Meet Alyson Wade of The Farm Connection

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alyson Wade.  

Hi Alyson, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
Well, where does a story really start? I grew up in North Carolina and attended NC State University in Raleigh, where I studied chemical and paper engineering. I wanted to protect and restore the environment with engineering innovation! About 3/4 of the way through my degree, I realized that it is chemical engineers that wreaked so much environmental havoc on the Earth, and I almost didn’t finish the degree because of the distraught that I felt over it. I eventually decided that it would also have to be chemical engineers who got us out of this mess too, and so I powered through and graduated in December of 2011. 

One of my hobbies at the time really saved me by offering a physical, mental, and social outlet that was separate from all of the engineering rigor: Billiards! The Raleigh area has one of the best billiards scenes in the country!!! They don’t just have bars with pool tables, which is what you find almost everywhere else. They have actual pool halls with 8, 12, even 20 FULL-SIZE billiards tables! My home pool hall was The Brass Tap on Capital Blvd., but I also traveled to some other pool halls in the area for tournaments and fun. I even won three trips to Las Vegas! 

It was during this time that I met my husband. We both were pool hall junkies in Raleigh, and no one ever thought we would make it this long, but we are going on 12 years and 4 children together this year! He’s a better player than me, but I squeeze a win in every once in a while when we get a chance to play. 

I landed an engineering job in Eugene, OR, after I graduated, so we moved out West for a while. The culture in Eugene was so different that what I was used to growing up in NC, especially the food culture! Farmers’ markets are bigger and more frequent, and the local farms grow A LOT of food! We started almost exclusively shopping at farmers’ markets and small local grocery stores and got to know all our farmers and learned about where our food comes from and also about the terrible state of conventional food. When we moved to Corvallis, OR, we joined the Local Food Action Team of the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition and helped organize edible front yard garden tours and “Local Eats Week” and “Eat 40% Local” campaigns. This is also when we learned about and began practicing permaculture, natural building, and alternative energy. All the while, we began practicing our own food-growing skills with vegetable gardens at every place we lived along the way! Living in Oregon was quite the adventure and life-changing experience for us in so many ways. 

Fast forward a few years, we had the opportunity and desire to move back to North Carolina to be closer to family and the state we called “home.” I landed a job in the Asheville area, and this offered our first opportunity to purchase a property to call our own. We were looking for something small and affordable with a few acres and a house to grow our family and small farm. One fateful day in February, our realtor called and said, “I know it’s not exactly what you were looking for, but I think it might be right up your alley!” and she brought us out to see a home in Madison County. We toured it that evening after work and put in an offer the same day! She was right; it was right up our alley! 

Our home is a house and 15 acres, from the creek bottom up to the ridge line of these beautiful mountains. Separated by a creek and a wooden walking bridge is another 1-acre parcel with three greenhouses and little country store off the a major highway – an opportunity to start a nursery business came knocking at our door, and we took it! In May of 2019, we closed on the property (after much trial, tribulation, tears, and hard work!) This is when The Farm Connection started coming to life! 

The love of agriculture and local food and economy that we had cultivated during our time in Oregon drove us to hone our vision in on creating a space that would support our communities’ efforts towards food security and sovereignty. We wanted to encourage people to grow more of their own food and medicine by offering Edible, Medicinal, and Native plants. Then 2020 hit, and food security became a really big deal, even in the mainstream, where the conventional food system was not often discussed. But bare supermarket shelves during the pandemic really jolted people into being interested about where their food came from and finding ways to be more food secure. What better way to do that than to grow your own food?!? 

In addition to serving the rural agrarian community that graces this jewel of the blue ridge, we really came on the scene just in time to be ready for the wave of new people who have recently become interested in growing more of their own food and medicine. The new people who have moved to this area in their BMWs and Teslas, who sold modest homes in CA, NY, and FL and bought up affordable farmland in Appalachia. It’s a sad story in so many ways because locals who grew up here and were planning to purchase land someday can no longer afford to do so. But it’s also an encouraging story because these people have come here with money and purpose – to plant trees and grow food, even though they know nothing about it. Through the nursery, we’ve had the opportunity support so many new gardeners and new vegetable gardens, and fruit tree orchards! We’ve encouraged folks to plant natives over non-native invasive species on countless times. We feel so good about all of the impact we are making in our community and beyond, and our programs, offerings, and customer base grow every year! 

We look forward to continuing to grow and serve our community, and we thank all of you for the support and interest in growing more edible, medicinal, and native plants! Together we can reshape our local food systems and collectively improve our community food security and sovereignty! 

