Let Us Cultivate Our Garden

Musing about being a first time gardener and growing things in the dirt

Perhaps I have read too much Eudora Welty, or perhaps I’ve listened to too much Eudora Welty on Audible, or perhaps I have watched my old VHS copy of Steel Magnolias one too many times, but I have found myself really settling into this Kentucky-southern-farmhouse-small town-rural-slow living-old fashioned-life. There is something completely fulfilling about it, about being a part of a community, and about being a part of this piece of land. 

When I moved to Kentucky full time in December my strongest desire was to be a part of the community. I grew up here, my family grew up here, we’ve been here for a very long time. We are one of those original land grant families. Kentucky became a state after we settled on this land. Back then this farm grew sugar cane, typically a tropical crop, that leads me to many questions about how it so successfully grew here, but thats a topic for another day. We’ve established roots here and I wanted to be part of that. I love the cities, but the cities tend to be cold and impersonal. I wanted that Fried Green Tomatoes or Hope Floats sort of experience. Yes, I do blame this on Eudora Welty and Harper Lee. I blame my love of southern gothic literature on this place and I blame my love of this place on southern gothic literature. 

I will however admit I really love that living here, in a very low cost of living region, allows me to travel much more than New York City did. This summer has already brought trips to both coasts and promises more adventures east and west and all over the fly over states in between. I have found this balance fuels my love of my hometown and inspires me on what we can do here in my hometown based on things I’ve seen in small towns across the U.S. Lately I’ve been alternating staying at home and taking quick weekend trips. I figured it might make for good blog and web content….so…here goes.

Fueled by all this southern gothic literature and Ouisers proclamation that we must wear funny hats and grow things in the dirt I have really taken a liking to gardening. I grew up with there being a massive garden here, but after my aunt and my grandfather’s deaths the garden lay dominant except for the scrubs and weeds that slowly, yet eagerly took over. Together they grew one of those old fashioned country gardens…the kind that taught you at an early age how to break beans, shuck corn, and how to properly plant a row. Those days are long gone though. This year I decided I’d plant a small garden for myself. It started with a plot 1/12 of the original size garden in a spot that really isn’t fit to grow much more than autumn turnips and mustard greens, but the spot makes for good photos so here we are. Three short rows were tilled and readied. Now anyone with any gardening knowledge at all, or with a bit of Martha Stewart 1990s research, will know rows should be planted north to south to maximize sun exposure, but this is a garden that is over 100 years old, and it runs east to west. 

Throw in a clay based soil and it’ll be a modern miracle if this garden produces much more than ragweed and crab grass. But here we are with three rows out behind the clothes line next to the blueberry bushes. I went to the greenhouse and procured a three pack of every garden plant they had and enough tomatoes to put up a few mason jars for winter….no I don’t know how to properly can, but thank you for asking. 

Beautiful little garden. The plants were watered daily and the tomatoes were staked with tobacco sticks and twine. Three rows suddenly felt small. I craved six. I wanted Kentucky pole beans to grow high up in the sky. I wanted cane polls tied together in cute trellises, but that will come next year. This year will have my Kentucky pole beans growing on the tallest variety of sweet corn I could find. The photos will be beautiful, exactly how I intended. Another row of tomatoes was added so I could have variety from pale pink to deep purple in color. Herbs were added to fill in spaces since my herb garden was taken over by grass, and a row of wildflowers has yet to be added along a fence I will make out of tobacco sticks. Those will be next week’s projects. Space was also added for twenty or so lavender plants so that we can have a cut your own area at our markets and popups in the coming years. Watermelons and gourds still need to be planted. The space will be filled with wildflower seed to hopefully cover area that would otherwise be an inviting home to weeds and grass. 

Next year I will start my garden early, I will hopefully also have a greenhouse, but for now the baby steps are in place to have a garden that will provide enough for a few recipes, endless photos, a few meals around this dining table I currently sit at. One day I will even perhaps have a garden the size of what it once was, but there is much to do before then. 

