The Farm is a work in progress. It doesn’t even have an official name, although we’ve tried out hundreds of monikers. We’ll wait and let the land teach us its name.
Our family has been tending this piece of earth for more than one hundred years. Before colonization, we think this area was hunting grounds for the Cherokee and Catawba people.
Over the last century, the Hendersons have had gardens, orchards, pastures, ponds, wood lots and a sawmill. Today, we (the Landers) tend about twenty acres and hope to care for it long into the future.
My grandparents, J. Hilliard and Millie Henderson, with three of their four sons in the spring of 1950.
Our Practices
- Permaculture and ecology-based gardening - We keep permaculture and ecological principles in mind as we make decisions on the farm.
- No-till gardening - Although we've done our share of double-digging and love John Jeavons’s How to Grow More Vegetables, we use a no-till or low-till approach in most of our garden beds.
- Traditional farming - Grandpa’s Garden is still worked by tractor and tiller. Our big focuses here are using integrated pest management, organic fertilizers and pest control, and cover cropping.
- Pastured animals - We use rotational grazing for our poultry (egg and meat birds) and may add other animals in the future.
- Wildlife habitat - From brush piles to pollinator plants, we grow in a way that celebrates and supports wildlife. And when we have problems, we try to manage pests with a wholistic approach.
- Earth-savvy creation - Whether it’s a chicken coop or garden art, we reuse and repurpose old materials when we create something new.
Farm Features
Here are some of our current and upcoming landmarks and projects.
- Herb spiral
- Native plantings for beneficial insects
- Lots of compost piles
- Grandpa’s garden (8,000 sq ft of traditional rows)
- Wide bed garden (6,000 sq ft and growing!)
- Barn (Nana and Grandpa had horses in the past. Currently, it's the chickens' winter home and where the boys shoot hoops.)
- Orchard (mostly apple trees, including a yummy early-ripening “June Apple") and native fruit trees along forest edges (pawpaws, persimmons, serviceberry, and wild plums)
- Chestnut grove with a new hazelnut hedge
- Small fruits (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, grapes, kiwi, strawberries)
- Asparagus bed (Ever expanding!)
- Seasonal spring and creek
- Pine and oak forests
- Two pastures and one hay field
- Three family houses (with yards, flower beds, one “full body” sandbox and Nana’s incredible playground)
- Several sheds with lots of treasures ripe for re-purposing
- Chicken coops (Two small coops in our rotational paddocks and plans to make a coop-on-wheels this winter.)
The Stats
The farm sits in a broad basin of the Blue Ridge Mountains (North Carolina, U.S.A., Earth). If you’re curious, here’s more about our climate and conditions:
- Biome: Temperate broadleaf deciduous forest
- Soils: Clay loam with moderate drainage
- Winds: Warm, southwesterly winds (and thunderstorms) in summer and cold, northerly winds in winter.
- Rainfall, annual average: 55 inches
- Snow, annual average: 8 inches
- Elevation: 2,170 ft.
- USDA Plant Hardiness Zone: 7a
- Average Last Frost: April 26 (+/- 13 days)*
- Average First Frost: Oct. 12 (+/- 9 days)*
- Growing Season: ~170-180 days*
*These last three numbers are based on NCSU data from 1951-1980. Anecdotally, the growing season is longer now.
