05/26/2026
Montpelier started growing high quality culinary garlic in Surry County Virginia in the fall of 2018. Primarily because the head cook here struggled to find ingredients for her dishes. Spoiled from European travels and living in large American cities like San Francisco where you can find everything, I decided to grow my own. Since 2018 we have grown to include heritage livestock, an heirloom orchard, and hard to find herbs. The teacher in me shares what I know. Information should always be free. Success should not be mutually exclusive. It hasn’t been easy. Three years in a row we have hired local help that shows up, works a few days, takes pictures and disappears. I have been told to grow flowers. Or bake bread. To go in the house because men manage fields. And to let another local farmer manage me. Other things as well that cannot be repeated in polite society. It reminds me of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd or Isak Dennison’s Out of Africa. Being a woman is never easy. And I do grow flowers and bake bread but not for a business. And I am a free market competition supporter. But when you are not free to run a business because of interference then that is not competition. That’s something else entirely. So I am still looking for farm help. It’s hard work. It’s rewarding. You will learn a lot here. You will be valued regardless of your s*x or color. Mostly because it’s a woman run farm that doesn’t sell flowers or bread. Not that women in those businesses aren’t fair, but because they don’t challenge convention. It’s an understanding for those of us who refuse to comply with the old guard. It’s the harder road to follow, but that’s what I do. If you do that too, please apply.
