Small Rain Farm produces high quality vegetable and herb starts, seedlings and perennial plants and seeds.
Our varietal selection consists of seeds that are from seed growers in the North and Southeast U.S. such as Truelove Seeds, Sistah Seeds, Southern Exposure, Ujamaa and High Mowing Seeds. We are also starting to grow out our own seed and replant, hoping to promote plants that are bioregionally adapated. In addition to some standard and non-traditional varietals, we focus on varieties that are culturally relevant to communities we are in relationship with.
Small Rain Farm exists to nurture the land, grow within community and live out ancestral agrarian possibilities.
“small rain”
The name of the farm come from a passage I highlighted long ago in Eloquence of the Scribes by Ghanian writer Ayi Kwei Armah:
“...Something about the name they had chosen for their group spoke directly to me, humbling me. They called their troupe Medupe. I asked what the word meant. “Small rain,” Malesa Lebelo said, before Dumakude ka Ndlovu added that farmers where they lived distinguished between two types of rain. One type was violent, spectacular, pouring down tremendous torrents in a short period, sweeping away topsoil, uprooting fragile vegetation, causing erosion, making gullies and ravines. Big, useless rain. Small rain, on the other hand, fell slowly, so softly it felt like mist. Lasting hours and days on end, it could moisten soil for planting, and irrigate growing crops without damaging land. It was the kind of rain that did the groundwork for future harvests. The children from Soweto wanted their poetry to do that kind of patient, slow, long-term, practically invisible preparatory work.”
I hope the work of growing and caring for the land, wherever my feet stand, is fueled by that slow, patient, practical and life-giving work.
farm practices
We take pride in using approaches to growing that hold the land and our community equally in consideration. We use low-till methods when necessary and love to use cover cropping in all seasons in order to continue to break through our rocky soil and to add back in organic material. We when we arrived to this patch of land, the soil was OK but needed some love. There are many beautiful quartz rocks in our soil which is great for perennial bed borders but not so much for creating permanent beds with light, fluffy topsoil. So we have add lots of compost and continue to cover the soil with cover crops or tarps when not in use. Though we are not certified organic, we do not use any harmful pesticides. We have been lucky to not have huge pest issues but tend to spend afternoons picking critters off plants when needed.
In the greenhouse, we happily use Dirtcraft Organic seedling mixes. They have proven to ensure that the plant babes have the best chance of germination and thriving before they go into your pots or yard at home.
