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Beginning Farmer Success Interview Series
This series spotlights and celebrates Maryland farmers, industry professionals, and projects that aim to support Maryland agriculture and Beginning Farmer Success!
Q: Thank you for speaking with the Beginning Farmer Success Program. When did you start farming?
A: Before Calvert's Gift Farm, I had zero farming experience. I lived in the city and bought this house shortly after graduating college. I worked for an environmental consulting firm, where I met Becky. So I bought this house and decided I would put in a garden. I had never done it before. I had no experience. I turned the soil over, and it's like, this is what I'm supposed to do. I don't know how else to put it. I just knew that this was it. Then I had to convince Becky. And here we are.
Q: How many acres are in production?
A: When we began production here, our footprint was right by the house, about two acres. Over time, we gradually took over 30 acres across the road. Not all of it is in agricultural production. It was a cornfield before we took it over roughly 20 years ago. We have about eight acres in production during peak season, including our greenhouses.
Q: Tell us about your farm practices. Have you always been certified organic, or did you transition?
We have been certified organic since day one. We are the oldest continuously operating organic farm in the State of Maryland. Nobody's been doing it longer. Now a couple of people have done it, gotten out of it, and gotten back to it that have been farming larger than us. But we've been the only ones in Maryland who have stuck with it from the beginning to the end, even before a national organic program existed.
Q: How was the transition from state certification to national?
A: It was actually a streamlined process. This was 15 years ago, and Maryland had an accredited certifying body before many other states, which was fortunate for us. So it was easy to transition from Maryland's organic program to the national USDA program.
There is a three-year transitional period, which we did when we took over the fields because they had been conventionally farmed. It is one of the few labels that people know what it is. If you look at eggs, for example, there are pasture-raised, cage-free, and certified naturally grown. The customer gets confused over some of these names and labels, but everyone knows what certified organic means. There is clarity there. So that's one of the reasons we believe in it. And I like not explaining to people that we're certified naturally grown at a farmer's market and what that is, but everyone knows what organic is.
Q: What do you grow?
A: Everything except for watermelons, is how I put it. If it's green and is something people eat as a vegetable, we try to grow it. We do some fruits. We grow strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries. We grow mushrooms and sell vegetable transplants at farmer's markets in the spring. So we have diversity in what we offer.
Q: Mushroom Cultivation is gaining popularity in Maryland. Can you tell us more about your mushroom production?
A: We do mushroom logs. I have a stack over here that I am about to inoculate in the next couple of weeks for next year. We grow mostly shiitake. We have done some other types over the years. Believe it or not, we also do some mushroom foraging, which is new for us. Chicken of the Woods is a big one around here. We find Maitake, Hen of the Woods, too; those are the big ones. Occasionally we'll find some morels and chanterelles, but those are the three we see the most, generally in the fall. So the mushroom foraging thing is new, and we only have done that the last five years because people have asked for it, and we knew that we had those mushrooms in the woods around here. We have farmland with woodland in between, which is perfect for growing those kinds of things wild. Yeah. So as long as you don't over-harvest them, they'll come back yearly, more or less in the same place. Once you identify the logs they grow on, it's all a matter of timing.
Q: On your website you consider Calvert’s Gift a fruit and vegetable farm; there are no photos or mention of mushrooms. Do you sell them?
A: It depends on the year. We're not forcing production. A lot of people will force them in water. So sometimes, we have many mushrooms if the weather conditions are right. Some years, when it is dry, and there are not a lot of mushrooms, we don't. So it's not something we rely on, but it's a nice bonus if it happens.
For cultivation, you can get sawdust spawn, which is what we get, which essentially looks solid. We inoculate a dowel or wood plug with the spawn, create holes in the logs, insert the dowels, cover it with wax, and leave it for a year. That is our procedure. Again we don't force fruit, so it is a longer process. There are a couple of other systems that you can use. But for us, the sawdust spawn works the best. As long as you have green wood, you'll be fine. It has to be hardwood, and oak is best.
