Episode 221: Emily Garrity / Twitter Creek Farm

Today’s featured farmer: Emily Garrity. Emily Garrity was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska. There she found her love for farming in her late teens working in yard, garden, and flower maintenance. At the age of 24, she moved to Homer, a seaside community at the end of the road in South Central Alaska. Her first solo commercial endeavor consisted of less than 1Ž4 acre of garden space on borrowed land and a small table at the Homer Farmers Market. In 2005, she began her first CSA season with four subscribing members. Later that year, just over nine acres of south sloping, spring fed, topsoil rich real-estate became home to the farm she now owns and operates as Twitter Creek Gardens. Over the past nine years Emily has spent most of her waking moments and all of her income on the infrastructure of the farm. One 26’x96′ high tunnel, three homemade low tunnels, a large passive solar greenhouse, a root cellar, two work-shops, and a little farm house now make up the complex. Incorporating animals into the farmstead has been her newest endeavor. Small flocks of laying hens, broiler chickens, and hogs have made their way into the field rotations, providing much of the soil nutrients required to grow the current one-acre vegetable plot. The farm supplies food for a 20 member CSA, the Farmers Market, local restaurants, as well as the cast of characters who work the land. Emily sits on the Homer Farmers Market board, Homer Soil and Water Conservation District Board of Supervisors, and heads a farm-to-school project at the Homer Flex High School. She looks forward to the expansion of local agriculture and food security in the state of Alaska. This program was brought to you by Heritage Foods USA “I was really interested in the CSA model initially. That’s where I got started, I used borrowed land and had four members just to get the ball rolling.” [04:00] –Emily Garrity on Greenhorns RadioSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.