These photos are my garden coming together. I will share more as the season progresses on. I will hopefully start sharing at least one post a week from life here on the farm and from my travels. Life is best lived slow and steady, and here we have both. 

Revisiting: Our New York City to Los Angeles Road Trip

Our 2016 road trip from New York City to Los Angeles | All Photos by: Paige Denkin

These days I am absolutely desperate to travel. After a year inside the wilderness, cities, mountains, deserts, and waters of California are calling me. I am convinced I will get a rental car and set out for the wild blue yonder and the Wide Open Spaces like I’m a 90’s country classic. My One Way Ticket time to shine will be standing on the border and looking out into the great unknown. Until then I wanted to take a look back a few of my favorite trips from the past five years.

Our Route:

New York City — Hershey — Pittsburgh — Cleveland — Chicago — Davenport, Iowa — Lincoln, Nebraska — Denver — Arches National Park — Canyonlands National Park — Moab, Utah — Monument Valley — Horseshoe Bend — Paige, Arizona — Zion National Park — Las Vegas — Big Bear, California — Los Angeles

Important Stops: Milkshakes at Hershey, that Mexican restaurant next to the John Deere dealership in rural Iowa, the worlds largest truck stop, that big Dutch wind meal somewhere of Interstate 70…

We will begin with one of the very best. Back in 2016 Paige and I decided we would drive to CAMP (a camp for creatives in the mountains outside LA). We would start in Chelsea and head west stopping in towns and cities along the way to visit with creatives that inspired us. We set out with two friends, a Cadillac, and a whole bunch of cameras.

Our trips first stop was in Pittsburgh, PA by way of interstate 76….a number selected to celebrate Pennsylvania’s legacy of being the birth of America’s independence. Paige had carefully plotted and charted our route to really maximize the number of states we’d travel through and allow us to stop in spots with great photo spots. The Pittsburgh stop was brief as it allowed us to prepare for a day in Cleveland visiting with our friends at Stash Style and FOUNT. A tour of FOUNT’s workshop, Stash’s store, and of course ice-cream were all called for. Sunset on the lakes was especially beautiful and a starting point for all the landscapes to come.

From there we headed west towards Chicago for another brief stop. We quickly took in the zoo, met with friends, and stopped at Frontier…my favorite restaurant in Chicago. If you love meat with an Oregon Trail theme this is a must stop place.

The next day took us deep into the midwest. Paige had arranged for us to stay in Davenport, Iowa. The landscapes soon changed from the mountains of Appalchiia into the flat lands of the Midwest. Farmland stretched for miles and we headed towards a Texas Roadhouse in Des Moines…because every roadtrip must include a Texas Roadhouse, a Waffle House, and a Cracker Barrel.

Continuing west we stopped to see Yoni and the Buffalo in Lincoln, Nebraska and headed towards Denver. Denver would be our transition from the Midwest to the West. We spent a bit of extra time in Denver to visit several shops and a Cheesecake Factory. The snow covered mountains were next. By now we had gone from the city lights of Manhattan to the Appalachian mountains of Pennsylvian, the Great Lakes, the Midwest, the Mile High City, and now the Rockies. We were about to head abruptly south and get into the red rocks of Moab, Arches, and Canyonlands. Sites I am absolutely desperate to revisit. If you go looking for me in the coming weeks you may find me hidden in an arch at Arches. If you’re looking for nature and to get lost in it I would highly recommend taking whatever highway goes directly through Moab. I would also recommend a drive through Monument Valley. I have been rusty with my writing for far too long to properly articulate the scale that is Monument Valley. Just make a point to go there at least once.

From Monument Valley we began a race against the clock to get to CAMP on time. BBQ in Paige, Arizona after seeing Horseshoe Bend was a must. If you’re keeping track we have dropped from The Great Lakes down to Arizona. We’ve gone from Interstate 80 to down about Interstate 40 (the higher the EVEN interstate number the further north it is). From Paige we did a very brief stop in Las Vegas and a sunset run through Zion. Zion is probably my favorite National Park and I regret that I haven’t gotten back.

