What's Fresh?

Since we feature only the freshest seasonal produce, our selection changes from week-to-week, season-to-season.

Please Note: Folks trying to reach our farm using Map Quest or GPS are mostly directed to Rodgers Circle, about six miles away. To find our farm, please go to our directions page.

Hulled Black Walnuts - in the shell; a good tasting, high protein local nut, hand gathered, husked and air-cured.
        Sold by the pound.

Seed & Plant Section

Organic Heirloom Bean Seeds -

Grown annually on our farm - naturally air dried, hand shelled and carefully sorted.

Sold by the packet @ $2.50  (40+ seeds - depends on variety - planting & growing instructions upon request)

Pole beans save valuable garden space, don't fall over so they limit spoilage as the pods don't touch the ground, easier to pick as most stooping and bending is eliminated, and consistently outyield bush varieties.

        Black & White Lima Bean pole type- vigorous climber, high yielding, drought resistant, (I)

        Christmas Lima Bean (crimson & white, pole type-vigorous climber, truly giant size  (I)
   
        Rattlesnake Bean (pole type, tasty, stringless green bean, heavy yielding, our favorite green bean, good as a dry bean also (I)

        Granny May Black Eyed Peas (vigorous runner type, heavy yielding, short cooking time, very prolific (I)

        Indian Woman Yellow Butter Bean (semi- half-runner type with dainty leaves and small copper colored beans,  rare (D)

        Paint Dry Bean (half-runner type, white with yellow saddle marking, heavy yielding, (I)

        Jacobs Cattle Bean (bush type, heavy yielding, colorful white & maroon, large kidney type, (D)

        Hutterite Soup Bean (semi half runner, good yielding, our best soup bean  (D)

NOTE: With some pole bean varieties, we have harvested approximately 200 beans back per bean seed planted (measured by weight). Requires good soil with lots of organic matter worked in for best results and highest yield. (I=Indeterminate - D=Determinate variety) The determinate varieties will still lightly reflower and produce a second crop if given adequate moisture.


Organic Dent Corn Seed (for making cornmeal, cereal, cornbread, or poultry ration)

Our seed corn is hand shelled and sorted to guarantee you receive the very best kernels for planting. Sold by: - pkt. - 1 oz. $2.50,  1/4 lb. $5.50,  1/2 lb. $8.00,  and 1 lb. $12.50

Shipping is by flat rate priority mail if possible, otherwise by regular priority mail.

        Ohio Blue Clarage - Tasty, nutty flavored, sweet meal corn, (or roasting ear) 10-12 ft. stalks. Developed in Ohio & W. VA  1830-1850,  tolerates crowding and resists corn smut. 90-100 days

        Neal's  Paymaster - White corn with red cob -consistent two large ears per plant - 90 days to roasting ears (pre-1915)

        Broadened Horizons Yellow Giant - pale yellow seed on a uniformly large cob developed at our farm as a high-yielding poultry ration. (2008) 10 ft stalks -consistent two large ears per plant.

Perennial plants      

Strawberry Crowns  - High yielding vigorous plants, individually potted, ready for Spring planting.  $2.50 ea.  3 for $5.

Multiplier Onion Bulbs - (Egyptian walking onion) use as green onions, onion stem top forms self-propagating onion sets, potted and ready to transplant.

Annual plants - Available in April - heirloom tomato plants @ $2.50 ea.

Brandywine, Stupice, German Pink, Martino Roma, Cherry & Broadened Horizon Survivors

NEW - Poultry Coming in 2010

We have received a number of requests for our naturally hatched, farm-raised starter chicks. We hope to have a limited number of birds available for sale by mid-summer. These will be eight week old birds, well developed, and fully feathered out.

*We are only accepting pulp-paper egg cartons

Thanks for your co-operation in helping to keep out costs down. Recycling does make a difference!

It covers the following topics:
    •     A basic discussion on the history, collection and uses of captured rainwater. Includes recycling household gray and black water.

    •     Water storage principles-Includes resource allocation, maintaining water quality, evaporation rates, and mosquito control.   

    •     Calculating rain volume yields from roof areas.   

    •     Using and fabricating gravity-fed water transfer systems (gutters, pipes & hoses) for storage and end use.     

    •    The ethical considerations toward other water users competing for the same rain runoff.

    •     Cistern placement and the different types of cistern materials in use (steel, polyethelyne, stone and ferro-cement.)

