Jason Mann, Laura Brams & the Farm 255 team
Full Moon Farms, Athens, Georgia
Situated on 100 acres of historic farmland five miles east of downtown Athens, Full Moon Farms has a multi-faceted identity. Cultivating fruits, vegetables, animals and people, Full Moon is an example of community-based farming at work. We sell our produce through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), a subscription service that entitles members to a share of newly harvested fruits, vegetables, and flowers during the growing season. The farm is also home to a number of research projects directed through the Agroecology Lab at the University of Georgia. We have developed a dedicated constituency – customers, workers, growers, suppliers, students, neighbors, professors, professionals – deeply connected to the farm and its operations. Now entering our fourth season of successful production, Farm 255 is the logical extension of the Full Moon Farms’ enterprise development and community influence. We work to transform the seasonal bounty of our fields into exceptional, comfortable cuisine at the restaurant, and will continue to define this unusual relationship between a farm and a restaurant.

Wes & Charlotte Swancy
Riverview Farms, Ranger, Georgia
Wes & Charlotte are anomalies in the Southern farming world. Having worked on his family’s conventional cattle and grain farm from a young age, Wes came back to North Georgia after college with a mind to change his family’s farming practices. He helped convert their 160-acre farm from a traditional chemical-dependant one to an organic, diverse, inter-dependant system. They now raise 80-100 head of cattle entirely on grass and organic corn they grow themselves. They farm a good portion of their river-bottom land in organic vegetables, and still utilize some of the less-destructive farming equipment their family relied upon prior to their conversion. Single-row tractors and bean pickers are well-oiled and gassed-up in the barn, while the big 5-row combine is now for sale. The Swancys operate a fairly large local CSA and also sell to a number of families, markets and restaurants in Atlanta. This year they introduced heritage breed Berkshire pigs to their farm, building a spacious and airy shade pen for them in the middle of a huge pasture on which they forage the various root vegetables planted just for them to find. Honoring the community of Creek Indians that once inhabited their land, Wes and Charlotte are inspiring examples of the growing dynamism of Georgia’s agricultural industry.

Alice & Tim Mills
Red Mule Mill & Farm, Athens, Georgia
Alice & Tim Mills live in a suburban-like setting just outside of Athens. Driving past their mailbox, a passer-by might not notice the enormous red draft mule named Luke hanging out in a small pasture behind their house, or the jimmy-rigged mill made from old rusted truck parts that Tim has forged in his shed. The Mills are crafty folks: they have transformed less than an acre and a mule into a handsome business. Tim uses Luke to turn the mill that grinds organic corn into high quality sweet cornmeal and grits, as well as pull the handmade plow that turns his modest plot into a highly productive organic farm. Kale, cabbage, collards, corn, tomatoes, beans, and even wild plums compliment their constant supply of corn products, sold throughout the area under their “Red Mule” label. Alice and Tim are mainstays at the local farmers market, and Tim can be spotted at Farm 255 eating numerous pieces of cornbread made from his cornmeal in his signature coveralls and green plastic visor.

Daniel "Boo" Rotberg & Becky Fielding
Backyard Harvest, Lexington, Georgia
With his dark skinned teddy bear arms and signature not-so-dirty white garden Crocks, Boo is not your average farmer. Coming from an upbringing of various cultural influences, Boo is part farmer, part tai chi master, part rabbi, part therapist, part baller, and part grandmother. He tends his friends much like his crops – with a focused and earnest diligence that results in a loyal love. Nestled in a handmade house built by many of the craftiest hands in town, Boo and his lovely fiancé Becky steward acres of carrots, greens, garlic, tomatoes, flowers, native grasses, rescue dogs and cats, and adoring friends. Before Becky came along, the fields were more organized chaos than crops; now there is a sense of cleanliness and precision in the vegetable rows that somehow is not in opposition to the wild woods around them. Down a holey dirt driveway outside of Lexington, Boo raises vegetables and fruits in the manner of children, and it shows in their outstanding flavor and beauty. Heirloom Brandywine tomatoes are big and noble, much like him; baby carrots are orange-red and sweeter than sorghum, much like her. Backyard Harvest and Full Moon Farms are fast farm friends, their proprietors lending labor, equipment, and advice willingly. Boo & Becky are integral members of our family, and Backyard Harvest one of the farms most close to our hearts.

