Chapter 1: Intro

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0:15hi I'm Tori and this is my husband Casey we're Honey Tree Farm we're a one and a half acre Market Garden in the Foothills in North Carolina

0:25we primarily sell to markets we do Market in Charlotte a market in Hickory and a market in Boone it's a food Hub and we also sell to restaurants and we

0:33also sell from our farm

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0:38and we've been farming here in Conover North Carolina for four years and we grow over 40 different varieties

0:47of vegetables and we're certified naturally grown we grow year round

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1:01yeah when we first bought this property it was 100 grass there were no tunnels no infrastructure no irrigation just a

1:10little well for the house so we've pretty much built everything from scratch ourselves

Chapter 2: Cooler

1:20the cooler was the first thing we built just having the wash and pack in the metal building over there and then the

1:29cooler in the garage the infrastructure was already here when we moved here so I think it just made sense to to utilize those spaces and put those

1:38there the cooler is protected the wash station stays dry and the driveway in between them so we can wheel things from

1:46the wash station to the cooler

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Chapter 3: Wash Station

1:53our wash station it's a multi-functional building and we used it to cure all of our garlic and onions that we grew this

2:02spring we've got 14 tunnels 150-ish beds part of that is on our at least landed

2:09raisinger's Farm where we have about 40 beds

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2:39the first time I heard about farming this style we actually lived in Ohio at the time and I was doing like landscaping and cell removal and stuff

2:47and I had a friend named Elliot come over and he was telling me he's like man there's this couple in Canada that makes 100 some Grand on an acre and I was like

2:55nah I've been in landscaping forever I was like there's no way we ended up moving to North Carolina and

3:03we were like homesteading and growing our own food and we both had like corporate jobs and came across that book he told me about the market Gardener and

3:10I read it and was like I think that's actually possible yeah a lot of sense yeah we converted our garden over to like 30

3:20inch beds and we're planning things more intensively and we're like two CSA customers yeah

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3:36we found a farm to table event business that wanted to start a Market Garden so we took that opportunity and sold our house and sold everything we had and

Chapter 4: Farm to Table

3:45bought a camper to live in yeah and uh yeah I lived on their farm and built their Market Garden

3:52did that for like a year and realized that's what we wanted to do and then looked for property found this place and

4:00the rest is history a typical week for us we Harvest and

Chapter 5: Typical Week

4:11wash for the food Hub that we produce for in Boone Tuesdays are kind of our main bed prep

4:19and planting day so we have the whole crew here to make sure everything gets done there and then Wednesdays and

4:27Thursdays our main Harvest and wash pack days and then Friday again is another big bed prep and planting day and then

4:35we do farm pickups here at our farm and then we also on Saturdays go to the Hickory Farmers Market I go there and

4:44then Casey goes to the Charlotte Farmers Market

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Chapter 6: Tunnels

4:51the the tunnels are a big part of the allow us to grow all year they allow us to keep the crops dry when we do get

4:58two inch of rain and 30 minute thunderstorms in July in the summer the plastic actually

5:05Shades the crops and it creates a little bit of a cooler environment provided that it's vented they've been they've been huge for us yeah I think overall

5:13the tunnels just offer us a lot more control over how we grow and we notice that

5:21everything just grows so much better in the tunnels my best advice is to start small and do

Chapter 7: Advice

5:30what you can handle and just take it on in small chunks because the bigger you try and get in the beginning without having all your infrastructure buttoned

5:38up or team members to help you just the more overwhelmed you're going to be and the farther behind you're going to get so just start small and really get that

5:47dialed in before you grow expect to fail on a lot of things

Chapter 8: Expectations

5:55it's just normal there's nothing bad about it learning how plants grow and how everything works is better than

6:01following some type of ideology and also don't be afraid to ask for help

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6:09I think the good life is being able to work with Tori every day we've made our own work environment

6:16where we can do kind of what we want I mean there's we have to be serious about stuff but it's fun

Chapter 9: The Good Life

6:27to me the good life is just the freedom to do what I want

6:33pretty much whenever I want it but yeah we we have fun and we get a lot

6:41of work done but it's super rewarding what we do I always love hearing compliments from our customers and how much they

6:48appreciate us and that that makes it all worth it one of the things that our goal sheets that we always have is live our

6:57own life so that's what we're doing thank you

7:09thank you