    •     Mapping the watershed- This involves a walk-about explanatory tour of our farm watershed and storage ponds.

    •     Pond and reservoir placement and construction. Includes siting, useable soil types, pond liners, constructing swales and berms and other land shaping with dredged soil placement.

    •     And much, much more!

    "I think I knew that it was necessary to prioritize how one uses collected rainwater, but I had not previously considered the concept of budgeting for this. It frames the idea much differently for me and causes me to be even more deliberate in my stewardship. I came away with a greater sense of responsibility involved in collecting and then re-distributing rainwater."
                            Rachel Swinney, Knoxville, TN  (March-2008) workshop participant

For more information or to register for this workshop, please go to the Workshop Schedule page.

Rainwater Harvesting & Storage – Advanced Course

    •    This two-day workshop is a hands-on experience of actually creating a small rainwater-fed pond.

    •    Participants will work through the actual steps of siting, soil sampling, and hand carving a 300-500 gallon storage pond. Also includes landscaping techniques to appropriately deal with the dugout soils.

    •    The workshop is designed to give participants the confidence to either hand or machine dig a larger storage pond on their own farm or homestead.

    •    Includes an early morning lesson / trip on the dam impounded Tennessee River (Watts Bar Reservoir) aboard the Emma Bell and Betty L Martin hand crafted - hand powered, pontoon "teaching raft."

    •    Rainwater Collection 101 is a prerequisite for this advanced course.

For more information or to register for this workshop, please go to the Workshop Schedule page.

Month ----- 2006 ----- 2007------ 2008 ----- 2009 ----- 2010 ----- 2011----- 2012 ----- 2013

(all measurements are in inches) 

January----- (NR) ------ 3.10 ------ 4.35 ------ 5.65 ----- 8.75²

February ---- (NR) ------ 1.45 ------ 5.07 ------ 3.43 ----- 3.50

March ------ 4.05 ------- 3.45 ------ 5.86 ------ 5.75 ----- 1.15*

April -------- 7.75 ------- 4.15 ------ 4.30 ------ 3.50

May --------  2.22 ------- 3.35 ------ 3.96 ------ 9.50

June -------- 1.25 ------- 1.80 -------1.67 ------ 2.60

July --------- 6.10 ------- 2.30 ------ 5.61------- 5.36

August ----- 5.85 ------- 1.40 ------ 5.24¹------ 2.83

September  6.65 ------- 3.55 ------ 1.38 ------ 9.58

October ---- 6.55 ------- 2.50 ------ 1.80 ------ 6.65

November - 5.00 ------- 5.37------- 4.13 ------ 2.12

December - 3.40 ------- 2.82 ------ 7.54 ------ 9.03                 

YEARLY

TOTALS --- 48.82 ----- 35.24 ---- 50.91----- 66.00 ---- 13.40*

(NR) not recorded 

1-Tropical Storm Fay 5.07" 

2-Largest volume rain runoff event -Jan 25th

* measurement to date

Broadened Horizons Organic (Teaching) Farm

at

226 Rodgers Lane

Rockwood, Tennessee

Posted each week on Sunday night (labor and farm conditions permitting)

Sunday, March 7^th, 2010

"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves."

Mohandus K. Gandhi

Winter's blustery presence seems to have finally lost it's icy grip here in the Tennessee River Valley, much to the relief of all the human and non-human farm residents. After an earlier in the week snowstorm, sunny days with mild temperatures have taken over. We did our first planting this week, putting in red and white onion sets. Since cold weather is not completely past yet, we did the onion planting inside a newly constructed "low tunnel" (mini-hoop house) that can be covered with a plastic skin and act as a greenhouse. We also upgraded one of the hives, adding new components and replacing some deteriorating sections. There was a very healthy colony of bees within, and only when I accidently crushed a bee with my hand, did I get stung (once). This is pretty remarkable as there were about 2,000 bees swarming about me when the old hive was dismantled, yet they were remarkably restrained in spite of their agitation. We will be repeating this upgrade activity with another hive soon.

Our first tomato plants are growing in their little starter pots. We also have some asparagus seedlings and sweet potato vines growing, that we maintained over the Winter in the southside window next to the wood stove. On sunny days, we move the planters into the main greenhouse to soak up sunshine and warmth, then move them back inside the house at night to prevent cold / freeze damage.

