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164: Tom Kumpf of Double-T Farm on Right-Sizing the Farm, Rolling with the Punches, and Making the Transition to Full-Time Farming

3/29/2018

2 Comments

 
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Tom Kumpf raises about four acres of vegetables at Double-T Farm in Garner, North Carolina, just south of Raleigh. Double-T Farm markets through a CSA, restaurants, and a small neighborhood farmers market.

Farming full time since 2008, and part time for many years before that, Tom and his wife, Theresa Ryan, have seen their share of transitions, from farmland transitions and suburban encroachment to changes in the local food and CSA marketplaces. Tom shares the story of how they’ve responded to these changes, and how rolling with the punches led him to think hard about how to right-size his farm and about his approach to his farm production systems.

Along the way, Tom digs in to how he got his first lessons in organic farming from PBS, the parallels between farming and teaching, and some thoughts about evaluating success on the farm.

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Quotes from the Show

I took a number of years to really learn to do what I was doing. Even then I still made mistakes and all that.

So I had the time to kind of hone my skills without any real pressure other than just saying, "Well I don't have as many tomatoes to take to market today as I had last week.”

I'm just going to stick to what I can do, and leave it at that. And if it's not a million thousand dollars a month coming in the door, so be it. Whatever.


When you have the room to spread out, you can cultivate faster, you can plant faster, you can harvest quicker.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode is brought to you byEarth Tools, offering the most complete selection of walk-behind farming equipment and high-quality garden tools in North America. And by Osborne Quality Seeds, a dedicated partner for growers.  Visitosborneseed.com for high quality seed, industry-leading customer service, and fast order fulfillment. Additional funding for transcripts provided byNorth Central SARE, providing grants and education to advance innovations in Sustainable Agriculture.
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2 Comments
Gustavo
3/29/2018 07:32:42 am

I think what you're doing is very cool. We need more people talking about farming, harvesting. I personally dislike podcasts I believe videos are great you can see people and their reactions about a subject matter. Thank you.

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Wesley
3/31/2018 07:02:25 am

Wonderful chance if pace this episode. I to played in a small neighborhood greenhouse. Helped in the backyard garden, which everyone had in the 60s. Watched PBS garden shows, but the topper was one of my first jobs was filling those book club orders! I got all my books from there and still use many of them today. Thanks for shaking out the cobweb in my mind.
Scranton, Pa.

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