We are a small organic family farm in rural Middle Tennessee and future home of Engineered Spirits.
We were so happy to discover Prunella vulgaris growing in the picnic area last year. Its common name is Self-Heal or Heal-All, and it's native to four continents, including ours. All of it is edible and it’s traditionally been used to treat a variety of ailments. So, we were delighted to find it growing, all on its own, in the farm's second bed.
During the last two weeks, we’ve removed close to a ton in glass bottles and jars alone from Granny and Papa’s attic . We kept some of the more interesting or useful ones to reuse, but the rest are being taken off to be recycled. Back in Granny and Papa’s day, they would have given us a cash deposit for returning them.
Last summer we found this lovely blooming above the back pond . If you aren't familiar with it (we were not), it's Tall Bellflower (Campanula americana). This biennial loves the moist, shade we have here and reseeds itself freely. It's also a pollinator magnet, but we promise you, deer find it delicious too!
We've been lucky with the rain this year , and that means our heirloom corn is growing faster than we can post about it. It was much taller than 6 feet when we took this photo two weeks ago, and now it's topping 14 feet in places. We harvested some to eat, because even though this is dent corn, it’s also a delicious sweet corn if you get it early enough.
Coreopsis tinctoria (Plains coreopsis) grows wherever our fields aren’t being used to grow crops , alongside fleabane, oxeye daisies, lyreleaf sage and Queen Anne's Lace. Though its original native range is west of the Mississippi, it's been grown in pioneer gardens so long, it has naturalized over most parts of the U.S.
When we cleared out the trench silo , we salvaged most of the oak beams and timber. But a few had been cracked during the storm that destroyed the roof. We don't like adding materials to a landfill and one of our fields needed a little more potash. So, we burned the damaged timbers there and then raked the potash out into the field.
There are several hydrangea species native to Tennessee, including this one, Ashy Hydrangea (Hydrangea cinerea). it grows at the verges of the field we planted our corn in back in 2021, near a clump of American Bladdernut. While it's often cultivated for garden use, the Cherokee use it as a medicinal plant.
Since we last posted about our field of corn a couple of weeks ago, it's shot up to over 8 feet tall and even taller in many places. It began tasseling just after mid-July and now it's already producing ears, usually two or more per plant. So far, it looks like it's going to be a great harvest this fall!
One of our first experiments was to make this bed two years ago. We needed to completely transform the clay soil here into something we could transplant dozens of plants into from our current home, while also creating a fertile growing space for the botanicals the distillery needs. In the next year, we plan to build four more.
Our list of projects has always included the trench silo, whose roof collapsed during a storm years ago. The farm needs it for storing our one-row corn picker and other equipment, but eventually it will become first barrel storage building. This month, we finally managed to get the roof and collapsed timbers cleared out, so we can start reroofing it.
Great mullein (Verbascum thapsus) appeared after we logged last year. Its seeds don’t travel far, but they can germinate after over 100 years in the seed bank, waiting for fire or disturbance to give them a chance to grow. This plant has been used for everything from dyes and medicines to shoe inserts, toilet paper and torches, so it's no wonder we found it growing here, on land that's been farmed for the last 200 years.
Very excited to taste these! Y’all know where to go - The Local Farmer in Pulaski and Crumbs in Lewisburg!
The recent rainy days have done their work , and our field of corn is shooting up very rapidly. For comparison, April Moore is about 5 feet 6 inches tall, but some of this corn is already taller than her, after less than seven weeks in the ground!
We call this area the "front lot,” but really it's been everything from pasture to parking lot. Despite that, native wildflowers, like this Bitterw**d (Helenium amarum), still manage to find nooks and crannies to grow in. We plan to start using controlled burns in this 12-acre area to curb non-native species and encourage native annuals, like this one, to spread.
A big project that has to get done -- even though it's not directly tied to the distillery -- is renovating Papa and Granny's house so we can live full-time. That took a long stride forward recently when the contractors started work and our family started clearing out the attic. Among the many lost treasures we found was Granny’s calendar, with a birthday card still tucked inside. Since it was also Chip’s birthday, we took that as a sign she’s still looking out for us.
We have a lot of medicinal and edible plants , but some are just plain pretty! Tennessee has several native clematis species, but we did NOT know this one was growing along the road near the corner of our property. This is Clematis versicolor. Isn't she beautiful? The bees certainly agreed.
Our corn is growing quickly , but luckily for us, the w**ds haven't kept up. Just as well, since it's too tall now for us to get the cultivator in without damaging the crop. Besides, it's Independence Day, so we’ve taken the day off to enjoy time with family and friends. We wish you all a very happy Independence Day!
Behind the main house , is a steep bank on which James Moore’s mother has planted orange daylilies and allowed them to spread. Mixed in with them are various wildflowers, such as spiderwort, oxalis and fleabane, so we figured it wouldn’t hurt to scatter columbine seeds among them too. (Don’t tell mom; it’s a surprise.)
Just two weeks ago we were thrilled to find our corn had germinated, and worried about the lack of rain . But we were fortunate — the rain did come and now our corn is growing fast, about a foot high. If this crop makes it to harvest, that’s going to be a WHOLE LOT of .