On Saturday we hosted the first workshop of the season with a freshman class from Maryville College. For lunch, we reheated 4 pizzas the students brought, in our solar oven, which was operating at 290 degrees. We then conducted an experiment using a factory farm egg, a commercial organic egg, and one of our own farm eggs. The students could watch the eggs cook through the glass window of the solar oven. The most interesting fact, besides the color and texture of our egg compared to the other two, was that when our egg was fully cooked, the other two still had runny yokes and whites. This is due to the higher water content of commercial factory farm eggs. Not only did our egg win the taste test, it took less energy to cook! Truly an environmentally friendly farm egg! The conclusion was that the factory egg and the commercial organic egg were pretty similar looking and tasting. The most noticable difference was the factory egg had the weakest shell.

Daffodils and other early perennials have been poking up out of their mulched beds since late January. However, only now that we have had a few warm and sunny days, are we beginning to see the flowers blooming forth. The first of the maple flowers have opened, and the bees which have been frantically buzzing about looking for nectar, have ascended up into the trees surrounding the farmhouse. This year with the additional hives, we are well positioned to take advantage of the Spring nectar flow.

Why all the cloudy weather? Atmospheric scientists have stated that this is the strongest El Nino in many, many years, brought about by a warmer Pacific Ocean. Also other oceans are warmer, causing more atmospheric vapor (clouds) to be present. This has resulted in record-breaking snowfalls, and powerful (hurricane-force winds) not only in North America, but elsewhere in the northern hemisphere. Are we seeing the early results of catastrophic climate change, forecasted by a consensus of world climatologists? The "global-warming" naysayers point to this cold Winter as proof global-warming is a hoax. Yet the weather anomalies have destroyed crops in normally temperate Winter locations such as Florida and the Gulf Coast, significantly raising food prices and stretching the food procurement distances much further. Policies and practices we have instituted here on the farm, designed to mitigate the impacts of severe weather disruption are not yet significantly developed to shield us from these conditions, yet we are seeing some early beneficial results. The greatest tool we can utilize is the living tree. Knowing the type and planting location is critical to success. Conifers to shield from Winter winds, deciduous to protect from summer heat. In order to be effective, they must be in the right location. The previous occupants of this farm got most of it backwards, forcing us to nearly start over from scratch. In January, we cut the third large pine away from the southside of the house, and this has increased our solar heat uptake by a factor of 2X².

This week our main work focus has been on fencing. and will remain so for a few more weeks. We had hoped to have more fencing completed by now, but the unusually cold and snow-filled Winter altered our plans. Instead, we had to shift our work focus during January and early February to the barn, where we could work inside on much needed repair and renovation. And that effort has paid off nicely as we now have a viable barn, capable of serving many farm needs.

Our friend and bee mentor, Eddie McKenzie has given us two more hives of bees, which we have established in our bee yard beneath the old twin hackberry trees on the east end of the farm. Last year was a poor year for honey production due to the excessive rainfall at critical nectar gathering times. The hives seem relatively strong coming out of the Winter period, and we are glad to have these busy farm workers with us as we head into a new growing season.

Extra stone was placed to reinforce the rock baffle at the inlet to Cedar Pond that is fed from the primary spillway from the higher up Cedar Creek Pond. Also stone was placed along the water's edge on a low spot on the  Cedar Creek Pond dam. Water washed over the dam at this spot during the major rain event (3.4 inches) on January 25th.The dam height will need to be raised this summer, using dredged material from the pond bottom.

As we begin our sixth year at the Broadened Horizons Organic Teaching Farm, January ended on a very wet note.   January delivered nearly nine inches of rainfall once again for back to back months, (Dec.-Jan.), and we experienced our biggest rain runoff event after a 3.4 inch rainfall. Although it wasn't our largest total single rainfall event, due to the super-saturated ground, it resulted in the largest volume, across-the-farm water flow since our arrival here five years ago.

We have erected and re-inforced a number of "beaver dams" to help move the very high water table (in the upper-bottomlands) higher up on the land. The beaver dams are constructed using small diameter pine log sections, oak bark slabs, and ground woodchips, and formed into linear mounds (or berms) of slowly decaying organic material. These composting wood to soil berms are deliberatly placed where we want to spread (flood) rain runoff over larger areas of low lying ground. By holding the rainwater in place on the land while it is raining, we are able to store as much water in the re-emergent wetland soil as possible. This will show up later in the year as lush bio-mass growth, and ultimately as water absorbing dead plant material in the wetland. We are deliberatly creating a wetland (or swamp) to store excess winter rainfall to fuel water-based plant growth during the approaching Spring. This will also result in more flower foraging opportunities for the pollinators, especially the honeybees. And in case of a drought period, it will be a source of vegetable crop protecting humidity.

