Visual Guide

We have some awesome last minute Christmas gifts with porch pickup for that truly last minute option. Honey We have honey from the farm and from our place on Troublesome Gap. The farm honey is local but the Troublesome Gap honey has a distinctive taste from the Basswood trees that were in bloom while the… Read more: Last Minute Christmas Gifts

We had a good time as a family on the farm planting fruit and nut bearing trees. We planted fruit and nut bearing trees and bushes. We were able to plant 41 trees and 15 bushes including Trees (Fruit) Apricot Mulberry Nectarine PawPaw Peach Asian Pear Kieffer Pear Pecan Plum Plumcot Trees (Nut) Black Walnut… Read more: Planting Fruit Trees and Having Fun

This week we have been working to get everything ready to plant trees next week. First step was a trip to Rabbit Ridge Berry Farm in Coats, NC to pick up trees and bushes. Fred and Amily are great to do business with. We have been buying trees and bushes from them for more than… Read more: Getting Ready to Plant Trees

We have fun creating abundance on the farm. We enjoy seeing other local farms and businesses creating products that they are passionate about. These gift sets respresent the a combined joy of all the work coming together in a delightful way. This year we have teamed up with Brick City Burn (local company) to create… Read more: Local Gift Sets from the Farm

We’re trying to put the nice weather to good use. It was a nice day to to put out mulch. Putting mulch around the trees and bushes helps to This is a great example of function stacking. Function stacking is using one plant, material or process to accomplish multiple things. November Figs and Our First… Read more: November Figs? – Go Fig-ure

One of the things that I enjoy on the farm is the ability to stop and pick fruit or berries while I am taking a break. This time if year, you might think there we don’t have a lot of berries and growing plants. But I stopped for a few minutes on Friday and snacked… Read more: Forgaging as I Mow Grass

One of the traditions on the farm is planting garlic in October. We actually started growing garlic on the farm before we owned the property. We grew garlic with the previous owner. We have continued the tradition every since. We plant garlic in Oct and really don’t do much with it until spring. Once spring… Read more: Woolly Worms and Planting Garlic

We had the privilege of going to help with the recovery for a few days. The damage is hard to describe. One of the major problems is that the power and data infrastructure can’t be repair because major swathes of power lines and power poles are just gone. Power poles snaped in half. Cars wrapped… Read more: Damage from Hurricane Helene in WNC

Simply Us Farm is a local farm that my wife and I run. One of the projects for this year is to develop gift boxes for Christmas. I wanted to share some of the thinking behind the process of designing the gift boxes. Usually my blog entries focus on the design sides of new product… Read more: Designing a Gift Basket

Starting a farm has been quite an experience. Jack Spirko often contends on his podcast that answers can be found in the forest. I’m thinking that most answers can be found in the forest and farm because we already know the answer most of the time. We just need to face to up the answer… Read more: Farm and Forest – Digital Detox at Its Finest

We tried something new this year. We planted pumpkins in withour sorghum / sudan grass and buckwheat cover crop. The plan: Doing this allows us to add organic matter to the soil when we terminate the sorghum / sudan grass and it composts over the winter. The sorghum / sudan grass also acts a a… Read more: Pumpkins Are Coming, Maybe

Our figs are starting to ripen. The picture below shows a fig that got a little over ripe, but the insects definitely don’t mind. Pumpkins Pumpkins are always fun to grow. Pumpkin is such a unique flavor.

“The plan” is to install the next phase of orchard just after Thanksgiving. We’ll offer a class in planting fruit trees for anyone that wants to learn and join in as we plant the next phase of our orchard. I’ll post the class invite on the website once it is scheduled. It would be great… Read more: Expanding Our Orchard

Motherwort is Growing Motherwort is a medicinal plant with studies that show it has benefits for the ciculatory system. There are also anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. Extracts from this plant may also help stimulate the uterus and fight bacteria. This is our first time growing motherwort and it is doing well. The black walnut trees… Read more: Mowing Grass and Enjoying the Crinum Lillies

One of our goals has been to send out emails as we have items available from the farm. This is the first edition of that notice. Currently we have available: You can place your order our store. You can go to the store directly at https://www.simplyusfarm.com/shop/ or click on the store icon (circled in red… Read more: Fresh from the Farm this Week