Emile De Felice
Caw Caw Creek, St. Matthews, South Carolina
Foraging through 90 acres of hardwoods and fields, in the sparsely inhabited and beautiful Calhoun County, Emile’s heritage breed Ossabaw and Large Black pigs have got it pretty good. They are allowed to roam freely, socialize, and engage in instinctive pig behavior such as rooting, wallowing and foraging. Sows give birth naturally, and raise their young without interference. Pigs rotate through pasture and woods, where they graze on grasses, peas and peanuts, and eat acorns and hickory nuts. They also enjoy certified organic heirloom Anson Mills grain hulls from time to time. He’s even experimented with organic peanut farming as another way to provide the ultimate nutritious (and aerobic) diet for his pigs, while seeking out ways to rely less on outside resources in his farming practice. Emile has expanded into value-added products, curing his own prosciutto and turning trim into artisanal sausages, both of which we feature at Farm 255. Emile likes to call his pork “the other red meat”, as its intramuscular fat and tenderness make it as flavorful as a good steak. Emile has also shown up on the pages of food magazines and newspapers recently, as he’s made is voice fairly well-heard in the world of sustainable food production and culinary arts.

Mary, Charles, John & Gracie Dyal
Dyal Family Farm, Cobbtown, Georgia
The Dyal Family Farm is truly a family-run enterprise. Gracie, the youngest daughter, sings to the cows as she feeds them; John, her older brother, looks after the pigs; Mary directs their sales and maintains their strong relationships with their customers; and Charles rests at the helm of both his family and his farm from the seat of his wheelchair, cruising up and down plywood planks placed in the field for his ease of mobility. Each one occupies an important role for the operation, and their unity as a family and a business entity is impressive and inspiring.

The Dyals migrated down to South Georgia after many years of farming in the harsh red Piedmont clay we call soil here in Athens. In Cobbtown they have much better luck with root vegetables, and have become one of a handful of organic Vidalia onion producers in the world. Much like the system of regulated wine regions in Europe, Vidalia onions can only be grown within the small circle of towns around Vidalia, Georgia. Given the difficult growing conditions, very few folks even attempt to grow them organically. Dyal onions are sweet, flavorful, and well-cured. Because we opened our restaurant at the peak of Vidalia season, Dyal Vidalias were the only onions the Farm cooked with for its first two months of business. Almost a year has passed and we find ourselves at the beginning of another Vidalia season. Mary and her son John came up with a truckful of the sweet alliums last week, and our menu is making the most of the arrival.

On their sweeping 109 acre farm, the Dyals also raise heritage breed Berkshire, Durock, Yorkshire and Hampshire pigs. The pigs are allowed to range through 50 acres of pasture as well as part of the woods on their property, and feast on row crops of turnips and corn planted expressly for them. As with all our meat, Farm 255 purchases whole pigs from the Dyals and uses almost every part of the animal in our cuisine, from nose to tail.

Tucker Taylor & Celia Barss
Woodland Gardens, Winterville, Georgia
Tucker and Celia run a tight ship. Down the road from Full Moon Farms in Winterville, they maintain 5 acres of both indoor and outdoor crops with a high standard of organization and stewardship. Their state-of-the-art greenhouses allow them to produce fruits and vegetables rarely seen in the dead of winter, such as heirloom tomatoes and cucumbers. Tucker & Celia are both rather soft spoken, reticent to sing their own praises as skilled and hardworking growers. They have been great friends to Full Moon Farms and Farm 255, saving us a generous share of the near perfect vegetables coveted by Atlanta’s best restaurants and markets. One would never believe that their staff is a mere three people upon first observing the level of cleanliness and organization at Woodland Gardens. Their work doesn’t end in the field, however, as they play frequent host to numerous community events; their generosity with their time & labor is almost endless. They are the sole reason we can enjoy a serve a vibrant, fresh tomato in the middle of a cold Georgian December, and not-so-longingly daydream about the tomato-filled days of summer to come.