The journey now takes us from Las Vegas into the backrounds of the mountains outside LA as we head to Big Bear. The windows are down and we are screaming Come Pick Me Up by Bryan Adams.

After CAMP Paige and I completed our trip in LA. I don’t remember exactly what we did, but I do know we intentionally drove to Santa Monica to touch the Pacific after driving from the Atlantic.

I could go on and on about why I love this roadtrip, but there was something truly magical about taking an American made Cadillac and driving it out of a garage in the center of New York City and going west. Going from such a large and dense city to absolute stretches of nothing in the West was something everyone really must experience. We went from tiny single stop light towns to massive cities. A theme I will mention in each of these posts is the importance of seeing the country to really understand the people of this country.

The journey now takes us from Las Vegas into the backrounds of the mountains outside LA as we head to Big Bear. The windows are down and we are screaming Come Pick Me Up by Bryan Adams.

I hear this KAO has a great creek we must get photos of

Georgia on my Mind

Newnan, GA is the hometown of country super star Alan Jackson. This mural is downtown.

Over the weekend I made a very quick trip from Kentucky down to Georgia. The trip had been planned for a bit, but the agenda was open ended. I am here in Kentucky for the winter with no travel plans for obvious reasons. The farmhouse is still being worked on, there are garages to clean, content to create, and several issues to prepare…plus I really do want to take my blogging seriously. I will occasionally plan a few close to home trips. Georgia felt just the right distance for a three day tour.

I am southern at heart and proud to be southern, but I am a Kentuckian. Kentucky is one of those states that the South doesn’t really want to claim and the Midwest doesn’t either. We are forever stuck with multiple identities. I however lean into my southern sass far more than the Midwestern nice. The South though has a magic and a cadence to it that feels like home. The bucolic landscapes, small towns, and slower pace of life have long been enchanting to me. Visions of grand oak trees and large front porches fill my dreams. Whenever I can I love to journey down below the state lines. This weekend felt like a good time to visit Georgia. Georgia has certainly been on many people’s minds as of late.

For many years I have followed Greenhouse Mercantile on social media. It has been one of my favorite shops, even if I had never visited the shop. I especially love that they carry FOLK. For many years I have said I would one day visit. In a very small world the shop was in the same town where I stayed for the weekend. Below are a few photos from the shop. I will be doing a larger more in-depth story in the next week or so.

The farmhouse is outside of my hometown of 300 people. We are somewhere in rural western Kentucky that high speed internet has yet to reach and when I moved in I very loudly proclaimed I didn’t want anything but shelves of books and a VCR. The stack that constantly stays beside the TV are my go to southern classics…. Steel Magnolias, Hope Floats, Where the Heart is, Yaya Sisterhood, and Fried Green Tomatoes. I have probably seen Fried Green Tomatoes a hundred times. There is something about it that feels like it could have taken place in any town. Anyways…I have had the idea that if I ever got to Georgia I’d visit where they filmed the movie and the restaurant that is from the movie. Yes, the movie is set in Alabama but filmed in Georgia. Anyways, the tiny town of Juliette, Georgia was turned into Whistle Stop for the movie and after filming it remained very much like the movie shows it. The restaurant really does feel like you’ve walked into the 1930s.

The fried green tomatoes and the pecan cobbler are a must. The restaurant feels like an authentic slice of southern culture and heritage. I highly recommend taking the ten minute drive off of Interstate 75 and stopping in for lunch.

Serebe a planned farm and community outside Atlanta has the most wonderful collection of architecture styles in its many neighborhoods.

