Harpeth Moon Farm

Harpeth Moon Farm Certified Organic farm growing an array of vegetables and cut flowers

Currently snugged up in a hotel room at our halfway point between here and there.We’ve been away from the farm for a wee...
12/31/2025

Currently snugged up in a hotel room at our halfway point between here and there.
We’ve been away from the farm for a week now. When we retreat we damn near disappear, that’s how we like it.

There’s something about escaping and embracing family we haven’t seen and staring deeply into the vast blue. This dynamic water is Max’s backyard and its swift changes are comforting for me too. Similar to the farm in some sense but less work on our part. Pure experiencing and spectating and less bending and not breaking.

The new year approaches fast but we will remain sluggish. We’ve got a lot of winter left to soak into our bones. We’ve yet to carve out time to reflect and decompress and really get down to the marrow of where we’ve been. This season has been a whirlwind and we’ve decided it would be a shame to rush such a gift as the present.

Truth is this has been a much needed perspective shift. And now we’ve got some time before action is needed again.

We hope you all had a lovely holiday. Maybe you got what you wanted or better yet exactly what you needed.
We appreciate your support more than we could ever express in these tiny boxes and small texts. We love you. 💚

P.S. If you don’t feel ready to share a grand scheme or look back with fixed eyes , don’t. In my opinion the Gregorian calendar new year falls during a season that’s best to steep, you’ve got a while til Spring when it’s time to seep.

Planting tulips is an undertaking.•Backbreaking work digging bed sized graves. •Carrying heavy crates out of a full to t...
12/19/2025

Planting tulips is an undertaking.
•Backbreaking work digging bed sized graves. •Carrying heavy crates out of a full to the brim cooler.
•Laying the bulbs out resembling eggs in a carton.
•Cutting up rotten onions to sprinkle on top to keep rodents away- this feels like some kind of variety of witchcraft to me.
•Shovel dirt on top.
•Repeat until all 15,000 of them are tucked in tight awaiting the light.

We’ve had these bulbs in the cooler since September, intentionally so. They like a certain amount of chill hours before they’ll perform fully in this southern climate, and honestly same.
We save this task for late December for many production reasons but something about the timing feels soulfully appropriate.
The darkness is upon us and we are burying deep the first flowers of spring.
Blooms will be here soon but first roots.
And as we like to say around here “never rush a good thing.”
✨✨✨✨✨
Forcing endives feels wild. Our first batch went into the chamber today.
These were seeded in peak summer soaking up all the light in our corner of the world. Growing taproots so deep, gathering minerals to store for later.
The tops in the field are inconspicuous. Some would call them weedy, tough, boring. But the best part is lurking underneath, we grow these greens like roots.

The lore is enticing and entirely an accident. Originally grown for a coffee substitute, a Belgian farmer (Jan Lammers) left some behind in his dark cellar while away at war in the 1830s and came back to lively blanched sprouts begging to be consumed.

Darkness transforms this chicory’s usually tough tops into something desirable.
I mean, imagine what a little darkness could do for me and you.

It’s a long process getting these to head up.
I’ve always thought that it took more work to be soft in a hard world. Belgian endive proves just that.

We’ve been awaiting this day since August.It’s always a shock of course but also not at the same time.A jolt to the syst...
12/14/2025

We’ve been awaiting this day since August.
It’s always a shock of course but also not at the same time.
A jolt to the system because we only know a week or so in advance. Totally expected because it happens every year around now.
It is remarkable and not lost on me that two feelings and experiences can exist at the same time.
The deeply cold temperatures are always lurking, you just don’t know when they’ll hit.

Farming is a gamble, if you live under a rock and didn’t know. The biggest gamble, more than walking into a casino with all of your savings right now if I had to bet.
We make most of our winter money on radicchio, carrots, forced Tardivo and endive. This has always allowed us to keep on a crew member and this year we need two. Since farm work is seasonal and training is extensive we strive to get to a year round situation for all our people so searching for short term winter jobs is a thing of the past.

That’s why farm business is both important and strange. In a perfect world we would grow and trade and never need money.
In this world, the one we find ourselves in, the one that we’ve evolved into when humans could have become literally anything, money matters a lot.

So, in August when we planted everything in the field Max and I thought about December. Farmers have future vision like that.
Would we be able to get everything out at the drop of a hat if necessary?

I’ll tell you what we thought then and what the reality is now: we do our best. We worked hard and broke our backs to get out everything that was humanly possible. We covered everything, some crops even triple, just so we could sleep at night.

We will sleep soundly and won’t peak under the covers until Monday afternoon.
And I have full confidence, maybe it’s just the inherent optimism speaking, that everything will be just fine, regardless if everything dies or not.
It’s out of our hands at this point. Thankfully so.
See you on the other side.
♥️

Not to be sappy (lol) but—Tonight’s wreath making workshop courtesy of ✨Christmas On Main✨ was just what I needed and ...
12/12/2025

Not to be sappy (lol) but—
Tonight’s wreath making workshop courtesy of ✨Christmas On Main✨ was just what I needed and I didn’t even make a dang wreath.
Guiding and witnessing everyone spin the seasons with greenery, dried flowers, and gusto is a holiday highlight for me. The amount of excitement, joy, creativity, follow through and cheer is contagious.

