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Subject: Market Farming

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  • From: "Dori Green" <dorigreen00 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: market-farming Corn
  • Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 10:43:27 -0400


I grow specialty mini-corn (seed from Gurney's) and open-pollinated heirloom "Indian" (flour) corn, some of which I sell as ornamental at 50c per ear (that's $6 per dozen, guys). I don't bother with regular sweet corn -- space and nutrition hogs, and there's that whole dab-it-with-mineral-oil-at-just-the-right-time deal. Ugh. And if my goats get into it, they'd bloat right up. Nah, not for this hardscrabble hilltop.

My CSA customers love sweet corn, so I hold out some of their membership and buy some from an "organic" grower down in the valley. This guy is growing on old riverfront tobacco fields that were in a commercial corn-tomato rotation for about 20 years. The regular river floodings bring plenty of rich silt and all of the Sevin and other stuff from the upstream commercial farms, plus of course the outflow from the old PA coal mines. Yummy. I don't eat the stuff myself. Sometimes I wish I hadn't educated myself about my food. He isn't certified but he probably could be -- I've served on a certification board and his basic management practices are by-the-Rodale-book. It's just too bad that his land is so damaged.

My mini corn gets a premium price, sets 20-40 ears per plant. I put a lot into my freezer to satisfy that occasional craving, and it brings people over to my stand even if they don't buy it.

I do NOT allow people to handle the produce. Losses from the pinchers and pokers almost put me out of business when I first started. But I'm a rascally curmudgeon to begin with, and it's part of my mystique and charm.
While I'm paying the mortgage, the taxes, the insurance premiums, and the operating expenses, I get to make the rules. That's appropriate. Just because I'm nuts enough to be willing to share my home with other people doesn't mean that I have to let them walk all over me.

The guy who found my listing in the area visitor's guide and called at 10:30 at night (waking this farmer who's up at 4:30 every morning to do chores) to ask what he would see on a visit was simply asked if he had business questions please call back during business hours. I did not offer to make an appointment for a tour. He hasn't called back, I'm crushed (not).

We are in fact open for tours now but if he didn't have a better idea than that about (un)common courtesy I don't want him wandering around. Go figure.

If their mothers didn't teach them better behavior they can stay out of my life. Viva diversity. I now unplug my phone at 9:00 and my family members know to send the sheriff in case of a true emergency.

I guess in my old age I'm getting a bit tougher. I hope I don't become hard in the process. Sometimes it's a balancing act.

Dori Green
Ash Grove Community Farm & Center for Sustainable Living
Corning, NY

http://www.ic.org/agrove


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  • Re: market-farming Corn, Dori Green, 04/26/2001

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