Over the past year we have been planting comfrey in the food forest. We have also started planting comfrey with many of the trees and bushes that we plant. Comfrey is a great plant that has several jobs on the farm. These jobs (also known as function stacking for the permaculture crowd) include: Today, we… Read more: First Comfrey Harvest

We have a great time during the last session of our potato growing class. I am proud to say that we finished with 100% of the people that started the class. We had a nice harvest of potatoes. It was great to work with everyone for a class spanning several months Currently Available Produce This… Read more: Potato Growing Class Wraps Up

We have started picking elderberries from our food forest. Please contact me if you are interested in placing an order. We don’t use any insecticides or pesticides. The fertilizer we use on them is organic. You can order your elderberries here (select “porch pickup” under shipping options for local pickup in Tramway) Raspberries We have… Read more: Elderberries Incoming!

We harvested most of our garlic today. Once we have it processed, we should have a limited amount available for sale. We didn’t use any insecticides or pesticides and we practice regenerative farming where we try to continuously improve our soil. Once we have an idea of what we have available, I’ll post it here.… Read more: Garlic Incoming

The project this week was getting the young trees ready for summer. This involves pulling off the anti-deer cages, weeding around the trees and then putting mulch around the base of the trees. The mulch helps to keep the soil around the tree moist. It also helps trap water when we water the trees during… Read more: Getting Young Trees Ready for Summer

Its been a busy year on the farm. Many of our plantings will take years before we will have a crop. Here are some upcoming crops that we hope to have available for sale soon: We don’t use pesticides or insecticides on our crops and practice low-till regenerative farming. We’ll send out an email when… Read more: Upcoming Availability and Harvest

Click to play Connie and I both enjoy camping. Getting away from all the trappings of modern life. Constantly being connected via a cell phone. The ease of watching any of 1000s of movies and tv shows with a click. There is only limited cell phone service on the farm so you are lucky to… Read more: Designing a Campsite to Inspire Wonder

Thanks to everyone who came. We had 16 attendees from 8 families. What a great day. We shared about permaculture, design thinking, innovation and regenerative farming. Attendes learned about how we go about building good soil so the plants, trees and bushes thrive. We also talked about how we farm without insecticides or pesticides. Attendees… Read more: Farm Tours! – Our Annual Fun Day on the Farm

We’ve been getting ready for the farm tours so this will be a shorter post. We are seeing lots of green growth all over the farm. The elderberries, blueberries and blackberries are starting to bloom so it won’t be long before we have berries. The potatoes are starting to bloom so its time to hill… Read more: Berries are Blooming

There are always plenty of projects going on at the farm. One of our initiatives for this year is to build a garden for medicinal herbs. We have elderberry and comfrey in several places on the farm, but there are so many medicinal herbs available. It would be nice to add some of those to… Read more: Planting Medicinals and Building a Fire Circle

The warm rains have helped kick off so much green on the farm. It is nice to watch everything grow. The fall and winter test plantings of fig, elderberry and pawpaw in the back field are growing well. We’ve had a few figs that might not make it, but overall it is looking good. I… Read more: So Much Growth

What beautiful days to work on the farm! We enjoyed spectacular weather. Day 3 of our Growing Potatoes class was today. Just in case you are wondering this is a day where we just weed potatoes and adjust any hay covering. The potatoes are growing nicely. Although we did discover that if you put too… Read more: Spiders, Crazy Bugs and Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

Sometimes the moment is just enough. I am a blessed man.

