News from Common Ground Food Co-op

Q&A with Tanner Woods Farm
Red Barn

What does your farm name mean to you? How did you choose this name?
The name "Tanner Woods Farm" reflects historical continuity and also the different land uses on our property. At the time Jim's parents bought the property in the mid 1950s, it was known as Rankin Woods, after its owner W. C. Rankin of Western Brick Company (which produced the bricks used in construction of our house and barn and also in construction of many buildings at the University of Illinois). The farm on Mr. Rankin's property was called Rankin Woods Farm. With the passage of time since the Tanner family moved in, the property became associated with us and known locally as Tanner Woods. Hence the name "Tanner Woods Farm" continues Mr. Rankin's practice of naming the farming operation after the property itself. More than half our property is woodland, and we harvest produce from the woods as well as from our gardens. The name "Tanner Woods Farm" reflects integration of wildcrafting and agriculture in our overall operation. Our logo, a red barn with a tree behind it, symbolizes this.

Where is your farm located? How many miles do you travel to reach Common Ground?
Our farm is on the northern outskirts of Danville. We travel 35 miles to reach Common Ground

How long have you been farming?
On and off, in various ways, for over half a century. When Jim was a boy, his parents, both physicians, had a hobby/subsistence livestock operation on the property that was overseen by a full-time farmer. Jim and his brothers helped care for the animals, and also helped with hay baling, fence building, and clearing brush for pasture. Jim first earned money from produce when he was 12, by harvesting and selling asparagus to help pay his way to the 1960 Boy Scout National Jamboree. Susan learned canning in her 30's and fell in love with self-produced food. She began growing medicinal herbs for personal use in 2001. We do not grow these commercially.
    In 2001 Susan, a Master Gardener, started Earth Friendly Growers Network, whose mission is "to create and support an organization dedicated to communication, education, and implementation of gardening and farming techniques that result in high yields and pest control without the use of synthetic chemicals." Also in 2001, after two decades as a consulting environmental scientist, Jim returned to the family property and began rehabilitating the long-neglected farmstead, turning it into a sustainable agriculture operation. He joined Earth Friendly Growers, and in 2002 Susan and Jim started Tanner Woods Farm to demonstrate the viability of Production (Jim) and Marketing (Susan) in accordance with Earth Friendly's principles.

What do you grow, raise, or produce on your farm?
We're integrating natural and cultivated food production on our farm. From the "Woods," we harvest for sale wild leeks (ramps), black raspberries, blackberries, and gooseberries. For our own consumption, we get three kinds of mushroom, paw paws, walnuts, venison, squirrel, rabbit, fish, and frog legs, plus maple sap and firewood for making maple syrup. From Jim's parents' orchard, we get cherries, blueberries, gooseberries, grapes, pears, and apples. The "Farm" portion of our operation consists of a number of garden plots scattered about our farmstead, amounting to about one third of an acre in all, on which we grow most of the common vegetables that do well in our soils and climate and for which we can find a market.

What is your signature product?
Can't rightly say we have one. A key element of our approach is to grow a wide variety of things, as a hedge against crop failure, to extend the production season, and to serve various specialty markets.

Do you use organic or natural farming practices?
We use natural farming practices. As with many other small farmers who are committed to sustainable agriculture serving local markets, we like to think of what we do as "beyond organic."

What do you enjoy most about farming?
Jim: the intimate connection with the land.Susan: the intimate connection with our customers

What do you find most challenging about farming?
Jim: throwing perfectly good, naturally grown produce on the compost pile because no one's bought it. After putting so much of myself into growing it, and with so many people so poorly nourished on the modern Western diet (see Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food), I find this heartbreaking. Susan: Finding customers to buy in season. I still have people ask for tomatoes in June and salad in August.

What is your philosophy/perspective on farming and agriculture?
Jim: our production model includes:
- an economic engine driven by profit per unit area under cultivation, through succession planting, companion planting, use of trellises to grow some crops vertically, and use of growing/raised beds rather than row cropping;
- diversification and experimentation, in continual search for crops and varieties that grow and sell reasonably well under our own particular soil, micro-climate and market conditions;
- no use of artificial chemicals as fertilizers or pesticides;
- no irrigation or tilling, to conserve water and energy;
- heavy mulching (with leaves, grass clippings, and wheat straw) to suppress weeds and retain water in the soil;
- "biomechanical" weed and pest control (Jim pulls weeds by hand and hand-picks hornworms, etc.);
- all manual labor, thus no fossil fuel use, except for lawn mower for harvesting grass clippings for mulch;
- lots of salvage and re-use of materials (e.g., fence posts and wire, lumber, old machinery & tools);
- no livestock at present;
- gradual, incremental expansion totally subject to market forces, without grants, subsidies, or loans.

    Susan: our marketing model includes:
- direct sales, through a network of individuals and families plus a few restaurants and grocery stores;
- emphasis on freshness: except for items that must be harvested when they're ripe or they'll be lost, we take orders in advance, harvest the item, and deliver it, thereby having it in the customer's kitchen generally within an hour or two of when it was harvested;
- no going to farmer's market (too much wastage when produce harvested and taken to market but not sold);
- catering to "locally grown" market, with concentration on softer, more perishable fruits and veggies, greens;
- catering to groups with special dietary customs or needs, such as ethnic/religious communities, diabetics;
- growing specialty items upon request;
- eschewing agritourism;
- not a CSA: we don't sell shares up front and we leave the choice of what to buy in the customer's hands, where it should be.

    For more insight into our philosophies and practices, see Richard Manning's 2004 book, Against the Grain.

Is there anything else you'd like Common Ground members to know about your farm?
We believe people are entitled to know where and how the food they eat was grown. By appointment, we'll give customers a tour of our farm and explain in detail how we do things.