Barn renovation work is now focused on a beehive workshop area, where repair and storage of beehive components will take place. A workbench and partition wall have been added, and an inside west wall was constructed and painted. An upgrade to the inside west wall in the loft was also completed with a fresh coat of paint being applied. We have done some field work, which consists of mowing dead plant residue in the "horse pasture" and the north-side area bordering Cedar Creek. The mowing reduces the standing dead plant material (potential grass fire fuel) and puts it down on the ground as mulch. This allows other grasses (besides fescue) and clover to grow as they now have access to sunlight. We are also thinning undesireable species from the hedgerow bordering Cedar Creek, giving preference to the wind-blocking cedar trees growing there.

It is our intention to take the overall farm operation to the next level this year by adding an additional full-time staff person. Currently, we are in the interviewing process, and have a couple of potential candidates on our short list. An additional staff person will allow us to devote more time and energy to expanding our crop base and our food quantity available for sale.

We have been seeing a few new pullet eggs in the henhouse this past week, as the youngest laying hens begin to respond to the longer daylight hours. While full scale egg laying is still a few weeks away, it is good news to see the young hens, born here last summer, begin their egg laying under less than ideal weather conditions. We don't force our hens, and so when they do begin laying, they are fully sexually mature and are able to lay full sized eggs right from the start. A first egg from a new pullet has a telltale smudge of blood on it.  All of our older (4 years & older) hens were culled out over the winter and sold as stewing hens. We culled out the last of the extra (yearling) roosters, and now have the chicken flock at our targeted level for the coming season.

Crop damage over the Winter was significant as this was a notably cold and sunless one. We used ordinary cotton sheets, single layer, and floated them over the top of the foliage of the younger beds of collards, kale, and mustard greens. This simple technique helped protect the plants from any visual sign of damage, while unprotected plants adjacent to the covered ones were freeze burned and bleached to a ghostly pale white color.  Broccoli in the new greenhouse was almost a total loss, and we got only one small volume cutting of heads. The unprotected lettuce and Chinese mustard in the new greenhouse only suffered mild damage. An additional problem was an invasion of moles that took up residence in the protection and warmth of the greenhouse beds, further damaging the lettuce and broccoli beds. This past week, our fencing projects included digging a trench around the base of the greenhouse, and installing a foot deep barrier of 1/2" galvanized rat wire. It was with a great sense of satisfaction that we observed their humped up tunnels running outside the barrier the very next day. Time for the moles to feel the frustration that has been mostly felt by us as we observed their incessant earth moving and tunneling inside. 

Prior to the onslaught of the frigid temperatures and the very damaging wind chills, over 1.200 gallons of rainwater was dumped from numerous storage cisterns to prevent freeze damage from cracking valves and piping. However, we let numerous steel and plastic water storage barrels remain full. Normally they can handle a moderate freeze. However, all the water in these containers did freeze, punching out some barrel bottoms. Once we realized the brutally cold weather was going to be long term, it was too late to drain the barrels. We did suffer some freeze damage to our irrigation piping system from residual water left in the system from two summers ago. To permanently repair these areas will take some moderate reconfiguration in the height of the delivery system. More ongoing  lessons as we continue to tweak our infrastructure to make it more efficient and less prone to seasonal weather damage. We have begun to close valves to begin the refilling of our storage cisterns.

Well seasoned oak firewood, stored dry in the barn, provides a reliable source of heating fuel and our wood stove is able to keep the core rooms of the farmhouse comfortably warm during this prolonged freeze period. We kept the heater stove fire in high burn mode 24 / 7 on overcast and sunless days. To date, we have burned all the firewood budgeted for this winter, and have had to supplement our heating fuel needs with additional inputs from old cedar fence posts and construction scraps.