Herbs are often the first crop that we harvest. We grow them close to our house so they can be harvested just before cooking with them. If you are permaculturalist, then this is our zone 1. This year we hope to have plenty of  Pairing a basil with fresh mozarella and tomatoes with a sweet… Read more: Growing and Drying Herbs at Home

What beautiful weather and a nice day to plant potatoes. We took time to plant potatoes (and a few onions) then cover with hay. We also installed drip tape. Because potatoes are a early crop and generally finish before the summer temperature gets hot, we may not need to irrigation the potatoes. The need to… Read more: Potato Planting Class (Part 2) and Finding Meaning in Life for Men

There was a break in the weather and it gave us time to plant onions. We have almost 1,000 onions sets started this year. We planted the onions and then covered with hay. The hay helps suppress weeds and makes weeding so much easier. The hay also serves as a soil amendment as it composts.… Read more: Let’s Plant Onions

We had a great day on the farm teaching how to plant potatoes. Yesterday (Friday, the day before class) I was out on the farm getting the rows ready to plant. It was all going well until it started raining. One of the challenge with planting potatoes is rain and wet ground, which also seems… Read more: Small But Mighty Growing Potatoes Classes

Walking through the farm reveals a plethora of bushes and trees that are budding out. A few weeks ago, many of these bushes and plants were dormant. Now buds are forming and you can see the first signs of growth of the year. Last year we sold out of honey from the farm. This year… Read more: Nice Day in March and New Bees

Every year we do a farm tour. This is a great chance to meet the farmers and see the farm. We’ll show you our work in progress and talk about how we do regenerative farming. Farm tour includes – detailed tour (family friendly)– 1/2 lb of honey from our remote mountain location of Troublesome Gap,… Read more: Join us for Farm Tour Day!

The love of farming and gardening often spans generations. This is true for our family. We have 3 generations that that currently grow fruit bearing vines, bushes and trees. Our family has 4 properties with fruit bearing bushes, vines and trees to prune and trim. During the month of February we have trimmed: There were… Read more: Our Family Has Vines and Bushes to be Trimmed

Cold and flu season is here. I was trying to catch a cold so it was time to hit the elderberry. These are elderberries that we grew on the farm. This isn’t medical advice and no claims are being made.

February is shaping to be a month of blueberries. We took a class in pruning blueberry bushes last weekend. Seems like there is a always something new to learn. This weekend, on a gloriously nice Saturday (mid 70s), we are pruned our blueberries at the farm. Next up is blueberries at my bonus child’s house… Read more: Pruning Blueberries and Blackberries

Learn to Plant and Grow Potatoes Come join us for a fun and educational event where you can learn all about planting potatoes! Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or a beginner, this in-person event in Bennett, NC, USA is perfect for anyone interested in growing their own potatoes. During this hands-on workshop, our farmer will… Read more: Upcoming Class – Learn to Plant and Grow Potatoes

Daikon (sometimes call field radish or mooli) is a large radish of Japanese origin. We use it as a cover crop on the farm. The daikon helps in 3 ways: This spring we will terminate the cover crop, leaving the tuber in place to compost over the summer returning the nutrients to the soil. We… Read more: Daikon Working While the Farmer Rests

This time of year, I tell myself that we have put the farm to bed for the winter. I think saying that belies the actuality that some of the plants keep growing, albeit slowly. Also, it makes it easier to take a break from working on the farm. The downtime is valuable for us farmers.… Read more: Farm is Sleeping, Spring is Peeking

Elderberry plants are robust and easy to grow in most of NC. The umbrals are easy to harvest. The flowers and the berries have many healthy uses. We have found that many people don’t realize the healthy benefits from elderberries growing in the ditch that they drive by every day on the commute to and… Read more: Our Love Affair with Elderberries

We did our test batch of elderberry syrup and an oxymel this week. We started with frozen elderberries from the farm. They went in the steam juicer for 40 minutes. The steam juicer pulled the eldeberberry juice out of the berries and allowed us to drain juice into a pot. We added ginger and clove… Read more: Making Elderberry Syrup and Oxymel

We plan to have a booth at the Sanford Farmer’s on Saturday, Nov 11th, 2023. Come join us and grab some of our wonderful honey! The market is open from 8:30 AM – 1 PM. The address is 115 Chatham St, Sanford, NC 27330, USA If you can’t make it to the market, we can… Read more: Simply Us Farm at the Sanford Farmer’s Market on Saturday

Everything has a season. The cover crops are planted. The hay is put down. The last of the trees and bushes planted. In the last 2 weeks, we have planted paw paw, elderberry and figs. The cover crop is a mixture of austrian peas, daikon radish and clover. We’ve also planted clover in areas where… Read more: Putting the Farm to Bed for the Winter

