of woods are filled with medicinals and rare plants we’re starting to propagate in hopes of building a small nursery business in the future. We just planted 20 fruit trees as a start to a mini-orchard, and we’re hoping to build an on-site commercial kitchen soon so that we can expand our line of value-added foods. Oh, and we’re building a house.
We’re so incredibly lucky to be able to farm where we are. Over the last two years, we’ve realized that our slice of land has endless possibilities, and we want to try all of them! But we’re just two people, and it’s becoming clear we need to find the ways to focus our business and make it profitable if we’re going to be able to keep this up forever – and that’s what we most want to do!
We’re so excited to be starting Field School this winter and to dive deep into the nitty-gritty planning that will help us make this farm successful for decades to come. How do we focus our passions when they’re all so tempting and exciting? How can we generate enough income to survive without compromising our values? We’ll be blogging about the lessons we learn and the plans we make all winter long as we find out!
