This week at the Corner Farmers Market, we’ll have ever popular duck legs and duck breasts, as well as weird and wonderful duck wings and chicken skin “chips.” If you’re thinking about reserving a turkey or duck for Thanksgiving or Christmas, now is certainly the time!

We’ll also continue to have an assortment of baby greens, which are great for both fresh eating and for stir-fries! Bunched Greens are back too, and you can find kale, bok choy, arugula, cilantro, and parsley!

This week on social media, we’ve been sharing a little bit about our farm’s origin story—how we met and how we first became farmers. Check out the first chapters below!

As always, you can find us at the Corner Farmers Market from 8-11am. You can find all 5 of us at the table tomorrow, and we hope to see you there! Happy Friday!

Our Origin Story

This week we wanted to share with you a little bit about our journey to full-time farming. People often ask us how and why we started farming. In fact, it’s the most frequently asked question when meeting new people at farmers markets and festivals. Even friends who don’t know our story sometimes ask us how we got things started, and we always begin with this:

We met in Peru in 2011 (see the photo from that time, which includes our friend, Kristen). We were both studying abroad there for the summer, but from different universities. After a very short summer romance, we dated long distance for our final year of college, and then Jason moved to NC in 2012. When we first graduated school, we had no real idea of what we wanted to do, since we’d decided that it wasn’t grad school and it wasn’t anthropology. We both have farmers in our families, but didn’t grow up farming in any committed way, and hadn’t yet formed our clear idea of nutrition, health, or land stewardship. In 2012, Emma started working as a teacher’s assistant and Jason started work at an ornamental plants nursery. We quickly realized that we wanted enough space to grow a sizeable garden and for us, this meant finding our own plot of land out in the country so that we could grow and expand once we started our family. The home and land we own now is in Stokes county, pretty close to nothing. 😉 We moved here in 2013, and started with a small flock of laying chickens and 4 geese–3 of which are still part of our flock today. We got married in September of 2014 and later that same year we started expanding, beginning with ducks!

Our Journey to Full Time
Farmers: Part 1

When we bought our land in 2013, there was absolutely no infrastructure for a farm. It was a simple red brick house on a plot of land with some open pasture but primarily wooded. We got started quickly with our first vegetable garden, and got going on a small flock of laying chickens and a quartet of geese.

In 2014, we decided to branch out and raise ducks because of their delicious and nutrient dense eggs. By this time, we had begun to think more seriously about the the foods we ate, especially as we considered starting a family. As many things go, what starts with a little bit ends up with a lot…

We enjoyed raising the ducks for their eggs so much, that when a friend asked if we would be interested in raising ducks for meat, we started to consider it. After trying some of the ducks from our original laying flock, we were completely on board with raising ducks for meat. That same year, we decided to branch out with heritage turkeys for Thanksgiving, and with that decision we became actual first generation farmers. At the time we didn’t imagine that we would ever be able to quit our day jobs, or that the farm life that we were establishing would be sustainable, but we enjoyed working with the animals and the land enough to try. After the first full year of raising our birds on pasture, we started to realize that what we had going was pretty exciting… It was tough to find quality meat locally, and you can simply forget about finding quality poultry when searching in a grocery store! It became important for us to consider raising most of the meat that we ate, so that we could ensure our health and the health of our future children. What began as an exciting time spent testing the waters of farming, turned into a passion and a consideration for the future, and somehow, 2 careers.

This Week’s Mixed Greens

This week we return with our Spicy Mix, the Fall Mesclun Mix, and a Lettuce Mix. We’ll also have baby kale, new this week!

This Week’s Bunched Greens

If larger, bunched greens are what you’re looking for on our table, you can find kale, arugula, bok choy, cilantro, parsley, and maybe even a few more green goodies!

Fall Foliage Feature:
Highbush Cranberry

What lovely fall foliage from these fantastic natives… Highbush cranberries! These bright red leaves appear each fall, after this shrub yeilds small, tart cranberries earlier in the year. Ready to add some color to your fall landscape? Come by and grab one this Saturday at @cornermarketgso!

5 Weeks Till Thanksgiving!

As dusk approaches, the turkeys like to get high. If you show up too close to dark, you have a much harder time getting them back down and into the coop. That roost instinct is no joke, and man can they get airborne! 😉

If you haven’t yet reserved your bird for this Thanksgiving or Christmas, click here to get on it! Thanksgiving is closer than you think, and with the busyness of the holiday season approaching, now is a great time to go ahead and reserve your Thanksgiving heritage turkey.