This week we had a large brush pile to burn. Camping out on the farm to made it easy monitor the burning brush pile and have a relaxing evening. Thursday morning I got an early start on preparing the rows in the back field for planting elderberries, figs and persimmon. It was nice watching the… Read more: Sunrise on the Farm

It is always wonderful when we get the opportunity to teach a skill from the farm. We had a great time and tried our best to answer some really thoughtful questions. How We Plant Elderberries Step 1 – Cuttings We start off by trimming away branches from the elderberry plant that either: – get in… Read more: Great Day Teaching How to Prune and Plant Elderberries

Wow, what nice weather. It was nice working on the farm with the temperatures in the mid 70s! We spent the day planting garlic, putting down cover crops (after terminating the cover crops in that area yesterday), and planting Paw Paw trees. We’re excited to finally get the Paw Paw trees planted. The trees we… Read more: Planting Paw Paw Trees, Garlic and Enjoying the Fall Weather

Every year the bees make the trek up to the mountains where they spend a little over a month at Troublesome Gap. We have a campsite on Troublesome Gap. It is a remote area and the bees have access to sourwood and locust flowers. This gives the honey a unique flavor and color that varies… Read more: Honey from Troublesome Gap is Here!

The goji berries are here! It is amazing that we have a small crop of goji berries this year. The goji berries we planted this spring. Our test plantings of moringa are also doing well. We have been busy putting in cover crops and working hard to improve the soil. We work hard to have… Read more: Goji Berries and Moringa

It was almost 100 degrees! We were very much appreciating the shade in places. The areas disturbed by the skid steer were also areas that we wanted to improve the soil. We planted clover and native pollinators in those areas. The clover also has the benefit of improving the soil, prevent erosion and help control… Read more: Planting Clover and Native Pollinators

A farm can be beautiful and functional. We have put a lot of emphasis on getting the orchard and food forest planted and growing crops for the past 2 years. This week we put the emphasis on improving the property and doing some cleanup. Hargrove Lawn Care in Bear Creek, NC did a wonderful job… Read more: Changes to the Farm

It is definitely warm out. We started the day out with a sprinkle or two and a nice breeze so it wasn’t too bad of a day to work on the farm. We picked tan cheese pumpkins and cushaw squash after weeding sweet potato beds. The first fig fruits are developing, but it is still… Read more: Pictures from the Farm – 2023-07-29

The fig trees are recovering nicely from the warm snap in February. We even have a few trees that are producing figs. Can’t wait to try them. The goji berry plants are climbing the trellis and reaching for the sun. No signs of berries yet but we are optimistic The comfrey we planted this year… Read more: Growing, growing, growing

We have honey ready to ship or for local pickup. We are so excited. This honey is raw and from our farm. This is the first time we’ve ever had honey for sale. Contact us for local pick up or visit here for honey shipped to your door.

We have started harvesting the first of the elderberries from the food forest area. I am excited to have them. We also have sunflowers in bloom. We grow sunflowers every year. It wouldn’t seem like summer without have sunflowers to enjoy. Our figs were decimated by the warm spell in February that was followed by… Read more: Elderberry Harvest Begins

We have been planting comfrey in the food forest area for the last few weeks. We planted comfrey root pieces and comfrey seeds around the fig and olive trees, between the blackberries and around some of the elderberries. The cool weather has allowed the potatoes to keep growing so we are going to leave them… Read more: Comfrey in the Food Forest

The goji berry plants are really growing. Nice to trellis both goji berries plants and the raspberries. We actually sampled our first blueberries on the farm today. That was a nice treat and milestone. It was nice having a few blackberries as well.

The onion harvest was wonderful. The sweet potatoes are not planted and the drip irrigation for the potatoes. The irish potatoes are growing. It will be time to harvest them soon. The black berries are blooming and growing. We’re looking forward to picking and eating black berries. The warm spell in February followed by a… Read more: Onions! Lots of Onions!

