This story was originally published in the Summer 2014 issue of The ‘Sip Magazine, a print publication founded and published by Lauchlin Fields. View the full issue here.
Van and Tori Killen are living life on their own terms, all while providing fresh eats to homes and restaurants in the Jackson area in their spare time. And, this hard-working Flora couple loves every minute of it.
The Killens, both 28 and both born and raised in the Delta, are no strangers to farming. Van worked on a family friend’s farm several summers, planting row crops and driving a tractor. Tori’s dad was a farmer, so she often was on a tractor or combine. Starting their own farm seemed like a natural step for the couple.
“It’s something we learned growing up,” Van said.
The two met while they were students at Delta State University and were together for seven years before tying the knot three years ago. After college, they traveled, living in Colorado and Chattanooga before settling in Flora. Wherever they went, the couple had a garden.
“We grew vegetables that we used for meals,” said Tori. “Knowing where our food comes from has always been important to us.”
Van landed a job with an engineering firm, but three years in a cubicle taught him it was not the life for him. After moving back to Mississippi, the couple decided to give farming a try.
“My dad had always grown rice and soybeans, and I never missed a harvest season,” Tori said. “When he retired, he bought some land in Flora. He agreed to let us use an acre of his land to see if it was really something we wanted to do.”
The Killens experimented last summer to see if they could make money with farming.
“Not only did we make a little money, we had fun doing it,” Van said. “We decided we wanted to expand.”
As fate would have it, the couple met Leigh Bailey and her husband, Jamie Redmond, at a farmers’ market. Leigh and Jamie had purchased land in Flora and were starting a hydroponic growing operation called Salad Days. Hydroponic is the process of growing plants in sand, gravel or liquid, with added nutrients but without soil.
“We had more land than we needed,” Leigh said. “So, we fenced off four acres to keep the cows from the adjoining property out, and Van and Tori started their farm next door to our greenhouses.”
The Killens named the farm Two Dog Farms, after their “children,” their two dogs — Sid, a blue healer/lab mix, and Arlo, an English Springer Spaniel.
Both Van and Tori have full-time jobs during the week, so their farming duties take place in the afternoons after work and on the weekends. Conveniently, Van works next door at Salad Days during the week, so, after work, he just heads next door to tend to his own crops. Tori works at Kalalou, a home accessories company in Jackson.
“I have a creative side that I get to express in my day job,” said Tori. “I get off work at 5 p.m., then I meet up with Van to work on our farm until dark. We’re also there all weekend.”
Once the produce is ready to pick, the Killens have a few different ways to sell it to the public. A major way is through farmers’ markets — the Mississippi Farmers Market on High Street in downtown Jackson on Saturdays and the new Madison Farmers’ Market on Tuesday evenings. They also offer a Community Supported Agriculture plan, which is a subscription-based plan in which participants pay a fee at the beginning of the growing season and get a box full of fresh picks each week. The couple was hoping to sell 20 memberships, and, so far, they’ve sold 15. A membership in the Two Dog Farms CSA costs $450 a year.
“That was a big boost to us, as it gave us the capital to purchase some needed equipment,” Van said.
The CSA has benefitted the Killens in other ways, as well.
“Many of the members of our CSA are people we may not have ever met otherwise. They come out on the weekends to get their box of produce, and we visit,” Van said. “I love to see their faces when they see what’s in their box each week, and I especially love it when they tell me how good the previous week’s produce was. They tell us what they prepared with it, and we swap recipes. I also walk them out in the garden so they can see what’s coming. It’s been really rewarding for both Tori and me.”
The CSA boxes are often supplemented with lettuce from Salad Days and, soon, fresh-cut flowers will be included with each box.
The Killens marketed their CSA through fliers distributed in the Fondren area of Jackson and in Madison. But, they attribute most of the success of the plan to social media, which allowed them to reach people far and wide.
“What really surprised us was when we started getting checks from people who had never met us,” Van said.
