Tom and I planted our first garden at Stagebridge Farrm in Spring 2020. That first year we experimented with many fruits and vegetables. We loved being able to pick lettuce or tomatoes in the morning and enjoy a great salad for dinner. But we had always planned on growing enough produce to sell at the local Farmers’ Market in Nellysford. We found the reality was trickier than the idea, however. We needed to have enough product to sell, and time our harvesting so that fruit was ready for Saturday’s market. We don’t use pesticides, and while our produce tasted great, it wasn’t always attractive (blistered tomatoes, or slightly wormy ears of corn).
We couldn’t have imagined that it would be our funny, ornamental gourds that would be our debut at the market. In late September, we loaded up gourds with names like Goblin Eggs, Superfreak Goonies, UFOs, and Speckled Swans and headed out. We were welcomed by other vendors and loved meeting patrons at the market, especially kids who were so intrigued by these odd colorful plants.
That first Saturday, we made $161. We were thrilled, and joked that if we returned every Saturday for the next 50 years, our farm just might break even!
