Producer

Opossum Bottom Farm & Market Garden is a small urban farm nestled against the mountains in Johnson City TN. Way back in the 70s I started gardening with my great aunt who was at the time considered a "health nut" and "foodie" by most everyone. She refused to use any kind of synthetic fertilizer or insecticide and considered them unsafe as well as being very picky about what natural fertilizers she used because it would make things taste good or taste bad. While helping her in her garden, she taught me how to grow things without the assistance of synthetic products, which now, fast forward 40 years, is a more familiar term, organic. While many of the methods have changed since then, the base fundamentals of growing sustainably, improving the land on which you grow, and providing synthetic free food are still the same. We strive to incorporate those fundamentals in our practices so that our produce is free of all synthetic products. No pesticides, no fungicides, no herbicides, nothing, just good practices, natural fertilizers, rainwater, and a love of growing.

We offer a variety of produce with a heavy emphasis on tomatoes of which we normally grow hundreds of different varieties. All heirloom and all sizes, shapes, colors, and the most important - taste - from farms all over the world. We spend at least 6 months of the year hunting new and old varieties of tomatoes from every continent on earth, getting the seed here and then growing them locally. Once they are here, we adjust the soil nutrients to enhance the natural flavor based on the variety and the natural flavor profile of each variety (acidic or sweet). We do this through very precise additions or subtractions of natural fertilizers like bone meal or elemental sulphur....another technique learned back in the 70s.

We use a Canadian version of the French Intensive Method for our farm model which allows us to produce as much as a conventional farm 5 to 8 times our size. We have forgone the use of a 4 wheel tractor in favor of a two wheel tractor to give us flexibility and keep our carbon footprint as small as possible. Heavy use of insect netting and landscape fabrics to reduce insect and weed pressure as well as hardwood mulch for a natural supply of carbon to add back into the soil helps to ensure that the land is better than when we started using it.