Southern Documentary Journal

In my photography practice, I attempt to celebrate what is right with the world.  This post is no exception. Against the Grain Farm is USDA certified organic.  One of the provisions of certified credentialing is that farming organic inputs cannot contain hormones or contraband chemicals.  The process is very much like anti-doping standards established for competing athletes. There is a long list of banned products. One of the best accelerating starters for compost piles is…

Holly Whitesides of Against the Grain Farm loves to teach.   She teaches not only for the joy it brings her but also for the outcome.  The closer her young and younger apprentices get to the mark, the more predictable the outcome. Case in point.  The subject for this morning’s class is “how to plant ginger” and the mark is “how to plant it right.” Rich compost has been appended to the planting zone – Check.…

  "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.'"  Genesis 8:22 The Lord promised us that that the seasons would never cease to exist; but also, there was never any promise of variance within those seasons.  He left it to farmers to manage the in-betweens – the extremes of temperature and moisture. Crop covers help mitigate these changes and add a measure…

Spring! The man pulling radishes pointed my way with a radish. --Kobayashi Issa A lowly regarded but highly cherished root crop of the spring garden shouts out “It’s Spring!”  This vegetable is a mainstream product of Against the Grain Farm for a few short weeks in the spring and a few short weeks in the fall.  Andy Bryant tells us, “it germinates quickly and we can have a crop in short order.  With good weather…

I visited our farm family friends Andy Bryant and Holly Whitesides at Against the Grain Farm last week well in advance of our North Carolina governors "Stay at Home" order. On arriving, I noticed immediately a sign that had been scotch-taped to their front storm door.  I was not surprised that there would be a sign given our challenging times but this is the first farm of all those that we follow that even had…

Saviors of the Good Stuff … in their own voices. The Orchard at Altapass is a natural sanctuary embracing the view of the Blue Ridge Mountains and a sloping orchard of old heirloom apples in tortured 100-year-old apple trees. This land is sacred. The apple barn is often described as a church within a church.  Sermons are not preached here but conspicuous are the values of knitted families and close friends.  The choirs of weekly…