Meet your farmers

At the On Farm Market, we have produce grown at our farm, as well as beef, pork, goat cheese, pecans, stone ground grits and cornmeal and granola from other local producers.

The farm is located one hour south-west of Atlanta in beautiful Pine Mountain, Georgia. Jenny and Chris Jackson, along with 5-6 farm hands, grow a generous variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers on 3 acres. In order to protect the life of our soil, as well as the health of our customers, we use no chemical fertilizers or pesticides to grow our produce. We farm to provide meaningful work for ourselves and to provide our customers with quality, naturally grown food. We are very fortunate to be able to sell all the food we produce within 30 miles of the farm. The majority is grown for our CSA, which consists of 150 families. The rest is sold at our On Farm market and through a couple of restaurants.

So it’s Jenny and Chris, not Jenny and Jack….. so what’s the deal with the name of the farm? A “Jenny” is the term for a female mule, while a male is referred to as a “Jack”. Mules are known for being strong, stubborn animals. Those are two characteristics that we feel are imperative for farmers to possess as well! We couldn’t resist the pun on our last name, Jackson.

And our daughter Tulsi, is named for a medicinal plant we grow: Holy Basil, aka Tulsi. It’s known in the Ayurvedic tradition as an adaptogen, which means it helps the body restore vitality and vigor. It’s a beautiful and delicious smelling herb that we plant around the farm because the bees love it and makes a wonderful tea.

Practices

We raise our food based mostly on the National Organic Standards but have chosen to use the more “grassroots”  Certified Naturally Grown as our certifying agency rather than the more corporate and for-profit Certified Organic. While this move is polarizing in the small farm community, we feel more connected with the scale, ethics, and farmer-to-farmer annual reviews of CNG. Growing food in the south is challenging regardless of growing practices, but without the arsenal of chemical sprays on a conventional farm, farming organically requires a combination of less harmful biological practices and constant soil-building work. Most of our crops are on a 3-5 year crop rotation, with each of our 25 fields growing a soil-stabilizing, nutrient-building cover crop for a portion of the year.

We purchase and distribute high grade compost on all of our growing fields every other year. Based on soil tests taken in the fall, we amend each of our growing beds with bagged minerals needed for optimal growing conditions. Even with so much focus and energy emptied into our soil, we still have issues with pests, disease, and other unforeseen, nefarious imbalances. Using CNG best practices as our guide, we do spray OMRI-approved, plant-based pesticides and fungicides to counter pest infestations and unideal situations that might lead to crop failure. Growing a diverse selection of veggies allows us to minimize risk, and being full-time, in-the-field farmers gives us a leg up in implementing better management practices before nature.