sodbuster : Chuck and Lynn PughLocation : Cumming , GeorgiaSpecialties : Organic green groceries and James Leonard Farmer education
You could say that Chuck and Lynn Pugh , owners and founders ofCane Creek Farm , are the epitome of the sideline - farming dream : They buy their land in the mid-1980s and kept off - farm jobs — Lynn was a high - school alchemy teacher and Chuck has a bodied bureau job — while gardening in the summer and raising several brute for their kid . Chuck and Lynn Pugh
After the dyad ’s nestling grew up and their priorities shift , Lynn lay off her job and started Cane Creek Farm in 2001 . Her concerned in bionomics and botany led them to focus on starting an organic CSA farm , and after Chuck retired , they added more brute and medicative herbaceous plant to the farm . But Lynn ’s knack for Department of Education resurface after a few year , and in 2007 , she worked with Georgia Organics , a not-for-profit that focuses on catch constituent garden truck into Georgians ’ hands , to develop an constitutive - growing syllabus .
After 10 years , the course has reached more than 200 start sodbuster and gardeners . Now , the dyad is continuing to ramify out in educational opportunities by starting an incubator farm program . Chuck and Lynn Pugh
“ The brooder farm will provide acres , infrastructure , education and mentoring for farmers that have some experience but are not yet ready to ramify out on their own , ” Lynn Pugh says . “ After a few years , the farmers in training can move to their own place with assist in identifying appropriate affordable body politic . ”
Because of Chuck ’s ties to the military — he was in the Air Force Reserves — they’re currently focusing on encounter veteran soldier and farmers with limited resource to be part of their first family of brooder farmers .
Chuck and Lynn Pugh
Biggest Success
We are most proud of the Modern farmers that have profit from the educational offerings of the farm , including our constitutive growing course , interns , apprenticesand volunteer . The farm seems to draw talented people , and we create a supportive community of interests that helps them get start or carry on on the farming path .
Biggest Challenge
Developing an economically sustainable business enterprise . The farm has to be profitable to abide in business , and this takes a lot of unvarying fine - tuning of craw mix , marketing , labor , output , etc . These are not the most fun job on the farm , and we have to discipline ourselves to make up attending . We have never borrowed money for the farm and have managed to turn a profit each year , though some years that profit has been very little . Many farmers struggle with business planning and finance , so breeding in these areas will be constitutional to the brooder programme .
Firsthand Advice
Start small and learn from other farmers by volunteering , working or interning on a farm interchangeable to one you would like to go . Courses , books , conference and powder magazine keep you up to engagement on the latest trend and development in the sustainable land world . rise incrementally , leverage your successes and downplay impingement from your mistakes.—Lynn Pugh , as told to Cory Hershberger
This article in the first place appeared in the March / April 2017 issue ofHobby Farms .
Chuck and Lynn Pugh
Chuck and Lynn Pugh
Chuck and Lynn Pugh
