Type of opportunity:

Sale (Standard), Sale (Owner Financed), Lease with Option to Buy, Internship / Mentorship, Business Partnership, Employment with Transfer. More info: We are imagining a land-based community, near old forest, on a combination of forested and cleared acreage and are open to conservation. Streams or ponds are highly desired, as is access to forest and mountain trails. An old barn would be wonderful! Our interests and skills include: Music and writing, medicinal herb farming, beekeeping, permaculture, forestry, fruit trees, and considerate living with supportive families in multiple or shared structures. We want to raise children around other parents. We are wanting to manifest medicine and vegetables, art and ecology, and inclusivity as we pursue the production of herbs, nutrition, arts and crafts, and small village life.

Equipment & infrastructure:

Barn, Well / Pond / Other water source, Farmer housing. More info: An old barn would be wonderful, as would any out-buildings or workshop space while we get our feet under us.

Current production on farm:

More info: We are especially open to bees, organic practices, streams, alternative energy generation, and herbal-medicinal production. Also we are open to forest-based livelihoods including managed forest products such as herbs, forest-grazing animals, and sustainable lumbering -- as well as nature preserves and-or conservation lands. On-site water is a plus. A spring would be amazing.

Current farming practices:

Biodynamic, Conventional, Certified organic, Transitioning to organic, Ecological production but not certified, None, the property is not being farmed.

Previous farming experience:

Volunteer, Employee, Manager

Number of years experience:

15

Other qualifications:

Farm business training, Academic degree in agriculture or related field. More info: I grew up farming Christmas trees in Upstate South Carolina. My partner grew up in nursery plants and landscaping, and we are both landscapers, gardeners, herbalists, and are interested in bees, fruit, and chickens. I have a college degree in plant science. I've got landscape design experience and am a permaculture graduate, as well as a landscaper by trade (among other work).

Production goals:

Aquaculture, Christmas trees, Fallow, Field crops, Flowers, Hay or pasture, Herbs, Orchard, Sheep/Goat (Dairy/Meat), Vegetable production, Vineyard, Woodlot or forest products. More info: We are especially interested in herbal-medicinal production, bees and orchards, traditional collaborative permaculture village-steading, and progressive forest-based livelihoods (such as herbs, wood products, and nature experiences). We would like part of the land to be put in conservation easement - both for agriculture as well as for natural areas conservation. We are open to sustainable hunting as well.

Personal experience and production goals summary:

WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR: 

WHO WE ARE: 

Michael has been a professional landscaper for 13 years. He grew up farming choose-and-cut Christmas trees in upstate South Carolina, has worked as a fruit farm hand, and with children teaching gardening and after-school. He wants to engage in forest farming along with pollinator production for bees, as well as gardening for teas and medicines -- as well as continued art and creative pursuits in writing. He is a lover of soil and ecology and will make caring for the land -- and the local community -- a lifelong pursuit. 

Eliza Rose is an herbalist, medicine woman, street medic, freelance writer, and beloved gardener, taking after her plant-loving mother. She also works as a freelance writer, and engages in community justice organizing. She has WWOOFed on a permaculture farm, as well as two medicinial plant & food nurseries. Her farm dreams are full of echinacea and nettle fields, interwoven with feral forest tending for the proliferation of native medicinals and mushrooms. She envisions the benefits of a hoophouse in growing sub-tropical plants, ponds for water storage and aquaculture, and a tobacco barn to dry herbs.

Other friends interested in going in on this endeavor are also musicians, hemp production farmers, wildcrafters, botanists, childcare practicioners, and communitarians. We are dedicated to getting along well with our neighbors; tending the land with love and care; and enhancing what we are given to create a more thriving earth and strong community ties. 

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR (SUBJECT TO IMPROVEMENT): 

DISTANCE FROM TOWN: 

< 20 minutes to a town center (Celo, Barnardsville, Marshall, Asheville, Burnsville, Mars Hill, Swannanoa..). 

~ 35 minutes to the City of Asheville. 

SIZE: 

~ 40+ acres if we are purchasing the land cooperatively (e.g. with a small handfull of families to "go in on it together" -- (e.g. farming, raising children, protecting and farming the land together). 

< 5-10 acres if the property adjoins an existing village, community, or town center. 

LAND FEATURES: 

Water/springs; (partly) old-forested land or mature forest (either as part of property or adjoining, if we can use that land)

EXISTING HOUSE/BUILDING/STRUCTURE: 

Yes. Large or community-style house / multi-family house / bed-and-breakfast-size house preferred. 

OTHER THINGS: 

I'll add more as things come to me. Please don't hesitate to be in touch!