Some years I have trouble getting green hardwood, but this past summer, we had a horrible storm roll through here, and there is so much wood because of that, so many trees went down. We have a good supply of green wood this year, so we're growing a lot of mushrooms. I didn't do any last year because I didn't have the wood supply.
We used to work with a guy who did logging up here, but he frowned at us following him around. I would go to where he was logging, drive the truck in, and get stuck there because it would get all muddy from their equipment. It wasn't a perfect system. Getting the quality wood you need is difficult because you have specific requirements. You can't just get pine chips or pine logs. There's a lot of ash around here, but the emerald ash borer killed much of it, so it doesn't work well. If you want to cultivate with logs but don't have a source for green hardwood, it's a no-go.
There was a time when we were much more vigorous with the mushrooms. We would soak the logs and have continuous mushrooms for markets. We realized that the labor in that kind of system would only last a while for us with our vegetable production. You have to cut new ones every year; even here, where forests surround us, it can be challenging. I have a problem going into the woods and cutting down an oak tree. I can't do it, you know? It's just not right. So right now, we have logs when trees get blown over, or somebody cuts it down because it's damaged. But still, we have had some mushroom production for 20 years.
Q: Will you show me around your farm and explain your system?
A: Up here, we have three high tunnels and a greenhouse. I was talking about mushroom logs before. I usually start them in February and early March. Here are all lengths of oak that were cut, mostly red oak. I split the logs back in December. This is the size I like, a bit smaller. I used to cultivate on larger logs, but I'm getting old for lugging them around, so this is my style nowadays to grow on smaller, thinner logs. Mushroom log preparation is an ideal project for winter when there's nothing else to do. I will probably start to inoculate them tomorrow or very soon.
We have some blackberries here. They have to be pruned and cleaned out before the season begins. We usually do that in late February or early March. We have a lot more blackberries across the road.
Here is one high tunnel. This high tunnel has been here the longest, over 20 years. I have a little bit in here now. We started some greens a couple of weeks ago, which are beginning to come up. We have these slings the length of the tunnel along the sides used for things like nasturtium, turnips, or small seed plants. I'll fill those up with soil and plant. It's just a way to use more space here.
I have some more ground that I'll work up later because I'm doing a sequential production on a lot of this stuff. Ideally, we'll start in a high tunnel and segway into the field. So there's a constant renewal going on. By the time everything in the high tunnel is done, the crops in the fields will be ready to go. Production and harvests are all timed to coincide with our markets. We start our first markets at the end of March. It's fast upon us.
Here is an interesting system. We heat these beds and put hard trays on top of them. Hot water flows through these tubes buried in stone dust. This system economically heats our greenhouse; we do not have to rely on propane costs or deal with the smell. Everything is heated with a water heater. We tried a solar water heater but never got it to work consistently. So we now use electricity for the water heater, and I use some heat mat. You can see where I have those laid out in anticipation of starting transplants in the next few days. We can get this pretty warm. Some transplants will be for the farm, and others we will sell. There is more space here than I need, so most of what we're doing here are transplants we're selling, which has been a really good business. We started by having too many tomato plants and wondering what to do with them.
Instead of chucking them out, we decided to sell them, and it took off from there. It's great for small farmers. We sell most of our transplants at farmers' markets, and it brings in a good level of income at a time of year when you don't have one. Getting some early income flow is huge because we don't take production loans. Calvert's Gift Farm has zero debt. I realize this is not an option for most people, but I would tell a new farmer that if you can bootstrap your operation without going into debt, you should. We've been very debt averse in this business over the years, and I just saved up enough money till I could afford what I needed. What a concept.
So, we're just starting with a lot of greenhouse planting. We roll with that in March. Our first big workday for my employees will be February 28th, and they'll just be doing greenhouse stuff two days a week until we start working in the fields in early or mid-March. I'll start in the fields earlier than that, but we will probably have the crew working in the fields the second week of March.
