Hey! We are Lucy and Tim Heil.
One of the goals of local sustainable agriculture is to grow crops befitting the culture, the land and the nature of a given area. We are totally committed to organic farming techniques and specialize in growing organic fruits and vegetables that are best suited for the consumers, retail outlets, markets and restaurants of northeast Georgia and the surrounding area. We concentrate mainly on producing heirloom varieties and raise all our crops in the ground, no hydroponics or container produce. And, of course, we are USDA Certified Organic. We go the extra mile to grow the finest organic produce!
2011 will be our first full production year. Tim retired May 7, 2010 after 30 years in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Georgia. Lucy brings 25 years of management and marketing experience as a vital contribution to running the farm. We are truly excited to be full time farmers.
Over the past 6 years we have built our farm in preparation for this season, developing the soil - we call it "growing the topsoil" with year-round cover crop planting, investing heavily in capital projects, and researching which organic practices are the best use of our resources in our microclimate. We will be posting our research results and views the organic foods movement on our blog. You are welcome to join in this discussion.
We considerably upgraded our facility to near state-of-the art in 2009, including a barn with a produce washing facility and two walk in coolers. We also completed a deer fence around our main growing field to eliminate competition with our #1 pest. Photos and descriptions of these projects and other aspects of Flatwoods Farm will be posted under the Around the farm link. We will list new features of interest here as we add them.