Meet the Farmer - Joseph Zarr

Though I spent much of my youth in the woods behind my suburban home and at the ponds within the spread of our local subdivision, I truly began my earliest real plant explorations and agricultural endeavors as a 21 year old young man when I was working part-time in a so-called native plant nursery in the upper reaches of the Driftless region of SE Minnesota. It was there where I became curious about the realm of plants. From there, I became a part-time caretaker at a 660 acre cattle ranch on land that was a remnant oak savannah amidst mono-crop corn acreage. 

I did this work for several years - tending cattle, raising fences, stripping oak poles, fixing fences, fixing frozen water lines, feeding and tending horses and growing my first truly independent gardens. Life was quite good then. My curiosities continued when I returned to finish my undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Twin Cities - I continued to work in the nursery; I continued to garden religiously; I continued planting remnant prairies; I continued stoking the ire of Urban prim and proper gardeners by (gasp!) both welcoming pioneer weeds to flourish while also intentionally leaving my frost-killed prairie plants to taunt passers by during those cold and snowy Minnesota winters. 

Once I finished my institutional studies, I lept full-bore into the nomadic farming life - a life that has traveled many many places across the Western Hemisphere. I did a full season of SPIN farming in my homestead front yard back in Minnesota. From there, I plunged into my first wholesale season farming produce in SW Wisconsin for Organic Valley while planting copious amounts of hazelnuts and other Savannah mimic perennial plants. 

Since that time some sixteen years ago, I have been an Eco-Village Kitchen Gardner in the Deep South; an Urban Edible Landscape Manager in Central Missouri; a CSA and wholesale farmer in the desert Southwest; a greenhouse organic tomato and micro-greens grower in the mountains of Northern New Mexico; a tropical cacao farmer in the equatorial tropics; a rotational grazing consultant in the Virgin Islands; a cannabis farmer in Oregon - the list goes on. I have farmed many soils and immersed myself in myriad eco-types. I have farmed mountains, valleys, hollers, hills, flatlands, city lots, parking lots, sidewalks, forests, and then some. 

These diverse experiences have afforded me an innate ability to feel the landscape in intimate but not so obvious ways - it is a true privilege and an honor. AND, there is further to travel. 

Now that I have a ‘permanent’ home on our acreage here, the real work has truly begun. Histories now inform the present becoming histories themselves in no time at all. Maybe, just maybe, our lands will be a wondrous stop on your early or middle journey. May it be so. May we welcome our reciprocity and growing.