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s not always been a smooth road! It was a difficult property to obtain a mortgage on, and we had to jump through many hoops in order to finance the purchase. A big thank you to farm credit unions that make lending for interesting rural situations work! 

After purchasing a property, we had no money to then start up a business, so again a big thank you to farm credit unions that make access to capital for agricultural operations possible! 

The struggles of running a business and a farm with your partner while also raising a family are real! There are so many things that we could be at each other’s necks about on a daily basis, but we choose to be compassionate and forgiving *MOST* of the time. We have to decide what is worth fighting over and what is not worth the heartache. And we have to allow each other to take responsibility for some things and trust that they will do a good job and not have to try to micromanage every little thing. 

It’s also hard to have our family be so public. We might otherwise prefer to be back in the holler where no one knows where we live or any details about our family, but the reality of having our home right beside of the business means that our children are at the store on a daily basis, and everyone knows where we live and can see our home and farm when they visit the nursery. This also makes it hard to take a break from work because we are always at work! I’ll not complain about this one too much, though, because we have no commute, and all the plants need water daily anyway, so it’s easy to hop over and do it without having to get in the car and drive somewhere to get it done. On this note, it’s a struggle to keep our dishes and general family mess away from the nursery, too because sometimes we fly out the door in the morning with bowls of breakfast and cups of coffee and sometimes set them in trays of plants when we get distracted helping a customer or rescuing a bird out of the greenhouse! 

We also have no professional horticulture experience, so to go from zero to running three full greenhouses of plants has been a huge learning curve! Finding the right soil mix, the right fertilizer, the right supplier, the right weed and pest control strategies and watering schedule, etc., etc., etc. have each been unique and important challenges to figure out. We still don’t have it all figured out, but we are a long way from where we started! I often say we are “flying by the seat of our plants,” and it’s so true! We really didn’t start out knowing much of anything about running a nursery, but we have used our passion and creativity to solve problems as they come up. People come by regularly feeling remorseful for having killed a plant or two, and we reassure them that they are doing great and that there is no one that kills more plants than we do!! 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next, you can tell us a bit more about your business.
The Farm Connection is a family-owned edible, medicinal, and native plant nursery and garden center. When you visit our nursery, you will find a full suite of annual and perennial Western, Traditional Chinese, and Indigenous medicinal herbs, as well as natives, including many interesting, hard-to-find species and unique offerings that you can’t find at other common nurseries! Many of our plants are seed grown, which allows for genetic diversity in the environment and is critical to the health and sustainability of local plant populations. We use all organic practices and go beyond organic when we can with integrated pest management practices and innovative soil amendment strategies that focus on soil biodiversity for overall plant health. Our garden store stocks organic amendments, pest and disease control, seeds, tools, local crafts, and food items, and more! In addition to an amazing selection of plants and garden center items, all of our customers receive individualized customer service and gardening advice no matter where they are at in the gardening journey! 

Other programs to note: 

– We host a Bare Root Tree Sale every spring, bringing affordable fruit, nut, and native trees and shrubs to the community (and now shipping!) Visit our website January – March to pre-order trees and shrubs and pick them or up have them shipped in March! 

-We ship a selection of our favorite edible, medicinal, and native plants right to your door in the spring and fall. Visit our website to pre-order rooted plants for the spring or fall planting season. 

-A portion of the sales from our spring bare root pre-orders goes to supporting a school and community garden donation program! 

-Our innovative Garden Veggie Plant CSA program delivers a selection of garden veggie plants and seeds at just the right time for planting in our growing region so that you can have your most successful harvest yet! 

-New for summer 2023! – Homesteading skills workshops hosted at TFC led by great local teachers! Workshops on natural dyeing, animal processing, permaculture, gardening, tool use and repair, homestead repair, general carpentry and plumbing, and more! Check out our website for our complete list of workshops! 

Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
I wouldn’t say that we have a specific mentor, but what we try to do exceptionally well is listen. When customers who have been growing food in Madison County, NC, their whole lives come into the store, we pick their brains about all their little secrets so that we can pass on the knowledge to others. When wholesale nursery owners deliver a load of plants to us, we listen to their stories about operating a nursery and glean any knowledge they are willing to share. We try to maintain a humbleness and eagerness to listen and learn to all the little nuggets of wisdom that surround us every day if we but learn to listen. 

Pricing:

• Bare root trees: $5-40
• Annuals: $5.95-9.95
• Perennials: $7.95-14.95

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thefarmconnectionmadco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefarmconnectionmadco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefarmconnectionllc
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0M3VeoRJx11_CCtBsQnufQ