The thing that's nice about incorporating a greenhouse on your farm is that it's a great environment to work in when weather conditions are bad. There are many days when it rains in the spring and if everything is outside and you can't work. But you can always work in the greenhouse; there's always something to do.
So this tunnel is our more recent one. Here I have some spinach, garlic, scallions, carrots, and weeds, which I must deal with soon. But you can see lettuce starting to come up. There are beets left over from the fall that we've been eating all winter and scallions over here on the left.
Here are the two most important pieces of equipment I have—a walk-behind box blade and an Earth Way Seeder.
Yes, I have a tractor and a manure spreader, but these are the workhorses of the operation, quite honestly. A box blade is a great tool, especially in a high tunnel. It works as a tiller. I've had this one for 15 years. They'll last forever as long as you regularly maintain them. Here is a tractor, a couple of different mowers, a rotavator tiller, and a plastic layer. We had the same tractor for 17 years, and I finally bought a new one a couple of years ago. It's got air conditioning, AM/FM radio. It's like driving a car. I don’t even know how it acts yet, there’s no clutch, it's like, whoa, I miss the old Massey Fergusons.
The first tractor we bought at an auction for $10,000, which seemed like a fortune. We chose it based on my brother-in-law's recommendation. I had it for 19 years and sold it for $7,000. It was a good investment. I hope to say the same for this one. It will be the last tractor I'll ever have because it's brand spanking new. Well, it's a year old now.
So around here you can go to various ditches and find things that you may be able to use. That's where my plastic layer came from. Here is my plastic lifter I made from parts I found. It works great. When I was younger, I layed the plastic by hand, but that is no longer an option.
When we started, everyone I knew thought we were nuts when we started—even my closest friends and family. Even our accountant, I think, thought we were crazy.
So the way I have the fields laid out is I have growing blocks, 50 by 250-foot blocks, and they're in various stages. Some have a leaf layer on them, and some sunchokes are still on the ground. Are you familiar with sunchokes? We have three growing blocks here and four on top of the hill. When we first started over here, I wasn't that smart. I didn't start with the block system, which works well for crop rotation. So we have some miscellaneous-sized parcels over on the other side of the swale.
Here are all strawberries. They're on plastic. So we do a fair amount of strawberries. I used to cover the strawberries to protect them, but what was happening was the strawberries would grow so quickly in the spring that we had to take the covers off. Then we'd have a frost and lose the crop because they broke dormancy so early. So now I've switched the system. I don't put any covers on them. It sounds strange, but I'm racing to keep them growing slowly. In the past, they would be too far along in the spring; then, we would have a 25-degree day in late April or early March when all the strawberries were blooming, and nothing will protect something below 25 degrees. So I've been burned, so this is my strategy to avoid that. I keep them still as long as I can. So far, so good.
We have a lot of deer here, so we have to put a deer fence up to keep them out. We have three solar-charged deer fences. Even with the electric fence, deer sometimes get in. We do not have a deer fence around everything. But I use these portable fences and rotate them around the crops I know they like. They like strawberries, beets, carrots, and lettuce. Those are the big four.
We have some perennial herbs that are dormant here. We'll go in here and cut this back, and they will regrow.
I could never get rosemary to overwinter outside, even covered. That has changed. So we are trying to grow rosemary, and it looks good; barring a catastrophe, it may work.
Here are blackberries, and we have another row up there. We have two different varieties. There are Arapaho blackberries, they fruit a month earlier than the others. We have blackberries for almost three months. Blackberries have been huge for us over the years. We have nice berries. People love them, and they are straightforward to grow. We do some u-pick for CSA members. Now, a lot of insects get into them when they are getting established. Once they get established, they're nice to grow. Just ensure you keep them under control; as long as you maintain things like they're supposed to be maintained, you'll be fine. I encourage new farmers to grow perennial fruits. Raspberries are good but are more perishable, so we stick with blackberries.
