0:12Hi I'm Gordon, I'm Vera, and I'm Luke... And we're Ten Mothers Farm. We farm just under an acre in Cedar Grove North Carolina.

0:23We grow food for 124 households in Durham Chapel Hill and the surrounding area

0:37We didn't have access to land... we hadn't grown up farming. We start out leasing land. We found a really great lease opportunity and leased a farm for three years.

0:48Last year in the summer of 2018 we were really lucky to find the piece of land that were on now that we bought with three friends of ours,

0:55we all bought it together, so we're starting a sort of little mini farm commune out here.

1:00We really wanted to start out on permanent land. We wanted to plant perennials. We wanted to you know put down tons of compost and really invest

1:08in the soil... But starting out it just wasn't an option for us financially and we knew we wanted to start the farm quickly. We didn't have time to find

1:17the right land. Though I was impatient to buy land, I feel like in hindsight I feel really grateful for having rented land to start out. I think we would have

1:26bought the wrong property... But in the end we wound up with sort of our dream set up with this property. We had talked to our friend Luke about possibly farming together,

1:35and this year we were lucky enough for him to decide to join us, particularly in a moment when we were moving the farm onto new land.

1:43And it seemed like a really natural time for me to jump in and both help them develop the new farm space, and really see what it would be like to farm as a team.

1:55When we started the business we thought we were gonna be a farmers market farm,

1:58but the two best farmers markets around here were totally full, so we wound up going the CSA direction, which is not what we had originally thought, but has wound up being really great for us.

2:15Our CSA is different from others in that it's a customizable box. So each week we have the seven vegetables that we want to harvest and and that's the default,

2:26but members who, say, aren't very excited about arugula that week, but are really excited about kale, can swap out the arugula and put in kale instead.

2:37Every box has the members name on it. It says what's going in that box, and then as we're moving down the packing line we're putting each item that each member

2:44has ordered, folding it up, putting it in the walk-in cooler, and then delivering it twice a week.

2:50One of our key strategies for starting the farm has been that Vera has had an off farm job for the last six years through the whole length

2:57of the farm up to this point, because we were able to pay our living expenses from Vera's off farm job, and all of our profits from the farm we could put back into the business.

3:07It's worked out and we're now finally at a point where the business is stable enough that Vera's gonna be coming onto the farm full-time.

3:14I think another thing that's really unique is that there's three of us that are trying to run the farm together.

3:18You know, me joining the farm was this idea of collaborating and trying to do it communally, which means you're both working on growing the vegetables, but you're

3:26also working on growing relationships, and I think that's really important and can be challenging at times, but often much more fruitful at the end.

3:42We knew we wanted to put up high tunnels as quickly as we could, because everything grows better in a tunnel. We have yet to find something that doesn't

3:51grow better in a tunnel. But since we were on rented land, you know, we weren't in a position to put in a big permanent structure, and caterpillar tunnels were a great solution for us.

4:04We even use a caterpillar tunnel as our barn right now that we put up because it's cheap covered space to keep our tools and all of our supplies protected.

4:17It was an easy choice choosing Farmers Friend tunnels because they were the most affordable and the easiest to assemble. I mean it just is like kind of a no-brainer!

4:33For us, you know, farming is not just about growing food, it's about the community.

4:39Farming with our friends and neighbors, you know, we're able to help each other out. We can we can put up a deer fence together. If, you know, someone needs to bring in a harvest before frost every one can pitch in.

4:50Farming is about community for us with our customers too. It takes a lot of people to support a farm, And a farm has many opportunities for people to connect.

5:03To me small-scale farming is important because I think it brings access for people, and it brings resilience I think. I think many small farms are very people focused, and that's something that I really value.

5:19We need a lot more people to go into farming... and a lot of our farmers are retiring so we need more young people to go into farming.

5:30I think small-scale farms are important because they can grow a really incredible amount of food.

5:37We feed 124 families off of less than an acre, and you know, it's clear that land is getting more expensive and more precious,

5:45and we're gonna need a lot more people farming, and farming this way, in order to grow enough vegetables to keep everyone healthy and happy.

5:56As a former teacher, I really love helping people feel connected to nature

6:03and the land through the food that they eat. I feel like if we can help if we can help our customers with that, then we've done our jobs well.