Interest in the farm and our various workshops continues to increase as we continue our outreach activity. We are anticipating a very busy sixth year at our teaching farm as we offer more opportunities to learn principals of sustainable living and permaculture design and activity. The farm potential has really increased in the past few months as more of the basic infrastructure is repaired, or new infrastructure is completed. We hope these long range improvements will allow us to focus more on the agricultural aspects of the farm during the upcoming growing season. We have already begun to sign up participants in our upcoming workshop series.

2009 Farm Year in Review

The year ended with one last rainfall event on December 31, capping an extra wet year that saw a total of exactly 66 inches or rainfall, one of the wettest years on record. Three months, May, September, and December had rainfall in excess of nine inches. This was offset with three months that had less than three inches of rainfall, June 2.6 inches, August 2.8 inches and November at 2.12 inches.The total rainfall for 2009 was a staggering 30.76 inches more than during the exceptional drought year of 2007. This is an additional two and a half feet of water over the entire farm.

The uneven and often excess rainfall caused a significant loss in yield of numerous crops; Strawberries-95% loss, Plums-90% loss, Beans-50% loss, Watermelons-30% loss, Tomatoes-25% loss, and Corn-20% loss.The corn loss was an interesting mix of not enough rain (August) when the ears were forming, and too much rain at harvest time in late September. The excessive rainfall in September (9.58"- making it the wettest month in 2009) forced us to prepick the entire corn crop and hang it up in the barn rafters. It was the first time we had picked a dried corn crop while it was raining. The whole operation took three days. We have since learned that rain caused corn crop failure in our region was widespread.

On the upside, the rainfall kept the farm lush, and biomass production was very high. This resulted in plentiful fresh forage for our poultry flock, and an unlimited supply of garden mulch. To take advantage of this biomass growth we purchased a new self-propelled mower with the capacity to bag the cut greenery. The cut bio-material was loaded into our large gardenway cart and hauled to various growing locations. The mulch was excellent in suppressing unwanted weedy growth, and for keeping the soil from washing and, or compacting due to the heavy rainfall. By feeding the soil this constant supply of fresh green organic material, the earthworm population flourished. By the end of the growing season, the soil had markedly improved from just a year ago. It was soft and yielding underfoot, and easy to dig into using a small hand trowel.

Construction projects on the farm began to tip more toward completion of the basic footprint, which allowed us to spend more time in actual agricultural work. In March, we completed the final chicken house (G building), essentially finishing the physical layout of our integrated poultry operation. Major work was undertaken on the larger barn

  which was in danger of getting away from us. The entire west wall of the barn has now been rebuilt and is in the process of being painted. Considerable structual work has been completed to the barn's interior, including the addition of cross barn trusses, additional support posts, the construction of a hay loft, a structual catwalk, and the renovation of the primary livestock stall. A portion of the farmhouse front was rebuilt, which included adding insulation and finishing it with 1" thick pine board and battens. This considerably increased the structual integrity of this wall. A new stand alone greenhouse was constructed in what is now designated as the Winter Garden, a southwest facing gentle slope on the south side of the G-house. And finally, the main greenhouse had the stonework completed on the north and west walls. The sides of the enclosed stone cistern were also raised four inches.

For the first time since taking over the farm, we had separately designated housing units and runs for raising chicks, growing out pullets, and maintaining the mature laying flock. We employed a systematic culling program, and sold 14 of the oldest birds as stewing hens. We did increase egg sales, while at the same time reducing feed costs by growing a portion of our own feed. This allowed us to double our profit margin. It was also the first year that we raised all of our replacement chicks from eggs from our laying flock. This is beneficial for two reasons; the first is a higher survival rate for mother-hen raised chicks, and secondly the most desireable genetic traits of our "naturalized" heritage breed flock are passed on to the next generation.

The bee picture was quite mixed this year. We gained a swarm from the wild, then shortly thereafter lost a swarm from another hive. That hive's remaining bees eventually died off for reasons unknown. At the onslaught of cold weather, we only had one viable hive in spite of all of our careful caretaking. Even though the surviving hive was strong throughout the summer, wet weather interfered  with nectar flow and nectar gathering, and the hive produced no surplus honey for extraction. This was a significant financial loss of farm income.

Garden sales remained steady and evenly tied 2008 sales levels. Cucumber beetles were a major pest this year, wiping out the summer squash and cucumber crop. The watermelon crop however escaped beetle damage, and did well until we were forced to pick the crop early as excessive rain was causing the fruits to split open. Squash vine  borers continue to be problematic, which has limited our ability to grow Winter Squash. Our most successful crop this past season was our sweet potato crop.