My goal is to start sharing my unique finds each week. This trip had several souvenirs from Greenhouse Mercantile, a couple jars of goods by Rogers Made (a pit stop in TN), and honey from Juliette to honor the Bee Charmer. The Greenhouse Mercantile finds were a book I first saw on their website and thought it’d be a great conversation book for somewhere in my house, a wooden honey dipper, a vintage cream colored bowl that I truly didn’t need but couldn’t pass up its $5 price tag, and Houseplants for All…a book by a friend of mine that I will touch on later. Oh I also got this amazing navy flag that has a very faded design of a train, plane, boat, and wagon.

2021: Planning the Year

They say 2021 is just 2020 with bangs. Yesterday I shared my thoughts about 2020. Today I am sharing my thoughts about 2021. I refuse to believe that 2021 cannot be a better year. I believe we must take the lessons learned from last year and carry those into action in this year. I have always believe that prayer without action is a wasted prayer. I believe a lesson learned without applying it to the future is wasted potential and wasted pain. As we look in 2021 here at FOLK I am putting it into writing and manifesting that I want us to continue the work we did promoting makers and creatives and small businesses in 2020 and push to do more and reach more in 2021. 

My goals are to expand our wholesale and be in 100 stores by the end of the year. I am confident we can do that. The plan is to bring in a person that will manage the growth and oversee those accounts. Every product that we offer on in our shop, at our events, or via wholesale is made by small makers. We take such pride in getting to work with so many talented makers. These goods aren’t made in a factory or in China…they are made right here at home by hand. 

This year we will also be expanding our website to have daily and weekly features. I love to write, but for so long have found excuses to get out of writing. This will change. There is just too much to share. 

Late last year I started playing with video. I wanted to create videos of old fashioned recipes and slow living things I have learned here on the farm over the years. I’m still not very good at it, but I am enjoying the process. I will begin those next week. Here is one from last year if you’d like to check it out. Like with any new skill I told myself I just had to start. I would learn by doing. I wouldn’t be perfect on the first try. We will learn together.

As I said in yesterday’s post we will find a new platform for the marketplace this year. It was too good of a thing not to carry on. Finding the perfect partner will be key. The goal is to get it to a place where a job will be created to oversee the marketplace and it can run on its own…becoming a place where makers and small businesses can sell their goods. 

Print is the big one for 2021, much like it was for 2020. Last year I would have never dreamt of the response we would have. Last year was an incredibly bad year for print. I wanted several of my friends, people I had respected and looked up to for many years totally implode. Before 2020 my goal was to not be one of them. I knew if we were going to do print we had to do it as lean as possible….meaning I would be doing it all myself. The hard work is worth it. Always. It absolutely is. This year we will release a travel/wanderlust issue as soon as the USPS has media mail sorted and back on track. From there we will have an early summer Slow Living issue, an autumn issue, and an October release of our Christmas issue. We will also be releasing a hardcover 10 year anthology of my favorite stories from the decade. The book will release early autumn. We are starting this year with a special issue of FOLK called MADE. I envision MADE becoming an annual collection of conversations with makers. I would say it will release in early March. We are switching printers and their lead time is much longer than the previous printer…but they are much more affordable. That leads to the thing I am most excited for….I will be the first to acknowledge that our cover price isn’t the most affordable. It is the price it is because there are no ads and we do limited distribution. Our issues are never filled with sponsored content or advertisements. That means the entirety of the production budget comes from the magazines selling. If we ever start adding ads to the issues you will see our cover price go down, but until then we make the issues as packaged with meaningful content as possible. With the switch to the new printer we are able to reformat and reprint several back issues. We are offering them through the month of January for $5 per copy. If you have wanted to order FOLK but have been hesitant because of the price, this is the time to order. 

I will leave it there for today. There are more things in store, but that is for another day.

Thank you.

Ben 

P.S. I will also start proofing these this year. I am forever in a hurry and don’t proofread like I should. 

2020: A Look Back

2020 was a year that very few people need a reflective essay about. For the most part 2020 was a year that many people look forward to forgetting. 2020 however was a very good year to embrace your roots and live slow. It was a year of bread baking, home making, and making a house a home. This was the year to take up new hobbies and learn long forgotten skills. This was a very good year for us to return to FOLK. 

