How a dream became a mission
For those of you who know me, you know I have dreamed and planned and worked for this small scale Nursery and Market farm. My goal has been to provide healthy flavorful food to our local community. I’ve had a garden to some degree for nearly 20 years. I grow vegetables, culinary herbs, medicinal herbs, flowers, and wildflowers, without any chemicals. My focus has always been on raising heirloom and heritage varieties because I love the variety of colors, textures and aromas.
In 2016, I, my children and even my animals became ill. It’s a long story, which I will share from time to time. But know this, this little market garden, which became chickens, then pigs, then a homestead, saved my life, in so many ways.
I moved the family to Tennessee the winter of 2018-2019. We found a little piece of land perfect for a market garden. In the first two years here in TN, I walked the property nearly every day. I worked and scrimped and saved to pay off the land. No movies, no Netflix, no Pizza, just work and study. I studied how to grow nutrient-dense food in poor soils because this land has no topsoil and nearly all the native plants showed signs of nutrient deficiency or suffered from diseases. I had never seen anything like it before. In my studies, I came to understand the troubles we have growing food here in the US and around the world. The value of good soil and how it supports healthy plants. The devalued produce from the store, which I could never have imagined being something to worry about.
As I am learning all this, the garden became a farm turned homestead, then the pandemic struck. Growing scarcity in the food chain didn’t scare me as much as most, because we had seeds, a place to grow them, chickens and pigs. This whole time my heart has broken for people living without access to security.
Now, my dream has changed. I want to share with you what I have learned. How healing ourselves and healing the soil, being one and the same will give us all security in our homes and in our food. I’d like to share with you how to grow and raise your own food, how to preserve and have nutrient-dense foods in your pantry, or how to build a pantry.
As I share my journey with you, I hope you will share your journey with me.
Happy Gardening!
Teri Storey
2021! This is going to be an exciting year. Follow along to see how our little farm grows!
Teri’s Bio
Teri Storey of Storey’s in the Dirt, Nursery & Farm, in Pulaski, TN. She is a mother, writer, educator, lifelong gardener turned farmer turned homesteader. As a Land Manager and Consultant, Teri has travelled and lived in many places. Throughout her travels, she was able to maintain a garden to some degree, in pots on the patio, a spare room converted to a “Green Room”, community gardens, her back yard, and (where she could get away with it) the front yard. At one point she even had a Begonia she travelled with. Just like her Subaru, she thought it would live forever. In 2018, while recovering from a serious illness, she started Storey’s in the Dirt, Nursery and Farm. She leased an acre for the garden and started carrying nursery starts and produce to the market. This was her first exposure to uncontrolled disease in vegetable production in her own garden. It was also her first year, not intercropping or companion planting.
After this year in the garden, Teri’s health was greatly improved, and so in January 2019, she moved her family to Tennessee to be close to her father, Aunt’s and Uncles. She located four acres which suited the desire to continue the market garden. These first two years she walked the property nearly every day, to learn the native plants, weeds, wind, sun, rain, and consider where she wanted to plant the garden. Nearly every day, she discovered something new. A mushroom, a flower, an insect, and signs that something was seriously wrong. The plants showed signs of nutrient deficiency and diseases, the quality of the plants was poor. She potted up a few plants and they were almost immediately suffering from diseases, a first for her. Bear in mind she had never seen so much rain in one year, as a gardener. The water was rolling right over the surface and taking what little topsoil existed with it.
She dusted off the old thinking cap and devoured everything should get her hands on relating to Soil improvement, health, function and Plant health, function, and immunity. A monster was created! In recent decades and years, major understandings have developed in how soils and plants work. Not that these are new ideas, just new understandings. Long-running experiments have resulted in tangible evidence around how soils and plants function. Teri has been like a pig in mud, loving every minute of it. Join her as she takes this new to her knowledge and puts the experiments and ideas to practice on her homestead.