What's growing and what's next on the menu at Second Intention Farm? Read and find out! https://bit.ly/3XmdNTY
If you'd like to purchase our corn meal, the Local Farmer is the place to go. And this Saturday looks like a great time to do it. While you're there you can sample and purchase local products from more than 20 other local farms. See you there!
We’re having a grill out this Saturday to celebrate being open a year!!
Heart-leaved Skullcap (Scutellaria ovata) has just finished blooming . In late May and early June, this native blankets the ground on the steep slopes leading up to the ridge top. There we have many shaded limestone bluffs and moist, well-drained soil, exactly the growing conditions it prefers.
Second Intention Farm’s first product, cornmeal, is finally bound for a local store’s shelves. We grew the corn and we used no pesticides or herbicides, just good old-fashioned hard work. Now, we’re sealing plastic anti-tamper sleeves around each lid as we box it up to be delivered to The Local Farmer in Pulaski, TN.
Indian Pinks (Spigelia marilandica) are a striking native that hummingbirds and pollinators love. Although these plants are prolific on our cousins’ farm next door, we had given up on finding them growing on ours. Lo and behold, there they were, hiding above the front pond! Another little miracle .
About a week after getting our corn seed planted, we checked the upper field to see if any of it had germinated. With the weather hot and dry now, we weren’t very hopeful. But, we were delighted to find that pretty much all of it was already up! Now we’ll just pray for rain.
We’d photographed the unusual leaves of this plant for the last two years, but it wasn’t until this spring we were finally able to catch it in bloom. This is Largeleaf Water Leaf (Hydrophyllum macrophyllum), a whose natural habitat is forests with moist soil and limestone outcrops, just like we have here .
With the field freshly harrowed and the rain holding off , our family pitched in last week to make sure our entire field was planted for this year’s corn. Charles Moore kept the vintage seed planter loaded up, so Uncle Garland and his son, Matthew, could spend their time getting our seed corn in the ground.
While checking out our newly tilled field , we spotted these pretty purple all along the verge. We found two different species of Venus’s Looking Glass: Triodanis perfoliata and Triodanis biflora. Both are welcome and a sweet reminder of the wild meadow that’s still here, hiding at the edges of the forest.
We prefer to get our corn crop in the ground by mid-May, but it’s been too rainy . When we finally had a few dry days, the whole family turned out to make sure the job got finished. First, Uncle Garland and Uncle Tommy worked in tandem to harrow the whole field until it was nice and smooth.
Beaked cornsalad (Valerianella radiata) is a common native wildflower that grows throughout much of the east, often along roadsides and in highway medians. Mason bees and small carpenter bees love to visit its flowers for nectar. Though it’s usually considered a w**d, it has a special beauty when it turns our back field white in April and May.
Though we’ve prepared our field (and gone over it one more time after this photo was taken), since then it’s been too wet to plant the seed corn we set aside from last year’s crop. The delay could be costly, so wish us luck on drier weather this week, so we can move forward .
Another flower you see growing in the woods near our farm is Miami mist (Phacelia purshii). Though it’s not an uncommon plant, I don’t think you could ask for a prettier display of this native than we found growing on this roadside bank.
To try out our cornmeal for baking, we put it to the true Southern test: we asked Mom to use it to make her delicious cornbread! By all accounts, it got both her and Dad’s seal of approval and I know we certainly enjoyed devouring what was left. If you’d like to buy some cornmeal or grits and can't make it down to The Local Farmer to purchase it, message us, but if you’d like us to share her recipe, too, let us know in the comments.
In April and May, you often see clumps of this daffodil blooming along roadsides on the way to the farm, usually near old homes or in abandoned fields. Narcissus × medioluteus is a true cross between two species daffodils that grew throughout Britain, but around here it’s more often known as April Beauty, Twin Sisters or Primrose Peerless. It’s one of many flowers that were brought here by early settlers that have since naturalized in our countryside.
This old house belonged to Floyd “Papa” Moore and his wife, Charlene (Granny). For many years it was the family gathering place at Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving, when the whole family spent happy hours together eating Granny’s home cooking and playing dominoes and other games. Our family has begun to renovate it now, and, while it may look a little different when that’s finished, it will always be full of happy memories.
Tennessee is home to several different species of Blue-Eyed Grass and we found these, Sisyrinchium angustifolium, blooming in front of Papa’s workshop . In spite of the name, these native wildflowers are not members of the grass family at all; rather, they are in the iris family.
Once out of the freezer, we package up the spent grains from beer mix to use as ingredients for baking bread, crackers and granola. Those we dried most thoroughly we store in separate containers to be used for making spent grain flour. Nothing from our crop will go to waste.
False Garlic (Nothoscordum bivalve) is a small native that blooms early in spring (note the tiny spider for scale). It blooms for many weeks and then often reblooms in late summer and fall. it can be found in many places, but especially here at the wildflower preserve.
It takes a long time to dry out spent grains if you want to store them for future use. We want some of them to be thoroughly dry, for making spent grain flour, but we wanted others to have just a tiny bit of moisture left to be used whole. These are just about right for using whole and are ready to go into the freezer.
Rewilding isn’t just taking place in the picnic area. Around the shores and banks of the front pond, nearest the house, we’re planting cardinal flowers, Texas star hibiscus, Indian pinks, and these native red columbines to complement the hundreds of Red buckeyes growing on the hillside above them.
908 Petty Branch Road
Prospect, TN
38477
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