Q: You have a lot of land here with good sun that you could be farming. Do you have plans to put more in production?
A: I'm not building a kingdom here. We grow enough food to have a good livelihood. Yeah, that's another cautionary thing, too. Don't try to create an empire. You know, that never ends. Grow to get a nice yield. I've seen many farms come and go because they just got too big, too fast. The economics of it doesn't work out. So no empire-building.
Q: I see you have horses. Do you use their manure for your crops?
A: We do. We make our compost. As you know, Maryland requires a nutrient management plan. We have to wait till the 1st of March before we can spread any manure or non-manure compost. We've been turning the manure during February, and then we'll apply it in March. That is in conjunction with the mushroom compost load you saw by the logs.
Because of the nutrient management plan, we can only spread the mushroom compost over part of the farm every year, so we must selectively put it down in certain areas dictated by the plan. I still add mushroom compost to the soil every year, but not near the amount we used to when we started. 22-yards will last me about four or five years. Based on our management plan, we will gradually put that down in various places. There was a lot of pushback on that from farmers. I think nutrient management is a good idea.
Q: Tell us about your conservation management practices.
A: Well, because we're certified organic, it goes hand in hand with conservation practices. You can't be an organic farmer and not be at the highest level of conservation management because it is impossible, if you know what I mean. You have to have buffer strips. You have to have flowers for beneficial pollinators. So all that is part of the system for growing organic. We're not in any formal conservation programs. But, we keep our land covered with cover crops. So many things are part of an organic system that fall in this category. It's like it's a moot point.
Q: Did you have any conservation issues that needed to be addressed when you began farming this land?
A: We had some erosion issues that needed to be addressed before we started. The land had been continuously farmed in corn for 20-plus years. There were virtually no nutrients in the soil. There was no soil life at all. We had to take some strong measures to get everything back into sync. We put a lot of compost down, planted some perennial cover crops to build the organic matter back in the soil, and adjusted the pH with lime to get plants to grow. So there was quite a bit involved initially when we transitioned the ground that had been conventionally farmed to organic, both to get food to grow and to meet the requirements. I caution young farmers; you can't just go into a corn field and start planting stuff thinking it will grow because it's not. In most conventional corn fields, the pH is low. But once you get your system into balance, you don't have to put lime down again. Every year we do a soil and a pH test, and it's perfect. And organic matter is the biggest tool. Also, for new farmers, organic matter makes the biggest difference in the world about whether or not you're successfully growing on your land. That's all we got. That's all there is. If you can keep your organic matter levels above 5% at all times, stuff will do just fine.
Q: How long did it take to build up your organic matter and find the correct pH?
A: We had the three-year transition to USDA organic, but it took five years to get the soil where it should be. We bought a lot of mushroom compost. That was the big nutrient source we use because, you know, think about if you plant grass. We did some perennial grasses there, but even that will only come up if there are nutrients. So we had to apply a lot of mushroom compost to get that even germinated.
Q: Where do you get your mushroom compost?
A: So we get most of it from Kennett Square. We also use Mother Earth Organic Mushrooms and bought a load.
There's a load over there. You can probably see it. When we started, you could get mushroom compost for free, and all you had to pay was $100 for a tractor-trailer to come and deliver it. That load there, which was the same we bought at the beginning, which is like 22 yards, costs over $1,000 now. That'll give you some indication of how things have changed. Yes. If you want non-organic mushroom compost, it is a little cheaper but not significantly cheaper. So, yeah, you know, everything's more expensive.
Q: What have been the most significant changes you have seen over the years besides costs?
A: Oh my gosh, yes, Climate change. You can't farm and not notice climate change. We have insects that we never had before. The big one is the growing season. You know, I used to quit farming here on the 1st of November, and it started again at the end of March. Now we're going to Christmas, and I'm out planting at the end of February. So climate change has made me work hard because the season is much longer than it used to be.
