Growing the Good Life Farmstand

Growing the Good Life Farmstand We’re growing food in a 3/4 acre market garden in western North Carolina.

04/18/2026

I’m excited to share that we will be at the Kings Mountain Farmers Market every Saturday starting April 25!

We will have flower bouquets, veggie starts, and vegetables, so come see us!

01/18/2026

I'm gonna be real with you…
Not everyone wants to run a charity fundraiser. And that's totally okay.
But whether you:

Need extra income
Want to offset what you spend on your own garden
Just love sharing plants with your community

This model WORKS.
And in a world where a single tomato can cost $2 at the grocery store… teaching people to grow their own food while making some money yourself?
That's powerful. 💪
I'm running a $5,000 seedling sale this spring and documenting EVERYTHING on my YouTube channel—the legal stuff, the marketing, the chaos of sale day, all of it.

🎬 Search "Growing the Good Life" on YouTube for the full video!

Have you ever thought about selling plants? What's held you back? I'm curious 👇

01/07/2026

Be honest with yourself: how much time do you really have?
Grow lights demand daily attention—checking moisture, adjusting heights, monitoring temps, hardening off. Winter sowing? Plant it, set it outside, and walk away until spring.
If you're starting hundreds of seeds (or just living a normal, busy life), winter sowing the right varieties gives you your time back for the crops that actually need the grow light treatment.
Full video breaking down when to use each method is on my YT channel 🌱

01/04/2026

This one word on your seed packet changes EVERYTHING about how you should start that seed. 🌱
Save this for when you're planning your seed starting! The full video with my complete seed sorting framework drops this Monday."

12/31/2025

Storm prep mode: ACTIVATED. 🌬️
We've got high winds and freezing temps rolling in tonight, so I spent the afternoon getting all my ranunculus beds tucked under low tunnels.

700+ corms are in the ground right now. These represent months of work. Thousands of dollars in future bouquets. All of it protected by some wire hoops and frost cloth.

Low tunnels are one of the best investments I've made for my cut flower garden. They're inexpensive to set up, easy to move around, and can add 8-10 degrees of frost protection—which is often the difference between "thriving" and "total loss."
These ranunculus are going to be the stars of my spring bouquets. I'm not about to let one cold snap take them out.
Anyone else battening down the hatches tonight? What are you protecting?

12/30/2025

I just picked $47 worth of Cherokee Purple tomatoes from ONE plant that cost me $3.50 as a start. Meanwhile, Whole Foods wants $6.99/lb for theirs. Let's talk about the varieties that give you the biggest return on your garden investment... 👇

12/29/2025

Real talk: I planted 700 ranunculus this fall.
If I'd dug every single hole by hand like I used to? I'd still be out there. 😅
Instead, I used a garden auger bit (about $15, attaches to any drill) and knocked out bed after bed in minutes instead of hours. This video shows me prepping 150 holes in one bed in under 10 minutes.
By spring, these will be some of the first flowers ready for our Blooms & Blessings bouquets. Ranunculus have those gorgeous, papery, rose-like petals that everyone falls in love with—pinks, peaches, yellows, deep burgundies.
Growing flowers isn't just beautiful. It can be profitable too. And little tools like this make it actually sustainable to do at scale without breaking your body.
Anyone else use an auger for planting? Or am I late to this party? 🙋‍♀️

12/23/2025

They say winter is for resting. My garden didn't get the memo.
Yesterday was the first day of winter, and I walked outside to harvest scallions for our eggs, cut celery that's been producing since APRIL, and picked kale and chard for a salad. Oh, and grabbed fresh parsley, sage, and rosemary for dinner.
Here's the thing that might surprise you: none of these plants have been covered since fall. They've seen temperatures down to 14°F. No row covers. No cold frames. No greenhouse. Just good variety selection and a little Zone 8A luck.
If you've been putting your garden to bed for winter, I want you to rethink that. With the right plants, you can be eating fresh, homegrown food in January, February, even March.

What's still growing in YOUR winter garden? Drop a comment—I'd love to know what's working for you.

I ran an experiment on dinner this week.I made one of my favorite recipes — Allison Roman's Dilly Bean Stew with Cabbage...
12/22/2025

I ran an experiment on dinner this week.
I made one of my favorite recipes — Allison Roman's Dilly Bean Stew with Cabbage and Frizzled Onions from her cookbook "Something From Nothing" — and I priced it out three completely different ways.

Same recipe. Same ingredients. Three different approaches to getting them.

Here's what I found:
🛒 CONVENIENCE (Ingles — closest store, no planning)

Yellow onion: $0.75
Cabbage: $3.50
White beans (2 cans): $2.50
Fresh dill: $2.00
Total: $8.75

💰 BUDGET (Aldi — requires a separate trip + meal planning)

Yellow onion: $0.35
Cabbage: $2.25
White beans (2 cans): $1.60
Fresh dill: $1.00
Total: $5.20 (41% savings)

🌱 HOMEGROWN (from my garden)

Yellow onion: $0.10
Cabbage: $0.30
White beans (from 10 plants): $0.50
Fresh dill (1 plant): $0.25
Total: $1.15 (87% savings)

Let me say that again: my homegrown ingredients cost less than a single can of beans at the grocery store.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: "But Michelle, growing food takes TIME."
You're right. It does.

The convenience option takes 5 minutes. No real planning because you're just stopping at the closest grocery store. It's grab and go, and for a few extra dollars, you can probably find produce already chopped.

The budget option takes 20-30 minutes of planning plus a separate shopping trip.

The homegrown option? That's 2-3 hours a week, plus seasonal planning, plus learning, plus some failures along the way.

But here's what that price tag doesn't capture:
✦ The nutritional difference between a tomato picked yesterday and one picked two weeks ago in another state or country
✦ The peace of mind knowing I can feed my family regardless of what's happening at the grocery store
✦ The zero packaging, zero transportation, zero waste
✦ The way my stress melts away when I'm out in the garden in the morning
✦ The skills I'm teaching my daughters that will serve them their whole lives
I'm not saying everyone should grow all their own food. That's not realistic for most people.
But I am saying: the math is real. And the benefits go way beyond the math.

If you want to see the full breakdown — including which four crops I'd recommend for beginners and how to get started for under $50 — I made a whole video walking through it.
👉 https://youtu.be/WKgMUtNH0sk?si=FJcARVUtGU5Jyf37

And I'm curious: which version are you right now?
A) Convenience (no shame — life is busy)
B) Budget (planning and saving)
C) Homegrown (living the dream)
D) Somewhere between B and C, trying to grow more
Drop your letter in the comments. I read every one. 💚

Address

119 Jackson Road
Grover, NC
28073

Website

https://linktr.ee/michelleshelby

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