Produce

At Barger Farms, we select each seed, plant variety, and method with careful consideration. We look at each grow season using a systematic process to optimize our yield while creating excellent product that will go on the tables of our family, friends, and customers.

All of our plants begin as seedlings in our repurposed wash house that was built in the 1930s. This now modern grow house allows our seedlings to mature before transplanting giving them a higher chance of survival against the ever-unpredictable Tennessee weather and local wildlife. We use automated lighting to give consistent, repeatable results. Some afternoons you might even find a little classical music playing in the background. (Although we don’t personally have data this improves quality or quantity, it makes us feel like we are giving our plants their best fighting chance.)

Once mature, the plants are then transplanted into our garden where we use ground cover and manual methods of weed control rather than herbicides to reduce our dependence on commercial inputs. Each item in our garden is hand-picked at the peak of ripeness. From there our plants are sold or preserved.

To reduce waste, we compost, make vegetable stock, and feed the remainder to the chickens—making sure that all parts of the plant are utilized.