If you’ve ever wondered what it is like to have bees and check to see if they are producing honey, then check out the video The bees pollinate the fruit bearing plants and crops while they are producing honey. The honey actually takes on a different taste depending on which plants are blooming. Good news… Read more: Bees on the Farm

It was nice to have a weekend where we just enjoyed camping on the farm, without working. The grilled creation was cooked over the fire in the black cast iron cookers. The shell was made of corn dog roll with hot dogs, chili and onions inside. Tasty! The Mayapples are growing. We never get any… Read more: Camping on the Farm

Check out our very happy elderberries! Please leave a comment, let me know how you want us to prepare them for you. Do you want jam or fresh, juice, sauce, tea, or something else? Just let us know. The cactus have bloomed and the deer enjoyed the tasty treat

Check out the new logo for the farm. Comments are welcome. Horizontal version….

Simply Us Farm has been a giant sketch and prototype from the beginning. I like to think of the farm as a sketch and a prototype where the lines are drawn with a tractor and the trees and bushes are dots on the sketch. We are still learning what our farm can become. Join us… Read more: Learning About What Our Farm Can Become and How We Are Innovating

This has been a busy week on the farm. We try to give a semi-annual update that talks about what is going on at the farm in detail. We’ve also been working this week on our potatoes, developing the back field and planting a few ornamental plants. I had a few days on the farm… Read more: State of the Farm and Pictures from This Week

I’m taking a class called “Insights for Innovation” with IDEO. Part of that class is doing interviews for developing empathy and better understanding customers. Niti was the perfect person to interview to better understand the farm-to-fork community. I learned a lot in the interview and hope you do too.

The last few weeks have brought us rain every week. We had hoped to start planting this week, but it was just to wet to prep the beds for the winter squash, pollinators and summer cover crops. Instead we worked on planting olive trees and a Yaupon holly tree. We also trimmed the grass in… Read more: Mulch, Mulch, Mulch and Soggy Potatoes

We planted our first hazel trees. This is a test planting to see how they do. We should have our first nuts from the hazel trees in 2-3 years, if all goes well. We also pulled up drip feed lines so we can trim and to make it easier to cut the grass. Drip irrigation… Read more: Planting Hazel Trees and Moving Pine Logs

The potatoes are in the ground. Hopefully they really take off. The garlic looks great.

We planted the 3rd pecan tree, spread pine straw and took some time to enjoy the pleasure of flying a kite in the back field. What a nice day. Warm and sunny.

Since we started the farm, one of the things I’m looked forward to is planting blueberries. We had a couple of delays putting them in, but now they are finally installed. My wife Connie, came up with a wonderful idea. She suggested that we plant blueberries in the Hugelkultur mound. This gives the blueberries a… Read more: Blueberries Go In! Bees Go In!

Walk with me on my update on the winter garden, cover crops and how a simple idea saves time while mowing the grass. Just a simple change of how where posts go in for the anti-deer fence means less time spend weed eating. Odysee embedding powered by embed.tube

There are lots of great crops to grow in the winter. The best part is that there is much less weeding in the winter!

It was relaxing putting lime on the back field and getting it mowed. It is ready for winter. Nice to be able to take a break from a very busy summer growing season. Checkout the winter garden

Thankfully the damage was minimal. We did lose a few trees, but nothing major. Here are some pictures from after the hurricane passed through. The winter garden is coming right along and it chilly outside, just like it should be in October.

We get lots of questions from community farm participants. Here are questions that came up this week. 1) How do you know whether you should plant 1 seed or multiple seeds in the same spot? If the seed are purchased then the back of the seed packet will usually show planting information that includes desired… Read more: Questions from the Farm – #2 in an Ongoing Series

Thanks to the families that have made this year’s community garden a success!

We get lots of questions from community farm participants. Here are questions that came up this week. 1) How do you store peas in fridge after taken out of their pods 1-2 weeks. If you dry them (unrefrigerated), they can last for 9+ months 2) Can you feed bad produce to farm animals? We need… Read more: Questions from the Farm

This isn’t normal August in NC weather. It was almost chilly this morning. The agenda for this weekend: get the winter garden plot ready – the plot was previously grass, but a black silage tarp had been over the spot all summer. We ran the spring tooth harrow and the the disc through the plot.… Read more: Summer Growing Season Dwindles / Fall and Winter Garden Underway

Its been a hot month, but the produce keeps rolling in. The okra and peppers love the heat!

