OUR STORY
Farming in the quiet of rural Dallas, just west of Charlotte, North Carolina, we raise organic produce, a laying flock, turkeys, geese, heritage hogs, beef cattle, seasonal meat chickens, and a diverse plant nursery.
We’re grateful to share a love for sustainably stewarding the land. We invite you to visit our farmstead for homestead consulting, homegrown goods, and a breath of country air.
ABOUT FAITH FAMILY FARM
From the day we met, we've shared a love for homesteading. Our starter homestead of 2012 included a free range heritage flock and annual garden. In 2015 we moved our family to an old 35-acre horse farm and began rebuilding our vision from the ground up. There had been numerous horses on small areas of pasture, leading to soil compaction and very little vegetation.
Before planting elderberries, orchards, vineyard, and gardens, we focused on soil health in order to one day bear the most nutrient-dense crops possible. Today, after devoting years to natural soil-building with cover crops, compost, rest, and heavy mulch, our elderberry bushes yield double what the USDA specifies should be expected per bush. This is testimony to how happy our plants are – they’re thriving! Using sustainable permaculture systems that go beyond organic, we’re passionate about helping our children, and others, to thrive too.
Andrea grew up homeschooled, tending her garden plot, scaling trees, and ranging through forests with her four siblings. Before becoming a mother, she used her degrees and Montessori certification to guide children in academics and the arts. Those experiences enrich our day-to-day as she homeschools our children, whose favorite classroom is the great outdoors.
Joel and his many siblings were raised on a 200-acre pick-your-own apple orchard. He learned a deep love of farming from his father, who managed the thriving orchard and who died in a car accident when Joel was 16. After finishing undergraduate studies and before entering seminary, Joel shouldered his father’s well-used backpack and through-hiked the 2,200 mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine in his memory.
Joel’s father instilled in him the values by which we live: Faith, Family, and Farm. It was on this foundation that we established our family's small farm. In 2017, Joel was given the annual North Carolina Farm Bureau's Young Farmers and Ranchers Excellence in Agriculture Award, and in 2018 was a national contestant. In 2020, the farm was awarded the NC Soil and Water Conservation District Resource Grant, and in 2022 was a winner of the NC AgVentures Grant Program through NC State University's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. The farmstead has been featured in print news stories, online articles, presented at homesteading conferences, and been spotlighted by the North Carolina Cooperative Extension. With Joel working part-time in town and the two of us full-time here on the farmstead, we’re grateful to grow together as farmers, spouses, parents, and friends.
We take inspiration and joy from joining others on their homesteading journeys. As we encourage in our classes, those journeys take on forms large and small. We are all stewards of the amazing gift of creation, and homesteading gives us beautiful release to respect the land, its creatures, our bodies, and our souls. There is excitement and fulfillment in growing and preparing our own food, and it feels good to know the farmers who supply what we feed to the people we love.