Two Dog Farms also supplies a few local restaurants with fresh produce, using the popular farm-to-table concept.
“We provide small batches of fresh produce to restaurants, and that’s growing,” Van said.
They hope their venture will take them to a farm-to-schools program, a concept of providing fresh produce to area schools.
“We are working on getting our USDA certification and audit. We’ve approached a few schools and they’re interested, but we have to be certified by the USDA before they can buy from us,” Van said.
Efficiency is important to the Killens.
“The more we do this, the more we discover ways to be more efficient in our efforts,” Van said. “I guess one of the most frustrating things about this kind of work is the amount of time it takes. It seems there are never enough hours in the day. But as we go along and get more efficient, that will hopefully get better.
One of those efficiencies will be a pick-your-own operation for pumpkins in the fall and a roadside produce stand.
“Once that happens, we will most likely stop going to farmers’ markets,” Van said.
Planting season for the Killens started in late March and early April, and the spring has been good, with plenty of rain. The couple has been forced to turn on their irrigation system only a couple of times, and that was really just to check it, Van said.
He was surprised early on that people aren’t as concerned about his produce being organic as they are about knowing the origin of their food.
“There is a big push for eating local and buying organic. It seems that the local aspect is most important for our customers,” he said.
While they grow a wide variety of vegetables and blackberries, Two Dog Farms is known for their heirloom varieties.
“People went crazy over our Alabama red okra last summer,” Tori said. “It’s something people don’t see very often, and it tastes just as good baked as it does fried.”
Also popular is the Pattypan squash.
“It’s something our older customers remember from gardens long ago,” Tori said. “Again, it’s not something you see very often.”
While not a certified organic farm, Two Dogs Farm does not use pesticides or herbicides on their crops.
“You can see the weeds growing around some of the plants, and that’s just how it is,” Van said. “We choose not to spray our crops.”
Instead, they lay out long strips of Visqueen along each row in the garden, “punch holes in the plastic and put in the plants, and that will keep the weeds at bay,” Van said.
Next door, at Salad Days Produce no weeds can be found. That’s because all the produce is grown inside large greenhouses.
Like something from the space age, people enter and exit the greenhouses through double airlock chambers. Inside, row after row of white shelves fill the greenhouses. The shelves have holes evenly spaced where new plants are placed. Lettuce grows quickly in that environment, especially when the plants are pumped with a blended mix of nutrients. Salad Days is one of only four hydroponic growing operations in the state. While lettuce is the primary crop, rows and rows of tomatoes, cucumbers and other produce also can be found there.
Leigh Bailey also takes her produce to local farmers’ markets, and she sells to several restaurants.
“It’s become very popular for restaurants to print where they sourced their food on the menus. More and more, people want to know where their food comes from,” Leigh said. “Our lettuce is much fresher than anything that had to be trucked across the country.”
Leigh describes her produce as “better than organic.” True organic gardening must happen in dirt. Since her produce is grown in water and nutrients, it can’t be classified as organic.
“We don’t use chemicals or pesticides. We do use ladybugs and lacewings to eat the bad insects, and we use bumblebees to cross-pollinate our tomatoes,” she said.
The nutrient-rich water can be re-used several times, so that saves on water costs for Salad Days. But instead of discarding the water, Van uses it on his crops.
“There are still nutrients in the water, so I don’t need fertilizer,” he added.
Just as plants have a symbiotic relationship with insects for cross-pollination, the Killens have a symbiotic relationship with Leigh and Jamie.
“It’s a comfortable fit for all of us,” said Leigh. “If Two Dog Farms wants to expand, we can accommodate that. We have 18 acres here, so there’s plenty of room to grow.”
Tori said it’s unusual to see a couple as young as she and Van farming together, but it’s just in their blood.
“This life makes sense for us,” she said. “We enjoy being together, and we enjoy raising good food. My mother is from a Greek background, and I was raised with great cooking. Now we can help other families do the same.”