We had issues with cover crops that used to always winter kill and now don't. So you have to change up what cover crop systems you use. I could go on and on about how things have changed.
You know, you have to address more and more things because the weather is so different. The ground doesn't freeze consistently anymore. The pests show up a lot earlier than they used to do. Many things didn't use to be a concern and now are.
Q: What changes are you experiencing with seed?
A: The seeds we can get now are much more vigorous and rigorous and are better adapted to our conditions. So the seed companies have definitely stepped up. You know, back when we started, you had Johnny's seeds, and that was it.
Now you have many other companies that are competitive with Johnny's. High Mowing is all organic, and they trial stuff for organic farms and conditions on organic farms. So that's been a great plus for small farmers like us. I feel more confident that when I buy seeds, they will actually work.
We save some tomato seeds, but it all goes back to time management. I could save a lot more seed, but then I'd have to manage that. Farming is time management. If you cannot manage your time, know what you're doing at all times of the day, and make sure it is revenue-producing, you won't make it in this business. Spending a lot of time mowing the borders of your fields is stupid. I don't know how else to put it. You need to do revenue-producing activities in this business to make it.
Q: Have there been programs that have been beneficial for your farm business?
A: We started the Future Harvest New Farmer training program a long time ago with a couple of others. In those days, it was classroom sessions. We had ten different classroom sessions and covered all aspects, financial, cover crops, whatever. And an on-farm aspect where a trainee would come out and work once a week on your farm, which is extremely beneficial if somebody wants to learn to farm. Farming isn't the kind of business that you learn from YouTube videos. It's more nuanced than that.
The best way to learn is to go to somebody established in doing it and ask questions. Why do you do this? Why do you do that? What is the reason? I always tell people you need to ask why the activity is occurring because the farmer knows precisely why they're doing something, which to a new farmer may seem silly. Still, there's a reason that makes good sense once you understand the whole process. That person may be doing something because three years from now; they will do something else. And organic farming is a long-term approach to agriculture. You're not looking at the next season. You're looking at three years out. What sequence of events needs to happen on this piece of ground so I can grow corn there three years from now? For example. That's how you have to look at this. You have to consider what kind of crops you will rotate through over the next 3 to 5 years so that when it's time to grow tomatoes, there won't be a lot of disease or weed pressure, and they'll do well. That's the process that people need to learn. Who's going to provide that kind of information? It's just experiencing, you know, you have to get out and get started, learn from doing and making mistakes because everybody makes them, and we've made them all.
Q: Moving from production to distribution, how do you get your product to consumers?
A: We do three different things. Chesapeake Farm to Table, we have the CSA ( Community Supported Agriculture) and sell at three farmers' markets. Our market days are on Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday. Two are in this general area, Bel Air and Towson, and one is in the D.C. area, which is a Sunday market. So we're big in the farmer's market. In fact, that's why Becky's not here right now because she's the president of the Takoma Park Farmers Market and is hosting our annual meeting via Zoom. We were probably the first CSA in the state of Maryland as well. In fact, we were the first CSA in Maryland. Our CSA has had some ebbs and flows over the years. We were much bigger than we are now, but the logistics of it got to be daunting. And we weren't doing a service to people because we were just so busy there was no interaction with the farmers. So it's much smaller today than it used to be, which is much more manageable. Most people in our CSA program have been in it for ten-plus years. The Chesapeake Farm Table is new; we started it about eight years old. Initially, it was a way for us to sell to restaurants and partner with other farmers because we were running into each other, going down to Baltimore, and delivering produce. And it was like, well, if one person took the load down for a couple of people, the couple people would be able to stay on their farm and work and not have to spend half the day going through Baltimore and making deliveries because that's what was happening.
