Fruits & Vegetables

We grow Certified Naturally Grown fruits and vegetables, free from herbicides, pesticides, and other chemicals. We currently grow a combination of heirloom and open-pollinated varieties, as well as non-GMO, organically-approved hybrid varieties. Every season we plant more and more heirlooms and fewer and fewer hybrids. (For an explanation on the difference between heirlooms, open-pollinated varieties, hybrids, and GMO crops, see our member handbook.)

We prefer heirloom varieties for philosophical reasons as well as for their taste and beauty. We have also discovered that some of these varieties are better able to grow in our unpredictable East TN climate; some are also more resistant to insect pressure.  We typically only choose a hybrid variety of a fruit or vegetable over an heirloom or open-pollinated version when the hybrid greatly outproduces the heirloom, or the heirloom is too prone to insect damage or disease.

Another reason we’re choosing heirloom varieties over hybrids is that many of the available organically-approved hybrids are created for and trialed in California, whose climate, disease pressure, and insect population is incredibly different from ours. This leaves us with crop varieties that are not particularly suited to our area. There are a few fruits and vegetables for which I wish locally adapted hybrids were available: tomatoes, cantaloupes, and broccoli.

We hope to use our blog this season to highlight many of the varieties that we grow. Some of our heirloom varieties date back many centuries and have very interesting histories. If you ever have a question about a variety, just ask.

Fruits

Strawberries:  We have four beds of strawberries.  We distribute them through our CSA and as pick-your-own when they ripen, usually mid-May through early June.

Fruit trees:  We have a very young orchard, made up of heirloom, native apple tree varieties and fig trees.  These trees have several years of maturing to do before they will produce in any quantity, but it’s lovely to see them growing, and we can’t wait to add apples and figs to our regular season shares!

Melons: Watermelons and cantaloupes (technically muskmelons) mature in the summer, and are included in our CSA shares.  For the best melons, we need sufficient rain fall in June to produce healthy plants, followed by hotter, drier weather in July in August to produce sweet melons.  Sweet, juicy melons are one reason to look forward to the sweltering heat! 

We would like to add more fruit to our farm.  Growing tree fruit in our area is difficult because of warm springs followed by late frosts (our last frost is typically the first week in May).  Growing other fruit organically in East Tennessee can be difficult because disease proliferates in areas of high heat and humidity.  If we add another fruit soon, it is likely to be a bush fruit, such as blueberries or cane fruit.

Vegetables : Cool-Weather Crops

The vegetables our members see in their bins in the cooler months range widely across plant family and color palette. Many are from the Brassica family, which include broccoli (above left) , Brussels sprouts (above right), green and red cabbage, and storage cabbage. Other vegetables we grow from the Brassica family are cauliflower, savoy cabbage, Napa cabbage, bok choy, turnip greens, and mustard greens.

Our leafy greens also thrive in the cooler months, including (clockwise from top left) dinosaur kale, curly kale, Swiss chard, and red Russian kale...

...and we grow many more greens and lettuces, including arugula, head lettuce, spinach, and collard greens. Not pictured are many other types of greens, including beet greens, watercress, escarole, radicchio, leaf lettuces, and mesclun mixes.

Many of our root and bulb crops thrive in cool weather. Clockwise from top left are this past fall’s carrots, parsnips, kohlrabi, and daikon radish. Other root and bulb crops we grow are red salad radishes, other storage radishes, fennel, beets, turnips, rutabagas, several types of potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, and sweet potatoes.

We also grow leeks and scallions, and (not pictured) celery and sugar snap peas in the cool months.

Summer crops that spend the fall drying in the greenhouse and then get packed into fall and winter shares include these: (clockwise from top left) October beans, Tiger Eye beans, peanuts, and white corn that will be made into stone-ground, gluten-free cornmeal. We also grow and dry white beans, black beans, a beautiful tri-color popcorn, and white and blue corn varieties and sunflower seeds that we use for animal feed.

Our favorite winter squashes are pumpkins, Seminole squash, and butternut squash. These delicious squashes are usually ready in October and make it into fall and winter shares—just in time for holiday cooking and baking. 

Vegetables : Warm-Weather Crops

When the weather gets warm, you will see a few vegetables in your bin that you can’t get any other time of year: hybrid and heirloom tomatoes, tomatillos, sweet corn, yellow and green summer squashes; white, Sicilian, and Chinese eggplant; sweet peppers, hot peppers, okra, cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon, green beans, lima beans, purple hull beans, and black-eyed peas. We also have onions and garlic throughout the summer and fall.  Photos of these beauties forthcoming!

Herbs

Our herbs change from season to season and throughout the season, but here are herbs we grew this year: cilantro, tarragon, chamomile, chives, oregano, sage, thyme, parsley, rosemary, several types of basil, and dill.