W25 (W7): Spring on the Horizon

Feb 17

Dear Farm Community -

Despite the pretty miserable weather on the farm (and everywhere else in Athens) most of last week, we’re starting to feel like spring is knocking on our door - our flowers are producing more and more each day, we’re being teased by our delphinium and butterfly ranunculus with plants on the cusp of being fully productive, and veggies like cauliflower and broccoli are beginning to really produce some significant harvests! With Spring CSA and spring farmers markets close on the horizon, there is an electricity in the air (and we’re not just talking about all the lightning from last week!)

We’ll holler at you again as we get closer, but mark your calendars for a few exciting spring dates!

Monday, February 24th – Weekly-pay Flower CSA’s go on sale! Secure your spot for stunning, farm-fresh blooms all season long with an easy weekly-pay subscription. Full Spring Season and Three-Season Flower Shares are available at a special discounted price through March 2nd. Plus, Three-Season members receive a free farm tote bag.
Saturday, March 1st | 8 AM – 12 PM – Kick off the season with us at our first Athens Farmers Market of the year at Bishop Park! Stock up on fresh produce, beautiful flowers, and other local goods.
Sunday, March 2nd | 8 PM – Final deadline to sign up for a discounted Full Spring CSA (veggie or flower) or Three-Season CSA (veggie or flower) Share! Lock in a full season or year of farm-fresh produce or flowers, save money, and simplify your weekly shopping. Egg add-on available for just $8/week. Weekly-pay options will still be available after 3/2, but this date is your last chance for the best deal!
Wednesday, March 5th | 5 PM – 8 PM – Celebrate the start of the Creature Comforts Athens Farmers Market season! Enjoy live music, local beer, and the freshest flowers and veggies around all while supporting your fave farmers!

So much to look forward to! For all of our current CSA members - we are sooooo stoked to have our first harvest of green garlic in your shares this week! Green garlic is the immature garlic plant, harvested before the bulb is fully formed. When we harvest at this stage, the immature bulb has a an amazing nutty-oniony flavor that is fresh, mild, and distinctly different from the more pungent, sharp, and spicy flavor of fresh-mature and cured garlic.

Green garlic can be swapped-in for garlic cloves, onions, scallions, or leeks in recipes. The young, tender cloves don’t require peeling before chopping - you can slice right through the whole bulb. Use your best judgment on how much of the stalk to use - the tougher parts towards the tips may not be ideal for your recipes, but they add great flavor to soups and broths! To get you started with your green garlic dreaming, check out this recipe for Green Garlic Toast, this Green Garlic Shrimpy Pizza, or this comforting Green Garlic Potato Salad. There’s more green garlic inspo on our recipes page, too!

This week we hope you’ll love getting to know Farmer Antho! Antho has been with DHF since 2017, and his silly goose attitude makes him a true joy to have on the farm. He finds humor and beauty in the daily grind, always keeping the team live-laugh-love-ing even during the crummiest of days. Read on to discover more about our fave can-do, self-described “jackass-of-all-trades.”

Know Your Farmer:
Antho

What is your role on the farm?
I am a veggie farmer, butt-wiggler, stoic goof, and jackass-of-all-trades at both our Beaverdam Rd and Morton Rd properties. As part of our INCREDIBLE crew, we keep the farm’s cycles in continuous motion—from prepping beds and planting seedlings to nurturing and weeding throughout the growing stage, harvesting, washing, packing, and breaking down the fields to start the cycle all over again. There’s also a near-endless list of organizing, cleaning, building, and maintenance tasks beyond the earth-bending and plant work we do. That’s why the all-caps "INCREDIBLE" is so well-deserved when describing our farm family (farmily?), and I’m so grateful and privileged to be a part of it. ♥

Please share your farming journey!
My farming journey began with Carter and Diamond Hill Farm back at the namesake property in the spring of 2017. At the time, I was working at two bars downtown, and a former coworker from one of them (shoutout to Allie!) had started working at DHF and mentioned they needed some extra hands for the spring and summer seasons. Having always loved spending time outdoors and entering my 30th year, craving fulfillment and wanting to be more active, it seemed worth a try… and it was love at first harvest! Since then, I’ve had two breaks in farming: one from 2018 to the fall of 2020 when I moved to NYC with my then-partner (shoutout to Nikki! ♥), and another after returning to DHF for two years, when I took a break to be a stay-at-home papa for my daughter, Charlie, from the summer of 2022 to spring 2024. It’s been amazing and inspiring to see how the farm and everyone who’s passed through over the years have grown and evolved into each new season of our respective lives!