So that was the impetus for Chesapeake Farm to Table. Because of COVID, it turned 180 degrees and went to 100% home delivery. It exploded. And even though COVID is more or less over, it's still huge for us. And we have a couple of different delivery vehicles that deliver year-round. Thirty farms produce for Chesapeake Farm to Table. It's been a great success and is its own separate business. We own it, but it's Chesapeake Farm to Table LLC instead of Calvert's Gift Farm incorporated. So we've always felt that Chesapeake Farm to Table should be about the farmers and the farms, not the food hub. Many food hubs have a lot of administrative costs, and they hire people to manage the farms. We are a farmer-managed business. We manage basically for free because we sell through Chesapeake Farm to Table. We benefit from having it as a source to sell our products. We sell a wide variety of products. That's who you see coming and going here because tomorrow's a delivery day. We have dairy, beef, grains, beans, fruit, honey, ducks, chickens, eggs, value-added products, and vegetables. So this time of year, a little less on vegetables and more on wintertime products. But in the summer, it's the other way around, more on the vegetables and less on some of the other products.
We've had as many as four employees, and now we're down to like two, and it fluctuates seasonally.
Q: Do participating farmers deliver their products here for distribution?
A: Yes, this is the hub for Chesapeake Farm to Table. So I have two different walk-in coolers. One is specifically for Calvert's Gift. One of the things about organics, you have to have a dedicated cooler. Some farms we work with are not organic, so a dedicated Chesapeake Farm to Table cooler exists. So this one is the Chesapeake Farm to table cooler. Farms usually deliver to us on Mondays and Wednesdays. Each one of these crates is an individual order. So the farm here comes in here, and they have a pick list, which we use software to generate. They can see each order for the week. They have their farm name on the bag. Whatever the quantity is, they put it into the crates themselves. Then our crew that does the deliveries comes through, does quality control and packs it up into the vans for delivery. We have two different bag systems here. We use an insulated bag for things like meats and dairy and another for products that don't need to be frozen or cold upon delivery.
Q: Do you require participating farms to be GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) certified?
A: We don't ask them to be certified, but we ask that they have a GAP plan on their farm. We have a written plan and ask that they provide a written GAP plan.
We work with smaller farms, so none of our farmers fall under the GAP certification requirements because they're not selling enough products. But collectively, we're probably close to needing one.
Q: Where do you usually find your staff?
The majority of people that have worked for us walked into the driveway and said, hey, are you hiring? And we're like, Yes, and it's worked out. We've done some advertising for job positions over the years, but the majority of the people that have stuck with us have just found us. We are accommodating to our employees. They work seven-hour days. I don't have anyone here for 12 hours. I may have to work later sometimes, but we don't do that. I try to make it so that we all work together. If everybody works collectively, does the same tasks together. Many hands make light work. And that is a really good approach to take with people. You get to know the people that work for you. They become your friends. You create relationships that way that lasts a lifetime. We've created community, and that's what I wanted.
Regarding Calvert Farm, we probably have the equivalent of two employees, not including me and Becky. But nobody works 40 hours a week. One person may come on Monday, somebody comes Monday, Wednesday, Friday, that sort of thing. Doing it that way has some tax implications, making it better for the farm. The people that work for us have other jobs. We take advantage of the gig economy, where people have different, different jobs that they do. You know, one person works in a restaurant. Another person works at a pottery place one day a week. This kind of system lends itself well to having people able to work for us and do other things that they may want to do as well.
Q: What do you think keeps customers coming back?
A: We have a high-quality product. And we are very knowledgeable, especially my wife. She does all the markets and always knows everything there is to know about the food people buy.
People appreciate knowing they're buying from the farmer when they go to our stand. Many farmers will have their employees run the market and don't always know what is happening. They appreciate the quality of the produce. They appreciate that we've been doing this a long time and that we've been organic all those years.
All those things are part of what people return for every year, so at least, I'd hope that is why they return.
Q: How do you see the future of your farm?
