ORGANICFARM.S2 vanmullekom. Fred, deputy director of the Virginia Living Museum, and wife Whitney have a two-acre organic garden in Suffolk where they grow a wide variety of vegetables, cut flowers and fruits – many of which are heirloom varieties. Most of the plants come from seeds started in greenhouses at their Hilton home. Fred and Whitney garden and live green (rain barrels, compost bins, canning, etc.). Fred was responsible for the Living Green exhibit at the VLM and he is a member of the area Green Building Council. We tour the farm and share their vision and gardening tips with readers.
Info: Fred’s tips
ORGANICFARM.S2 vanmullekom. Fred, deputy director of the Virginia Living Museum, and wife Whitney have a two-acre organic garden in Suffolk where they grow a wide variety of vegetables, cut flowers and fruits – many of which are heirloom varieties. Most of the plants come from seeds started in greenhouses at their Hilton home. Fred and Whitney garden and live green (rain barrels, compost bins, canning, etc.). Fred was responsible for the Living Green exhibit at the VLM and he is a member of the area Green Building Council. We tour the farm and share their vision and gardening tips with readers.
Info: Fred’s tips
Dressed in blue jeans and short-sleeve cotton shirts, wet grass clippings caked on their shoes, Whitney and Fred Farris look comfortable and relaxed as they stroll their family farm, a 300-acre elongated point of lush land on the Nansemond River in Suffolk.
The farm is where the couple spends weekends and many vacation days, tending to more than a dozen beds of various sizes they’ve created on two acres.
Collectively, their plantings are called Long Point Gardens.
Organic gardeners for decades, they prefer the aromas of aged compost and ripening heirloom vegetables and fruits instead of the smells of gas fumes from traffic along city streets. They dig many beds by hand, and Fred fashions trellises, pergolas and fences from fallen branches and sticks. Tools are kept in a vintage corn crib, which is now officially their gardening shed.
“We have been organically gardening together even before our marriage on a North Carolina organic farm in 1980,” says Fred, deputy director of the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News since 1999. Many of Fred’s conservation ideas have been incorporated into programs at the museum, including the Living Green exhibit with a green roof, rain barrels, compost system, energy-conserving tips and earth-friendly building methods and products, according to Christine Lewis, museum education director, and other staff members. Fred is also a member of the area Green Building Council.
“The physical gardening work is not really work but fulfilling exercise that has made us both healthier. Being outdoors and tending the garden is invigorating and fun,” he says.
After restoring the farmhouse on the Suffolk property from 1980 to 1983, they moved to Hilton Village to raise a family.
“We wanted to be near neighbors and for our kids to walk to school,” adds Whitney, who teaches at nearby Hilton Presbyterian Preschool.
Although the couple gardens at the farm, their crops begin at their city home. Seeds are started on heat mats under grow lights, and then the seedlings are transferred to a small backyard greenhouse before transplanted into Suffolk soil.
The list of vegetables, fruits and flowers they grow for personal use and for gift-giving reads like a gardening catalog — four kinds of pumpkins, six kinds of gourds, three kinds of musk melons and two kinds of watermelons. Zebra, Dancer and Black Beauty are their favorite eggplants; Romano, fava and regular snaps are their preferred beans. Spring and fall gardens include cabbages, kales, mustards, broccoli, kohlrabi, collards, peas and cilantro.
Tomato varieties they can whole and also make into pesto and salsa include Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra (winner of the 2011 Monticello tomato-testing contest, says Fred), German Riesentraube, Italian San Marzano, Sun Gold, plus Tomatillos.
Flower crops that benefit pollinators include zinnia, coneflower, black-eyed Susan, yarrow, lemon basil, sweet pea, bachelor buttons, butterfly bush, agastache, mountain mint, statice, strawflowers, larkspur, ageratum, amaranthus, cleome, sunflowers, hyacinth beans (seeds from Monticello), white dill (Ammi from The Gardener’s Workshop in Newport News), celosia, Sweet William and phlox.
“We provided all the cut flowers for our daughter’s wedding on the property in 2008,” says Fred.
“We provide yearly about half our family’s food needs through this garden and share additional produce and flowers with family and friends.”
The couple sticks to strict organic techniques using horse manure and bedding from a nearby farm to establish compost beds that fertilize the gardens. Dormant oil helps control insect issues on fruit and nut trees — apple, pear, plums, figs, pomegranate, cherry, pecan, English walnut, persimmon, apricot, trifoliate orange, Chinese chestnut and hazelnut. They harvest two kinds of kiwi — fuzzy and smooth Russian, both cold hardy in Hampton Roads.
They hand weed, mulch extensively and grow cover crops such as crimson clover, buckwheat and wheat during winter to improve soil conditions for upcoming plantings. No pesticides or commercial fertilizers are used, and limited botanical sprays and soaps eliminates most pests on other plants.
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