What makes you passionate about organic farming?
As a consumer—both ecologically and economically—I think it’s really important to know where our food comes from and what’s in it (or more importantly, what isn’t in it), or used in its production. On a personal level, farming has deepened my appreciation for this earth we all depend on, the plants that nourish us, and the people who harvest them. Did you know spinach is harvested leaf by leaf, and spicy mix and arugula are cut by the handful, zen-monk-tending-to-the-garden style? There is also a strange and beautiful duality to farming: constantly being humbled by long days working in the dirt, the toil and the toll that it takes on your body, the unpredictability of the weather and unexpected failure of crops - while at the same time feeling empowered by your growing connection with the earth, discovering and pushing the limits of your body’s capabilities, and experiencing that same body adapting and healing in phenomenal ways, and through it all knowing you are helping to nourish your community. Since experiencing that duality, I hope I never have to live a day without it.

What do you like to do when you're not at the farm?
I spend 3 evenings out of the week hanging out with my very sweet, ding-dong 2½ year-old daughter, Charlie. She truly keeps me grounded with such sage musings as "Papa got da big boots on, Charlie likes sneakers!" and "I like your buttons, you're welcome!" She's also currently obsessed with Minnie Mouse, Spiderman, & humpback whale songs (Always interesting, as a near-40 year old, to see what the youth are into these days) Thanks for keeping Papa hip, C! ♥

Fun facts about Antho
Ever since reading Patrick Süskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer in high school (because it was one of Kurt Cobain’s favorite books, and I was obsessed with Nirvana), I’ve been fascinated by the world of scents. Notable side effects of this infatuation have been smelling random leaves and roots on the farm (nutsedge root is a favorite, though it’s a real menace of a weed) and in everyday life—along with the inevitable accumulation of an unfarmerly amount of fragrances and essential oils at home.

What’s something you’ve done on the farm that you are proud of?
Just growing food organically and responsibly for our community is enough to be proud of—not to mention being part of a loving team that works so hard to accomplish all that we do while keeping each other laughing and feeling like the goddesses/clowns that we are. I've also helped with building about half of our greenhouses across both properties, mostly caterpillar tunnels with a bit of high tunnel work (shoutout to Eli for showering our faces with molten Tek screw sparks in the dead of winter!) I'm really just proud to be constantly learning new skills and adding to both my own and the farm’s ever-growing lore!

What’s your favorite crop to grow?
As far as convenience goes, okra wins by a long shot! Planting, weeding, and harvesting are all a breeze thanks to its single-row planting and chest-level height. Sentimentally though, picking the first strawberries after nurturing them all throughout the winter is a wonderful feeling - a welcome sign of warmer, sunnier days ahead!

What is a small thing on the farm that you are grateful for?
I’m grateful for the ambient sounds of all the critters in the area (fellow farmers included), for kale faeries—aka cabbage moths—flitting above the dewy brassicas on a chilly morning, and for the fact that any time is sky time.

If you were a critter on the farm, what would you be and why?
I honestly can’t believe no one else has said this yet, but I would 100% be Chicken (full name: Chicken Finger)—our resident Handsome Boy, Farm Kitty extraordinaire, and part-time pest control expert! He spends his days lounging in his big house across the tree line with his canine buddies, roaming the farm in search of absent-minded rodents and bugs, sneaking into the coziest vehicles with open windows, and getting endless love, hugs, and treats from the sweetest farmers this side of the sun. He’s truly living his best, fully-charmed kind of life— I want in!

What do you think about when you’re harvesting?
There’s always a kitchen radio playing in my head—sometimes underneath my thoughts, often right over them. And whenever I’m bopping around the farm, one song consistently finds its way onto that mental station, even going back to when I first started seven years ago: "Santa Maria De Feira" by Devendra Banhart. Beyond that, it’s usually whatever Charlie’s favorite Ms. Rachel song is at the moment (begone from my head, "Hop Little Bunnies"!!!). But mostly, my mind is focused on the crop I’m harvesting and the variables that come with it—size, bunch weight, and so on.

In your opinion, what is the best season and why?
Autumn, because - autumn!

What’s your favorite way to pass the time weeding with other farmers?
Farm therapy (when we play therapist for each other) is real, but we also spend a lot of time catching up on life events and what we're all watching, listening to, loving, and hating at the moment—along with some crop talk and weather musings (very much the opposite of "small talk" for a farmer!)

We’re all in the pack shed finishing up a big market harvest and you’re handed the AUX. What do you play?
Anything that keeps our spirits high and our butts moving! Music is a powerful connector that transcends language barriers. I love listening to music from around the world and experiencing our shared humanity through a lens different from the one I grew up with. With that in mind, I’d probably play something like "Karateka" by T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo or "Roma Dance" by Zamir Lala. If I wanted to keep it stateside, I’d opt for Doechii’s "NISSAN ALTIMA" (get that Grammy, girl!!!!), "A Pillar of Salt" by The Thermals, or "All Caps" by Madvillain.

What is your favorite Diamond Hill Farm memory?
editor’s note: Antho did not answer this question, but I’m calling him out for putting Truck Nuts on unsuspecting farmers’ cars all the time.

What is your favorite thing about Diamond Hill Farm?
Truly and always, the badass lovely people that keep it going (we all decided "farmily" was cool, yeah?) ♥♥♥

Keep your spirits high and your butt moving!
Diamond Hill Farmers

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