A: I have two children. They're both grown. One's moved out. One may come back. I don't know; we're in the twilight of farming here, you know, my wife and I are in our sixties. And, we will slowly, gradually taper off over the next ten years, reducing some of what we're doing. And it'll be a field that someday will be in a perennial cover crop, and hopefully, someone will take over and pick up where we left off. I don't know if it'll be my children or somebody else.
I don't have a clear picture. The legacy farm thing is great, but my wife and I created this from scratch. There was nothing here when we got here. We have created this business, and I hope to have provided a good example to my kids about the creative process of your own business. Whether it's farming or real estate or whatever it is. That's the message I'm giving them. I want them to start their own thing and learn from our example, having a vision and seeing it come to fruition. It is strange to say, but there is no next generation or a generation before us.
When we started, there were no small organic farms around. All the farms in the area were large monocropping operations, and now there are like ten farms that are like us within five miles. They are all farms that we either trained the farmers or helped get started in one capacity or another. So that's what my legacy is—returning to your question. The legacy I see for us, more than anything else, is that now there's something when before there was nothing.
Out here in Baltimore County, it was all large farms with million-dollar equipment, and you need 2000-plus acres to make a living; that's where things are. There's either that or what we do. The only opportunity for anyone wanting to start a farm is to follow our small diversified farm model. You don't need to have a huge expanse of ground. You don't need to spend millions of dollars to get started. You can gradually grow as your ability increases. It's not like in two years; your farm will be rolling; it takes time to do this. It takes time to get the equipment you need and understand your marketplace. It's so easy to get lost in the romantic nature of farming and understand that this is a business, and we do have to pay attention to the bottom line. It is not romantic when it comes to paying the bills.
Q: What is your favorite thing about farming?
A: The freedom of it. The ability to call the shots and be my own boss. It may take some time to feel the freedom; farming is hard work and requires a lot of attention.
My wife has a hobby. She rides horses. She rides horses three or four times a week this time of year. We just went to Spain for ten days. Yes, we had to make some concessions. We don't get summertime vacations; we work hard, sometimes long hours under hot conditions. But the trade-off is I have three months off a year to do what I want to pursue other hobbies and other interests. It's so easy, especially today, for farmers to feel like they have to grow stuff all winter, you know, back to the climate change question. Yeah, you can do that now. But if you don't take a break and walk away from what you're doing, you will get burned out. That's not a long-term approach to managing your farm. I talked about managing farm systems. I take many cues from what's growing and how things grow. There's a dormancy period. We should be doing that, too. We're part of the natural system, right? If you want to do this for a long time, you need to mimic what you see, that includes well-being. So I'm a big believer in that.
Q: What is your advice for new farmers?
A: Be flexible. You need to be able to adapt to the weather conditions and adapt to the market. Don’t pigeonhole yourself into a box before you even start. Think long-term, especially about things that you need to buy. Think about your markets, and understand where you're going to sell everything. That's a huge one. Having a farm is not an, if I grow it, they will come kind of business. You need to understand what's happening in the marketplace, the demands, and the expectations. If anything, the focus on marketing needs to be almost higher than the focus on production, and it’s easy to lose sight of that. And then, you know, you have to enjoy what you do. Don't ever make it a job. I don't feel like I've ever worked. It's just not a job to me. It's a natural extension of who I am and what I do.
BFS: Thank you again for sharing, and the morning after your return from Spain.
Jack: My pleasure, I feel it’s my obligation to share and support new farmers. Going by to the future of our farm and our legacy. Supporting new farmers and seeing more small farms in Maryland is part of that .
4/15/2023; Interview with Jack Gurley, farmer and owner of Calvert's Gift Farm and Andrea Franchini - Extension Program Assistant: Agriculture and Food Systems.
Next month the Beginning Farmer Success Project will visit Goat Plum Tree Farm in Berlin, MD to learn more about mushroom log cultivation. Stay Tuned!
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