The past few years FOLK had very much been gone dormant. It wasn’t anyone’s full time job and it wasn’t my personal passion. I had stepped away and worked for others all while dreaming of a day when my passions would return and I would want to return to FOLK. 2019 was a year where I could feel the glimmers of my old self coming back to life, my passions re-igniting, and a general idea that maybe I really did want to bring FOLK back to life. The problem was…FOLK had been defined by two very different chapters and identities. It began as a college summer project that celebrated American made, the little things in life, and a love of rural small towns via our original run of magazines. The second chapter was one that focused on epic landscapes and photography community and was entirely digital. To come back to life would mean having to decide which of the chapters to revisit and revive. At the time I was yearning to embrace the original chapter, but I didn’t know how to make it work. I still loved the second chapter but landscapes and photography just weren’t where I personally love in life. I told myself that if it was meant to happy it would happen and that I couldn’t force anything. Over the last parts of 2019 doors started opening and my love of small towns and the little things in life quickly came back to life. The Slow Living movement was one that had been embraced by many across America as a natural progression of the handmade and American made movements and it was one that felt very natural for me. I was raised on a very old farm in the middle of rural Kentucky. I had been living slow long before I realized the way I was raised wasn’t particularly normal. 

2019 rolled into 2020 and I was at a place where if I wanted to bring FOLK back the cards were all in place. I very quietly and privately started preparing a special issue of what I hoped would become a revival for FOLK the magazine. The issue was to be a Slow Living issue and it would release in the spring. I went to many of my friends and those I admired and asked them to be a part. In my mind I really was okay if we only sold one. I wanted to do this for me, to prove to myself I could. I wanted to do it by my rules, by myself, and with all the lessons I had learned from nine years of being in business. I knew if I did all of it myself and kept costs and overhead incredibly lean “we” could make this work. I continued preparing the issue, a slow living issue, as the world slowed to a stop. Suddenly in the spring we were all living slow. 

As the pandemic and its hold grew and the world stood still the issue went to print. I did a very humble printing and exclusively offered it through our website. Every copy was packaged and mailed from my hallway floor. One printing turned into four and the issue was selling way more than I ever expected. We had hit a cord. We were rolling. I truly cannot tell you how good it felt. It was a sense of peace I hadn’t felt in many years. After several struggles over the years it felt like all the hard learned lessons and failures had been stepping stones and lessons for what was here and on the table. 

As part of this new chapter I had the idea of creating a wonderful online marketplace for handmade goods. The idea is a miniature version of etsy…a place where you could order goods from dozens of makers and they would be drop shipped by the maker…thus allowing for a much better cut for the maker and less overhead for us. It launched in April and did really well, until the creator of the startup that hosted the start up had a nervous breakdown. The start up went out of business. This is an idea we will revisit again in the spring with a different platform. I love the idea of having an online general store, but we do not have the manpower to do it all in house. It was beautiful while it lasted and inspired us to keep going.

As we pushed into summer we began work on the two other issues for 2020. What was to be a special one time Slow Living issue turned into a trio of issues for 2020 and we are doing I believe four for 2021. The autumn and Christmas issues saw us step into our stride and felt like something we could truly be proud of. I personally love the size and format of this new era. The idea was to create a size that you could carry with you. A digest if you will.

The year also allowed us to launch wholesale. This had been a dream of mine since long before FOLK. I wanted to create products that could be produced in my own rural community and offered in small brick and mortar shops across the country. This will be something we continue to grow in 2021. My personal goal is to be in 100 stores by the end of this year and to have a person oversee this all. 

As I list all of these things off it truly feels surreal. For so long I thought that FOLK was done and that I was done along with it. There isn’t a moment that I am not thankful for what we were able to do in 2020. I want to thank each of you that were a part of the year. As we move into 2021 the goals are lofty, but the mentality of being a slow burn will continue on. 

Thank you, thank you to each of you.

