As we approach peak season, the farm is bustling with energy, life, and the busy growers who bring forth abundance with care and skill. New to the team this year is Field Crew Member Zoe Tallmadge, whose passion for sustainable agriculture stretches back to their childhood in The Piedmont of North Carolina. We are thrilled to have Zoe with us in 2024. To learn more about their background, we caught up with them recently while harvesting scallions.

Where is home? How did you find your way to Gaining Ground?

I was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, which is in The Piedmont. After college, I knew that I wanted to do field work—whether it was farming, or working with communities in the environmental justice sphere. I didn’t want to work in an office. 

I got an apprenticeship here in Massachusetts, with the Boston Area Gleaners, and while I was working on their farm we came to visit Gaining Ground. I loved it:  the collaboration between the farmers, their passion for the work, and the awesome environment of supporting each other. I also appreciated that Gaining Ground is no-till, with an emphasis on the history of the land, our role as land stewards, how reciprocal relationships play out on the farm, and how we must carry that reciprocity into other areas of life. When I saw the Field Crew posting over the winter, I was excited to apply.

Have you always had a knack for farming and growing things? Where did your interest in farming come from?

I have always been in the farming world. My mom works in food law and has done a lot of work in North Carolina, specifically with pig farming and CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). Growing up I was always going around to local farms and markets with her, hanging out with the farmers. My parents also have a pretty large garden at our house. I wasn’t necessarily encouraged but more like forced to help out. I’d get one penny per weed I pulled. 

When I was in college at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I had the opportunity to take a class where I learned about regenerative agriculture. Then COVID happened, and to fill my time, I started volunteering at a community farm that was created in response to a racially-charged murder in the area, as a way to heal community relations. There, I started learning how farming can be a way to bring people together and fight against the parts of our system that are corrupt and designed to disenfranchise certain communities. I fell in love with farming that summer, and how farming and food can help us battle other forms of oppression. 

We talk a lot about the importance of a farming practice that is sustainable and regenerative. What do these terms mean to you—both in relation to your work/career as a farmer, and as someone with a personal relationship with our larger food system and the climate?

At its core, sustainable means that you’re creating something that is meant to last—something to support the people and other living beings that will come after you. Regenerative means you’re not taking away more than can be replenished. In relationship with land, other people, and all living beings, you’re trying to create something that benefits everyone and doesn’t cause harm.

Oftentimes sustainability is painted as something that’s just for protecting the earth, like fossil fuels vs. green energy. But we also have to consider that a lot of green energy is created using minerals extracted in a way that exploits people in other countries. People can be seriously harmed in the process of attempting to be more sustainable, so I think sustainability has to come with a desire to support and protect people—making sure their interests are also kept in balance.

Do you have a favorite farm project/task/duty or tool to use? What do you like about it?

I really enjoy the practice of harvesting. I have a soft spot for garlic, but in general, the practice of pulling something out of the land that you’ve grown with your hands is really special, and I love the process—like what we’re doing right now, cleaning and bunching scallions. It’s meditative. 

Another task I enjoy, depending on the day, is trellising. It can actually be really fun and rhythmic, to wind the plants up the trellis. It feels like you’re helping them. Then you see how they take the direction you’ve given them, while continuing to grow on their own. 

Do you have any favorite farmers or other folks doing work that motivates/inspires you?

Growing up, I knew a man named Noah, through my mom, who owns a farm outside of Durham called Fickle Creek. He was always super kind, and excited for me to be excited about farming. He always made me feel very welcomed on his land.

When he first got his land, it had been conventionally farmed for a while and was arid—not good land for farming. So he undertook a project that’s now been going on for more than 30 years, of incorporating animals into the land as a way to refortify it with nutrients and break up root systems. First he brought in hogs to get the bigger stuff out, then he brought in goats, then chickens, and now he does all that in tandem with growing vegetables. His farm is a really good example of a closed loop system—and how raising animals, or farming, doesn’t have to be negative for the environment. It can reintroduce health into the soil. 

Having grown up in North Carolina, something I also think about a lot is the history of Black farmers and their relationship with the land. In North Carolina and many other southern states, land was methodically taken away from Black farmers. Now less than 10% of farmers are Black, which is a significant drop from a century ago. Especially in this new wave of farming, when so many young people are getting excited about it—people whose families haven’t historically been farmers—I always keep in mind there are people who came before us. People who have a deep understanding and historical relationship to the land, but struggle to access land now because of governmental practices.

Want to learn more about our team? Read our bios!