What We’ve Been Up To at Cullowheegee Farms

We planted 40 tomatoes and 18 squash plants, put up steaks for the squash to grow up and trellis for the tomatoes.

Most people know Cullowheegee Farms for our natural soaps and body care products, but behind the scenes there’s another huge part of our life here on the farm… the garden.

Every spring, while we’re pouring soaps, packaging lotion bars, and blending body oils, we’re also knee-deep in seed trays, compost, and garden plans. This year’s garden season officially kicked off early when we started a huge batch of seeds indoors under grow lights in our office. Somehow our little workspace turned into a full-blown greenhouse for a few months, and honestly, these were the most successful starts we’ve ever grown.

Of course, there’s only so much room you can dedicate to veggie starts before your office completely disappears, so we also picked up supplemental starts from one of our favorite local farms to help fill out the garden.

The last few weeks have been nonstop work getting everything ready. We’ve been mending garden beds with fresh compost, building new trellises, and installing stronger garden fencing to keep the rabbits out. Last year those rabbits absolutely decimated two of our garden beds, and we promised ourselves we weren’t letting that happen again.

We have hundreds of iris' that bloom every spring. We love collecting new colors and varities.

One thing that’s made all the hard work especially rewarding this spring has been the incredible flower blooms around the farm. Everywhere we look there’s something blooming, and it’s been a beautiful reminder to slow down and enjoy the season, even in the middle of the chaos. They always say to stop and smell the roses, and trust us, no matter how busy things get around here, we always stop for the flowers. From the first blooms of spring to the flowers we’re planting throughout the garden, they bring so much beauty, peace, and life to the farm during this busy time of year.

If you’ve ever grown a big garden, you know spring weather can be unpredictable. We’ve spent weeks shuffling trays of veggie starts in and out of the house, covering them during cold nights, and hardening them off so they’d be strong enough to survive once planted outdoors.

Now we’ve finally hit planting season.

Sounds like the easy part, right? Not exactly.

The last few days have been a full-on grind, but we officially have all 16 cucumber plants, 40 tomato plants, and 18 squash plants in the ground, along with flowers and lettuces. And somehow… we’re only about one-quarter of the way done.

We still have 60 pepper plants waiting to go in, plus okra, beans, pickling cucumbers, and lots more flowers. So when we’re not making natural body care products, chances are we’re outside planting until dark trying to get this garden finished.

Why all the work? Because growing food is something we genuinely love, and it’s also part of the bigger vision for Cullowheegee Farms. We’ve been working hard toward expanding our farm offerings beyond body care and into some of our famous homemade hot sauces.

If all goes according to plan, you’ll start seeing those hit the shop this fall.

Thank you for following along with everything we do here at Cullowheegee Farms. Whether you’ve supported our soaps, visited us at the farmers market, or simply cheered us on online, we’re grateful to share this journey with you. The garden is growing, the season is underway, and we can’t wait to show you what’s next.