Come join us on Saturday, July 30th at the farm for our annual farm tour. You can meet the families involved in the community garden and see how it works. The farm is located in Bennett, NC. Get your tickets below.

Summer is here and we are starting to harvest veggies!

Everything is growing! Here are some images from this week.

Some days are easier than others. Being flexible helps turn a frustrating day into a productive and happy one! The zero turn is fixed and the garlic bed is weeded and hay put down around the garlic. The blackberries are starting to fruit!

Lets take a walk around the farm and see what is growing! One of the topics that comes up in the video is the concept of imposing my will on the farm. Planning for the growing season requires creating a calendar of when to do what. Different crops need to go in at different times… Read more: Gemba Walk after Mowing

Our food forest is starting to grow with the warmer weather. Here are some pictures

What Can You Do This year has been a challenging year when it comes to supply chain issues and inflation. The rising price of gas and food has impacted all of us at some level. People with the least disposable income getting hurt the worst. At some point, rising food prices will lead to political… Read more: Why You Probably Aren’t Planting a Garden / You Can Farm

The last two days have been a blur. We have been busy. Even with 4 people on the farm working hard, we still have more stuff to do before everything is been planted. We are on still on a rapid learning curve as we work hard. The garden area in the pictures below was pasture… Read more: Planting Time

It is the time of year where you never know if it is going to be an 80 degree day or a 40 degree day. We are still getting ready to start planting our summer garden. This was also the first time I mowed the grass for the season. More and more plants are starting… Read more: Flowering Mandrakes / Almost Time to Plant

The Mayapples are up and thriving. We noticed the fruit starting to form. We are hoping to try the fruit this year, assuming we can beat the deer and raccoons from eating it first. Weed Control with Silage Tarps We put down silage tarps earlier in the winter. The goal is to help with weed… Read more: Meanwhile on the farm, mayapples and the preparations continue…

The weather on Saturday was kinda crazy. It started out fairly warm and then just kept getting colder. Sometimes You Can’t Do What You Plan We had planned to plant beets, peas and radish. The plan was to pull back the tarps and build beds to plant in. The silage tarp has been down for… Read more: Getting Ready for Spring – Putting Down Hay and Weedblocker

What a busy few days. When it comes to homesteading there is always a lot to learn and share. We worked on the following: installed an anti-deer fence installed 15 elderberry plants with a biodegradable mat around them with hay on top planted 7 fig and 2 peach trees planted a lantana in the pollinator… Read more: 2022 Spring Homestead Experience

Getting a farm up and going has been a big project. Sometimes it seems like the world has gone crazy, but on the farm there is a peace and serenity. We’re getting ready for growing season and the plants don’t care about politics or ideology, they just want great soil, rain and sunshine. So after… Read more: New Tractor, Putting Up Blackberry Trellis and A-Frames

Let’s start off with what is a Hugelkultur mound. Here is a great video that explains Hugelkultur Our First Hugelkultur Mound We built our first hugelkultur mound in our garden at home. The mound is about 35 feet long and used trees that we had cleared on the back of the property. It has worked… Read more: Covering the HugelKultur Mound

Why – Cost of Food is Increasing, Availability is Decreasing https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-10/price-shock-at-the-meat-counter-worsens-u-s-inflation-jitters – as an example beef is up 20% this year I’ve seen numbers from 6 to 20% for other sectors of the food supply. Lets do the math. Here is one analysis: $1 product in 2020 became a $1.20 product in 2021 (using 20%… Read more: Shopping List – Main Items that you need to preserve food

Why Have a Community Garden The last few years (2020-2021) have difficult years for everyone. When we originally bought the farm from a friend in 2021, we had intentions to just having place for a larger garden / fruit orchard, recreation and eventually build a house. The growing possibility of food insecurity and food cost… Read more: 2022 Community Garden Info

My wife and I have this love / hate relationship dynamic with horseradish. We only eat a small amount of it, but we have several family members and friends that really like it. We mostly use it in Connie’s homemade cocktail sauce or on roast beef. Here is a chart showing the pros/cons with horseradish.… Read more: Making Horseradish

Check out this video showing our progress.