Welcome

Hello and welcome to The Backyard Farmer. I am your host Randy Durham. I have been a video producer for over 40 years and an interested gardener for almost as long.

I want to share with you the idea behind TheBackyardFarmer.com, our vision for the website and what you can expect to find here in the coming months and years. Our hope is that you will find this resource both educational and inspirational and that you will join with us by sharing your knowledge and experience, as we learn to grow together.

There has been a growing interest in the past 20 years or more on idea of “sustainability”. In 1987 the UN Brundtland Commission defined sustainability in a very simple way. The Commission said that sustainability is the development of processes that “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

So in a nut shell it is the process of using resources without depleting them. In a backyard farm or garden setting it is using natural resources in a way that provides a process to replenish them for future use. It is an exciting movement that benefits the home gardener and in the process, our planet.

So why do I have a garden? The backstory...I was born in a small town in North Carolina in the late 1950’s. For a short time I lived on my grandfather’s 20 acre farm where I observed his daily routine of rising early to feed the animals, collect the eggs and milk the cows, then leave for his job of 35 years at a textile mill in Haw River, NC. He would return from work in the afternoon, change into his farming clothes, climb on his Ford tractor to work the fields, then back to tending to the chickens, pigs and cows. His hard work ethic and the fruits of his labor made an indelible impression on me as a young boy. Every morning there was fresh milk and my grandmother churned butter that she sold in the community. We ate fresh vegetables in the summer and canned food for the winter. They had livestock on the farm so we had poultry, pork and beef to eat as well. Throughout my childhood our family always had a garden to work during the summer and my mom would always preserve corn, beans, pickles, and more for us to eat through the winter.

My wife and I have had a garden for most of our life together. We live outside Raleigh, NC on a 1.3 acre lot and each year we grow tomatoes, corn, beans, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, potatoes, and more. Summer isn’t summer without that first from the garden tomato sandwich and corn on the cob. In addition to enjoying fresh vegetables in the summer, we freeze corn and can tomatoes and pickles to enjoy throughout the year. A few years back we decided to add some chickens to our backyard farm. We enjoy the fresh eggs and the chickens also help us with composting leaves, yard mulch, and food scraps to enhance the soil in our garden. They also assist by eating insects and snakes on the property. In 2019 I began my journey as a beekeeper to do our part in assisting the bee population and to enhance our own garden production through pollination and of course, to enjoy fresh RAW honey. In 2022 we harvested over 200 pounds of honey and have bottled over 200 pounds each year since!

Working a garden is a theraputic passion for me. There is something spiritual about working the land and growing your own food. Now, I have a certain way that I’ve planned and executed my garden over the years but I am by no means an expert on any level! My approach to thebackyardfarmer.com is to share what I’ve learned and to learn what I don’t know, both from you our members and by seeking out experts in several fields. As we learn, we will share here, as we grow together.

To accomplish this we plan to post video how-to segments, along with interviews with local experts in various areas of interest. We’ll be looking at a lot of topics on how to plan a garden, how to grow different vegetables, raising chickens, raising quail, designing and building cold storage or a greenhouse/hoop house, bee keeping, hydroponics, aquaponics, how to build a root cellar, pest control, harvesting and canning, recipes and much more. As you can see there are years and years of topics to cover and things to learn!

We will be adding informative video segments and articles on an accelerating basis to the website. We also are developing a community section where you can register a free account and share your backyard farming techniques and experiences with other members. Our commitment is content at a top technical and informational level.

I am honored to be your host as we embark on this journey of discovery in our backyard gardens and as we learn to grow together. I do not consider myself the expert, but I am good at asking questions and finding answers. Over time our goal is to connect with many experts in each of the fields of interest we’ve identified and to build an advanced series of Courses and Lessons that we will make available by subscription to our members. More to come on that in the coming months!

We are stoked that you have found us and hope you'll check in regularly.

Blessings!

Randy Durham