Normally I make wreaths quietly and alone in the greenhouse. But hosting this workshop with people I know and love and people I just met in definitely one of the best small towns in the country— I mean, talk about holiday spirit.

My cup is overflowing, my cheeks hurt from smiling, my hands are so sticky, and happy merry everything!

Today was a milestone kind of day.Another notch in these ol’ farmers belt. An unsuspecting stepping stone to the John Q....
11/26/2025

Today was a milestone kind of day.
Another notch in these ol’ farmers belt.
An unsuspecting stepping stone to the John Q. Public probably.
It’s not just the day before the day before thanksgiving, more importantly it was the last double digit day length day until January 16, 2026 (in our part of the world at least).

Today’s daylight measured exactly 10 hours and it’ll diminish until the winter solstice and then pick back up again but until then….

Let your eyes adjust.
You can see more than you think.

Darkness was our first home.
Floating aimlessly in a womb, developing.
We put our daughter to bed comfortably in a dark room, mimicking.
I sometimes walk swiftly from the barn freezer with meat for dinner in the pitch black convincing myself nothing is after me, imagining.
Being scared of the dark comes later. I had no clue or rather never put much thought into that until now.

We hardly bury seeds, only press them firmly. Leaving them free to breathe yet snug on the soil surface. They’ll bore a root down just fine. This way we have front row view to progress.
But some seeds require more intention and secrecy. Popping up only if pinched, demanding darkness to germinate.
I identify with them.

Things we do with our eyes closed:
Kissing and sneezing or thinking deeply or sleeping and dreaming or…

Growing chicories that we treat as roots in the field. Harvest, transform, replant but this time in a void. From overbrimming roots out pops an otherworldly, deeply beautiful specimen whose distant and distinct memories are full of light.
I strive to be like them.

Instead of dreading and wishing and hoping…
here’s to sitting and resting
and listening.

We are big proponents of leaving the leaves where ever they may fall.But if you can’t or don’t want to or mustn’t please...
11/26/2025

We are big proponents of leaving the leaves where ever they may fall.
But if you can’t or don’t want to or mustn’t please consider bringing them to us via trailer and tarp or bags or perhaps a super large landscaping vacuum truck- that would do too.

We’ve always used leaves one way or another as soil coverage and organic material but this fall we decided to ditch as many winter tarps as we could. Tired of looking at the black vast all winter we sowed more cover crops than usual, and that’s saying a lot as we always sow lots.

We usually tarp spaces that will be planted in very early spring while the soil is still moist and the springs underneath still seep. This is a reason we gave up on mechanical tillage long ago. But this fall we sowed more cover crops than usual everywhere and anytime even if it was later than the recommended date. Undersown carrots and beets and cabbage and endive for the win.
The thought process is that we can pull a tarp over the bright green growth in January or early February, kill it off, and then plant directly into the material or prep from there.

That being said, it’s way past time for sowing seeds and we’ve got crops coming out of the ground still. Our hope is to cover all the bare spots with leaves for the winter. Any field we’ve treated this way in the past has yielded the most amazing soil. Dark and fluffy and full of the friends we can see like earthworms and sprinkled with minerals money can’t buy.

So, before you burn them or send them off to the landfill consider donating your leaves to your friendly farmer where they are worth way more than gold.

As they say where I come from, “Holler!”

🍁 🍂 🍃 🍁 🍂 🍃 🍁

(The other photos are because Ridi has become obsessed with taking photos. She wanted to take one of all of us in the lettuce tunnel and self timer totally blew her mind!)

10/10/2025

The worst that can happen is to see soil or seed or our tiny blue speck spinning and not be overcome with complete awe and reverence for this sacred space we find ourselves in.

I am guilty of forgetting what the point of all this is. I am guilty of explaining away the magic of this one precious life. I am guilty of being consumed and spat out by apathetic tendencies. I am guilty of wanting to escape everything.

But today, on this beautiful breezy fall ✨wish I could bottle it up forever✨kind of day, the fog fizzled and the light landed and the oneness overtook and joy jumpstarted this tired heart of mine.

This morning the crew prepped two beds. After harvest as I was walking to the truck deep in thought with furrowed brow the very sight of soft soil struck me and I had to touch it. I wanted to roll in it and eat it and become it, I wanted to deeply understand it.

And yet we do all of that daily without much thought. It’s common sense and completely confusing how all of this works. It’s science and also soul searching, mind-blowing. It’s old hat and new horizons.
It’s right over our heads and some days it might as well be a snake.

It’s ordinary yet so unbelievably extraordinary.

I know I’ll forget again and again but when the shine is just right I hope it’ll catch my eye every single time.

Address

1503 Highway 70
Kingston Springs, TN
37082

Telephone

+18707183673

Website

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