Taylor Family Organics

In 2000, my son James suddenly became very ill. He had contracted a lung infection, later called ARDS, acute respiratory distress syndrome. The mortality is 50%, very high. In fact, the doctors had not expected him to survive for the first 3 days. He was in the hospital in an induced coma for about 2 weeks. To say the least, it was a life-altering experience for our family. Because of the permanent lung damage and susceptibility to future bouts of pneumonia, I realized that his immune system needed to be strengthened; it needed a healthy source of nutrition and perhaps supplementation to make it strong enough to fight off infections. So I went to work looking for ways to help him. He was only 15 at the time.

I think we all have those "ah ha" moments when we finally come to a stark realization. And mine came during some exhaustive research. When I realized what is put on and in our food, our bath, body and beauty products (yes even skin care and makeup), and our water and soil, I was appalled! I began reading as many articles and books as I could to try to "get around" my son consuming these death-dealing, health-robbing chemicals. I subscribed to Acres Magazine, among others, and read articles on food production, natural pesticides, herbicides, CSA programs and many other topics. I wanted to start an organic farm, not only for my family, but for others seeking healthy food. There are so few healthy food choices, and many question the ones we do have because we simply don't know where they came from, from what conditions they were grown, and harvested or how far the food has traveled to get to the grocery store. So with so much land laying fallow, I began to encourage my son, James to farm. Although we've had very little experience farming, I knew that we could make a go of it because of our passion, and because we knew that this is what people needed, even if they didn't know it yet.

After being laid off of work the second time, James realized that he needed to make a change. So begins our journey into the farming world. Last year was a success. We had 50 members our first year! That is a phenomenal achievement. And we made the agricultural history books by being the very first in Johnston County to be organically certified. During the winter of '09-'10, James has been reading magazine articles and books trying to find ways to organically feed the soil, how to increase sustainability, and how to grow in a greenhouse during the winter months without heat. He has read Elliot Coleman's book, The Winter Harvest Handbook, and with Elliot's advice in tow, he has been treating the soil with a horse manure compost to increase viability and production, and he has also put row covers in the field to increase yields of early producing plants.

We are busy building an herb and lettuce garden, and we've planned a flower garden as a beneficial bug habitat. This will increase pollenation, decrease detrimental insect populations and beautify the fields. Plus this is a sustainable gardening practice. We've added more produce to our calendar, and a few off the calendar, so members may get a few surprises in their boxes this year. We're also planning to sponsor "member days" where members can come help with various chores. This is the perfect opportunity to teach children where their food comes from, how things grow and they can take home a potted seed and watch it grow. These events will help us tremendously preventing the need for hired labor which keeps our cost down. We hope that many will participate in these events.

I can't tell you how much we enjoyed working to provide our members with fresh, organic produce last year. And we look forward to a wonderful year in 2010. We have made a lot of changes, and we will continue to do so. But hopefully, these changes will improve upon last year.

We are just starting our 2010 year, so more information and photos will be coming soon!