Nicolas Donck
Crystal Organics Farm, Newborn, Georgia
Nic Donck speaks with a slight accent. His mother’s is thicker, and because of their shared Belgian heritage, they can be caught speaking to each other in one of four languages at Atlanta’s Morningside Farmers Market. Nic cultivates 10 acres of certified organic vegetables on his mother’s farm. Named for the large quartz crystals his sons have found buried in the soil of their land, Crystal Organics specializes in high-quality greens, herbs, and heirloom cultivars. He runs a successful off-season business as well, thanks to hundreds feet of plastic covering the 6 hoop houses that protect a variety of crops from winter cold. We here at the Farm we are especially impressed with Nic’s attention to detail: Harukei turnips glow white; his chickens look particularly healthy, pecking for grubs underneath small fruit trees in their large fenced-in roofless coop, and clearly relish their time in the chicken tractor. The Farm kitchen is most fond of his various Italian chicories, as we share his passion for hard-to-find European varietals. You can find Nic’s various baby root vegetables often end up pickled and peeking at you from the corner of your plate as a garnish.

Hilda & Andy Byrd
Whippoorwill Hollow Farm, Walnut Grove, Georgia
Driving up to Andy & Hilda’s farm shed, one is greeted by comfortable clutter: vibrant painted signs announcing fresh harvests of the season, rusted out knick-knacks, hanging flower baskets, gourd bird houses, stacks of greenhouse flats, a circumspect old dog Sadie, and a radio broadcasting country music into the fields seemingly for no one. The field to the right dips down into a kind of miniature valley, a topographical feature farm that gives credence to the farm’s name. And then from the back side, up rolls Andy in his impressive off-roading wheelchair, an ATV-like contraption that propels him fearlessly down gullies and up hillocks through his day on his farm. He often leaves his wife Hilda in the red clay dust.

Andy & Hilda tend 74 acres of certified organic land right down the road from where they both grew up. They reclaimed Whippoorwill Hollow’s rambling heirloom blueberry bushes as their first task upon purchasing the farm, and now run a popular “U-Pick” program for local families, students, and organizations during the summer months. The bushes are like trees and almost swallow you in their brambles as you hunt for their bounty. The rest of the land sports chickens, lamb, horses, quail, and the occasional goat, as well as Asian pears, Italian chestnuts, and acres of carefully tended vegetables. Andy & Hilda have big hopes for the power of sustainable agriculture and the necessity for our collective stewardship of the land as a population. Like most of our sustainable farmers in the region, their conversion to organic is in the recent past, and some of Hilda’s family members still farm conventionally just down the road. They host numerous community-based events on their farm, run school workshops and educational programs, and are tirelessly spreading the word about the benefits of sustainable land practice, all the while running a large CSA, several restaurant accounts, and two weekly market stands in Atlanta. And Hilda still manages to keep what she refers to as a “day job.” Andy & Hilda are true fighters, but their warmth and openness often overshadow their toughness. Leaving their farm that first day, I extended my hand for a formal handshake of gratitude, and Andy replied with “Naw, see we’re hugging folks,” and reached out his arms from his chair for a much more solid embrace.

Bill and Miriam Keener
Sequatchie Cove Farm, Sequatchie, Tennessee
The Keeners live and work a farm that looks like Eden. On 160 acres in the rolling southern Tennessee hills just west of Chatanooga, transparent limestone cave-fed creeks criss-cross the meadows and forests. Here they pasture-raise cows, sheep, chickens, turkeys and pigs as well as two children. To supply their 75-member CSA, they have 5 acres organic vegetable and fruit production as well as a native plant nursery. Heritage breed Old Spot, Large Black, Ossabaw, & Farmer’s Hybrid pigs co-mingle with heritage breed Katahdin lamb, a herd of 200 cattle and 15 Devon dairy cows. Farm 255 purchased its first cow from Bill, taking half of the entire animal. Because of the way the cows are raised, grass-fed beef is leaner than grain-fed beef, and better stocked with the proteins and fatty acids most beneficial to our diets. Dry-aged for 2-3 weeks, the beef has a concentrated flavor and is exceptionally tender.