Chapter 1: Intro

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0:17the one aspect that we really wanted with our farm is for it to be beautiful we feel like sometimes we're a an arboretum as a

0:26farm it's what helps me to wake up every day and get excited about the

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0:32farm uh we are 25 minutes north of Greensboro which is the third largest city in North Carolina and it's awesome

0:39because our farm is right off of a main thare that goes right downtown so for our customers coming out of town to visit our farm it's a straight shot and

0:48we wanted it to be a attraction our driveways are basically put in to where we could have access to all of our green houses but it serves a

0:57purpose for the entrance it gives them a really good good view of our farm what's happening they can see in the green houses they can see our field

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1:06crops we really wanted a farm that was as beautiful as it is productive we are home bodies and we

1:14really want our home to be like an oasis I'm not sure if we're building a

1:22legacy of something that might be here after me to pass on to someone else but we sure are enjoying it

1:35my name is David Williams uh the name of our farm is Sunset Market Gardens we are located in ped mon Tri of

Chapter 2: Farm Overview

1:43North Carolina we are year round production we are in our seventh year we grow a mixed variety of

1:52vegetables hand tended we sell all of our produce through a store on our

2:01farm we also do pasture raise eggs we are on 13 acres we cultivate

2:11half an acre we're are no two and most of our production is done under plastic which really helps us to get an early

2:19start and to help grow through the winter we started farming cuz we wanted

Chapter 3: Why We Started Farming

2:30to grow healthy food for my family first and then our size is just gotten bigger to where it could be a sustainable

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2:42income we have great confidence in knowing that people buy our products that there's only one outcome that could happen and that's good for their health

2:50uh cuz we understand you are what you eat we really love the fact that people come in and talk about how our food maybe has changed their life how maybe

2:58they've never tasted lettuce like hours before AR tomato farming is not always lucrative but you know when people give you that

3:06feedback it means a lot for me my day starts early every

Chapter 4: Our Day to Day

3:14morning I like to have some time to myself every day um before my kids get up before the house gets

3:21bustling and then 7:00 we go out feed the chickens let the chickens out and then we move quickly into eating

3:28breakfast and on to the farm work um our employees show up and we get right at it we're open for the market here on our

3:37farm from 4:00 to 600 on Wednesdays and then we have a Saturday morning so our Harvest are dictated by the crops

3:44themselves or for those markets and then we try to get off early enough so that I have time for our

3:52family it's very important for us we're a homeschooling family we have four kids my younger kids are are just

4:00thrilled to be outside with what's happening what's growing they love walking around and

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4:09eating my 18 is our store manager has been for the last several years um and my 16 is part-time

4:18help they sell the produce they take people's money they help pack their bags so they're in direct relationship with

4:25every customer that walks in the doors so our sons are highly involved than what we

4:35do our farm store started in Fall of 18 we started it off of the idea that we wanted to be able to sell our produce on

Chapter 5: Our Farm Store

4:44our own without a farmers market after 2 years of the market we come to the thought process I don't know that this is long-term

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4:55sustainable we' already gained a lot of recognition and um following at the market so when Co happened and the

5:03market was shut down they were able to come to our farm and find out that we have a lot of different items that they would normally find at the Farmers

5:11Market at our store it was just the Whirlwind that we

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5:19needed so on our farm we have nine tunnels three of them are high tunnels

Chapter 6: Tunnels

5:26we also have five farming friends Gothic and we have 12 120 by 40 prop

5:33house the farming friends have been great we love the fact that they're inexpensive they're easy to put up and

5:40we can make a lot of money under one the return rate is really high for what you have in the tunnel versus what can be

5:48produced under it we have had two incidences where we've had damage because of wind and um looking back we

5:56trying to figure out why what happened and mostly it was because of the in walls given away so we have shed up our in walls and we've gone through wind

6:04storms now and not had any issues the other aspect besides the in walls that we've done is we've put

6:10rollup sides saved a ton of time of walking up and down each side and manually pulling plastic up putting it

6:19down the tunnels give us an edge over our competitors to have things very early and very late Everything grows

6:28better uh in a tunnel we love the way of life of living off

Chapter 7: Conclusion

6:37the land being connected having my hands in the soil every day I love the connection that we have

6:45by selling food to our community there's nothing that's been more challenging in my life than growing organic

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6:56vegetables the good life for me is waking up every day uh living a dream I feel like every day I wake up and walk

7:03outside of my house that my dream is sitting there looking me right back in the face um to be able to do what I love

7:11what I have a passion for what drives me what excites me to be able to have something that challenges me um to do it

7:20with my

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7:25family all the hard work that we've put in over the last seven years building our farm has been worth all the struggle

7:33um farming is not easy but it's a very fulfilling life I would say to anyone wanting to

7:41start to just uh sit down make a nice plan try to plan as much as possible but take that jump and and go for it um I

7:49think if you Market yourself well and have a good location that there's endless possibilities for selling vegetables to the

7:58community

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8:13hi guys I'm Jonathan with farmer friend if you enjoyed this video hit the like button and subscribe to see more inspiring stories like this to learn more about our Innovative small farm

8:21tools and supplies like easy to assemble Greenhouse kits flame weeders and a lot more check out our website at Farmers friend.com