We continued to showcase our farm with a number of worshops, guided tours, and a well attended Fall Open House. New drive up customers noticeably declined as traffic was considerably less on our road in 2009. We think the current dismal economic situation is partly to blame. 

Our farm income declined 25% from a year ago.

Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is an ethical system of ecological land design, which incorporates the disciplines of agriculture, hydrology, energy, architecture, economics, social science, animal husbandry, forestry, etc. Permaculturally designed land can have up to 16 times the yield of conventional single-crop agriculture. It follows a methodology that closes the loop on natural systems so that nothing is wasted, including labor, energy and resources. This workshop integrates and unifies the subject matter of all of our other workshops into a comprehensive big picture. This information packed seminar is intended to help the participant follow a path of endeavor that leads to a living model of wholeness. The workshop content explores in depth, the true source of our food, water and energy, in order to create a more sustainable, healthy and intelligent style of living.

This weekend workshop covers the following topics:

• Solar energy - how to use it to grow food, dry food, cook food, heat a home, heat water, produce electricity and more.

• The rain cycle and how it affects springs, creeks, aquifers, the soil, the forests, and the air temperature. Includes a primer on rainwater harvesting and storage.

• A basic primer on seasonal food growing--what foods grow when and where and how. Topic covers growing food using organic techniques.
  

• Why we need healthy, intact forests, fertile land, and pollution free streams and rivers for a healthy life.

• Tap water-where it comes from and where it goes, and how to use it safely and more wisely.

• Creating a sustainable lifestyle with permaculture principles that enriches, rather than depletes, the bioregion we call home.

• How to incorporate intelligent design features to make your home more energy efficient, practical, and less labor intensive.

* For more information or to register for this workshop, please go to the Workshop schedule page.

Founded in January of 2004, the farm mission is primarily dedicated toward the teaching and sustainable practice of soil and water restoration through a multi-faceted organic / permaculture-based program of land use planning and stewardship. Central to this goal is a comprehensive rainwater collection system that harvests and stores rainwater in cisterns and ponds for ongoing and future use in crop irrigation, poultry watering and poultry facility washing, aquatic food supply and wildlife habitat enhancement.

The farm is home to a farm-bred, mixed-flock, of heritage laying hens that are free-range pastured year round in a two acre complex of multiple runs and age-related housing options. It also hosts a small apiary. Multiple gardens, orchards, and greenhouses provide fruits and vegetables in the appropriate seasons.

Sales of our food and seed products are conducted from the farm. We are open for business during daylight hours year-round. Products currently for sale can be found on our website.

In conjunction with our land restoration work is our program to convert existing buildings over to greater seasonal energy efficiency. Construction of existing or new structures are guided by the following criteria, to be low in material cost, to factor in directional orientation and topographical placement, maximum use of vegetative landscaping and predominate use of local materials. All of our building projects involve 85% minimum use of local, natural, recycled and salvaged materials.

We offer year-round guided tours and structured hands-on workshops, as a way to share our experience and knowledge. We invite you to tour our website, and learn about our sustainable land practices, the long-term vision of the Broadened Horizons staff, and the daily workings of our sustainability teaching farm.

The "new-farm start up" workshop will be presented as a total custom event for each participant(s). There will be no pre-scheduled calendar dates, rather we will hold the workshop "on demand" when a new farmer(s) is both learning ready and has time available.
The workshop sessions will cover enough topics to require at least a couple of days. Training might also include a work-to-learn" component that would be a hands on labor exchange for practical farm knowledge / experience held at a later, separate time. The workshop can be held at anytime during the week, and is not limited to weekends only.

Meals and overnight lodging could be made available, allowing the participant(s) to experience actual farm  living routines. Fees are structured along a sliding scale based on income level. Contact us for more specific information concerning registration and cost.

Subjects covered:

Designing an efficient, low maintenance farm infrastructure

Benefits and wisdom of crop diversity

Soil testing through plant presence

Utilizing internal & external nutrient inputs

Managing sustainable growth & expansion

Recycling & resource reconfiguration (permaculture inspired)

Business management guidelines to maximize profit potential

Establishing a signature farm product

Minimizing energy costs through green construction and appropriate landscaping

Sustainable agricultural practices in the East Tennessee region

Seed saving and improving plant genetics

Rebuilding and nourishing topsoil

Testimonials

 We really enjoyed our visit out to Broadened Horizons Organic Farm, meeting you and Cielo and learning about your farming practices. You have clearly invested a lot of time and energy into growing your farm, and your experience and enthusiasm are evident.

