How To Grow

The design phase of the Market is officially underway! We are starting to lay out the buildings on paper!

I tend to over-celebrate my milestones sometimes, because it's hard not to get impatient with this development process. We've been talking about this project for what feels like forever, and I want so badly to reach the point where we start to actually build something. But, of course, time never moves so slowly as right before something you're anxiously anticipating.

Besides inspiration, this summer's task has been discovering How to Grow - in two ways, actually. The first is literal. Our tomatoes, via the Food Bank, nourished hundreds of families who wouldn't normally experience a fresh, sun-ripened, locally-grown heirloom tomato. Growing them also allowed us to provide feedback on the harvested product to OSU's Department of Horticulture, facilitating the education of future agriculturalists.

And for the past few weeks, we have also discovered that the platiculture method allows - despite record-setting heat - for a bumper crop of watermelons!

Once again, they have given us the opportunity to nourish others with what we've grown. The Food Bank received 200 melons late this week, and I'm sure we'll be sending more. I'll soon be calling the Farm-to-School coordinator at Jenks schools, as well.

Throughout this first week at my kids' school, we've loaded the back of our minivan with watermelons and handed them out to our friends in the 3:00 pickup line. And last night we took ten melons to our back-to-school picnic. We were handing out slices at the tail end of four tables stacked with hamburgers, hot dogs, chips and desserts, and we didn't take home any leftovers.

The melons are also our first crop to sell at Southwood in the retail store, which is big because it's the first time the Farm & Market has brought money into the organization, instead of out.

Which leads me to the second meaning behind the title - a more figurative meaning - which pertains to the business itself. We've been pretty hunkered down through the economic slump. Our last major growth period was in 2003 when we started the production division, where we grow many of our own plants.

As much as this Farm & Market mean to me, and as much as I believe this venture will be a great addition to our business, it is absolutely essential that we don't cannibalize Southwood to make it happen. There is still a lot of economic uncertainty in this country. Although Tulsa's oil and gas industry have insulated us from the worst of the recession, undertaking growth in a weak economy requires a leap of faith.

Before we begin, I'm doing everything in my power to plan properly, do my homework, and ensure that nothing we do hurts Southwood's ability to do what it does. It's a tricky process, but I am energized and ready to go.