Ben 

Autumn at the Farmhouse

My house is very much still a work in project, but we are taking it slow and having fun as we go. I have found that during this incredibly weird year baking, cooking, crafting, and enjoying my time and my guests is far more important than having every detail of the house picture perfect. I would however like to power wash the house before winter. Please ignore the algae in the photos of the front.

I took these photos a few weeks ago before returning to The City. The yard has been decorated for our A Kentucky Handmade Weekend events.

This autumn, my first autumn owning the house, has been a bit surreal. Dreams of the way I’d decorate for years were coming true…while also realizing the limitations of what you can realistically pull off. Pumpkins and mums aren't actually that cheap. My favorite area became the side yard. I am still overwhelmed with how to make the front porches really pop. I am hopeful that Christmas is when I will figure out how to make the front porch shine.

The soybean field beside the house.

This was our “photo booth” for the event. The settee is for sale! The blanket is by Tribe and True. The old can I found in the barn twenty years ago and used to use for pumpkin displays.

We strung lights in the trees to provide light during our autumn workshops. I absolutely love how they look. I wish I could cover the entire tree.

This was the year I mastered the pumpkin pie. I will share this recipe tomorrow. With all of the pumpkins I bought I knew I’d be cooking with all of them over the coming months. This pie has been trial and error as I try to create something I enjoy more than Libby’s canned pie filling.

This is a sugar maple tree. We watched it come to life each day. When I left it was such a beautiful color. The water maple next to it is not my favorite.

The final basil of the season was used for a very summery salad to go with pumpkin soup.

The front steps weren’t supposed to be blocked by pumpkins, but it happened.

This swing has been an absolute favorite. It is by Peg and Awl and I would absolutely recommend.

My aunt was selling old quits at our event. They looked perfect on the clothes line.

May the basil live on. I added it as a ground cover to make it more difficult to get to my cistern. I never expected them to turn out so big and full. It started as one of those oversized $6.99 pots you get at the grocery store.

These signs were bought at A Fine Farmhouse years ago.

I absolutely love this side of the big garage.

My coal house is where we store the inventory for the online store. I like the idea of having a space ready and shopable for visitors and anyone that wants to stop by.

An Autumn Sunday Drive

Sundays in autumn are best spent on drives through the mountains and country side. This Sunday we took a drive along The Hudson. The week before we had noticed several spots along the route that were picture perfect. The eastern side of the Hudson has long been the home to vast estates and quaint small towns. Cold Springs has recently become a favorite of ours after an unexpectedly pleasant visit to the town along the river that truly feels like Stars Hallow come to life. The area is also home to FDR’s Presidential Library, homes owned by the Vanderbilts and Rockafelle’s and historic homes along the river, many dating back to the beginnings of the United States. Highway 9D is a must travel road during the autumn season. Plan on frequent leaf peeping stops and visits to the tiny towns that dot the highway. These are a few of the images I shot over the weekend.

The church shots just below are from Warwick, New York…which is on the western side of the Hudson River.

Autumn in Ohio County

Somewhere between Steel Magnolias and Fried Green Tomatoes lives my hometown. I am from one of those areas that identifies as counties rather than towns. When I refer to my hometown I am basically never talking about the tiny town of 300 I grew up outside of, or the town of 3500 where I tell people is my hometown. The entire county and its population of 24,000 is my hometown. The fifth largest county in Kentucky. A county that is named after the Ohio River even though the river isn’t particularly that close (the part of the county that lies along the river broke away and became its own county years and years ago). The county toes that line between the rolling hills of central Kentucky and the flat Mississippi River bottoms that spread far and wide across western Kentucky. The landscapes in our county start in the east with hollers and valleys and by the time you get to the curves of the Green River the land is endlessly flat. I really do love the landscapes in all seasons, but there is something about autumn here that is warmer, more welcoming, and a reminder that these rural farming communities were built using the bounties of the land. A cornucopia of nature provides a painters palette of inspiration for the camera. These are a few of my favorite images I have shot around the county over the past few autumn.