It was very helpful to see the systems you have put in place, and to hear about the recycled and salvaged materials you have incorporated into your farm. Books, conferences and the like are certainly useful tools for beginning farmers, but the opportunity to see and learn about examples of sustainable practices first hand is invaluable.

Chris & Dana Saywell, Blount County, TN.

We’ll certainly be following your progress and continuing to learn from your experiences as you share them in your Weekly Farm Journal and your Blog.

Dudley & Patria Leath, Blount County, TN.

Recycling the farm

A very savvy friend of mine told me upon our first meeting many years ago;

“If you’re not making a good material living in this country (USA)-then you’re looking in the wrong dumpsters!”

His statement was true then, and it remains even more true to this day. My family and I have lived well through the art of recycling, and I do mean art. Most of the resource wealth that is squandered and wasted in this country is the result of both an unconscious disconnect and simple laziness. Nowhere is this more true than in the construction industry.

Managing farm start-up costs  

"If it’s not free, it costs too much!”

Getting a new farm up and operating successfully is going to largely depend on keeping start up costs well in check. When we moved to our farm, every building was in need of major work. Some could be rebuilt, but others had to be torn down, including our biggest barn. There was not a fit shelter for either human or farm animal on our eleven acres. The conventional cost of making the place livable could have ended our farming career before we ever really got started.

Gathering up the resources 

In preparation for this major farm building makeover, we began to gather up a robust resource pile of recycled lumber, pipe, blocks, bricks, stones, fence posts, windows, foam-board insulation, doors, metal roofing, gutters, and much more. Over the years we had befriended a couple of small mom and pop contractors, and their waste stream from remodeling and new construction work yielded us truckloads of useable material. We supplemented this treasure with salvage excursions along the riverbanks of the Tennessee River, using a home-built barge to transport dismantled docks, boathouses, and on occasion, choice pieces of derelict houseboats and cabin cruisers. 

Other sources of used & new materials 

Other good sources of building materials are temporary construction "solid fill sites" where piles of gravel, sand, used blocks, bricks and stone are dumped to provide an eventual building base, and the dumpsters placed at construction sites. Sunday morning is my favorite time as the dumpster contains the previous week's "waste." We euphemistically refer to Sunday salvage as “going to church.” There is amazing stuff in these dumpsters, and it changes from week to week as the job progresses. An added bonus is that it's new, unused material thrown in the dumpster because it is viewed as either “extra” or left over “scrap,” which would otherwise end up in a landfill. Included in this category are masonry products, nails and screws, lumber, (including large pieces of plywood and framing material), metal roofing, gutters and downspouts, wiring, plumbing materials, and lots of aluminum cans (recycled to cover our gas costs). Restoring our farm infrastructure with recyled materials not only gives us conversational teaching topics, but allows us to keep our seed money for actually buying and planting the seeds.

Involving the neighbors

Moving into a new location and resurrecting a former farm usually sends a ripple of curiosity through the local community. An increase in weekend road traffic on our dead end road indicates that the neighbors are coming over for a look-see. A few of them have noticed our driveway is full of neatly stacked piles of lumber, fence posts, bricks, masonary stones, and firewood. This in turn inspires a few of them to stop by and comment, "I see you folks recycle." They then offer us items that they might have stored away for some future use, but never got around to incorporating into their own farm or homestead. Besides ending up with some very useful materials and items, we have also become friends with a number of people through these driveway interactions.

Recycling our produce packaging 

The neighbors that become our customers are encouraged to return the packaging we provide for our products. This includes egg cartons, paper bags & small boxes, and honey and canning jars. Besides helping us hold down costs, which translates into a customer savings, it teaches people to consider other ways to reuse and recycle other packaging material. For example, We also have asked folks to save polystyrene packing peanuts for us as we are using them in an insulation project on the farm.

If you have items that you would like to recycle, and you think we might be able to use them (for example, interior & exterior paint, lumber, fencing, pipe, garden hose, small wood burning stove, hand or power tools, garden tools, etc.) please go to the contact us page and send us an email message or call us at 865-354-8170.

Thanks