“If you grow things in a good healthy way they’ll produce into good healthy food and keep people healthy. Do it right and it’ll reward you.”
—Beth Smith
What product from your farm are you most proud of?
Our main products: cattle and vegetables. We’ve had Angus cattle the whole time we’ve been farming. In PA we’re the third largest registered Angus Cattle farm. This means we follow the genetics of our cattle very carefully and we keep track of how they grow. When selecting what genetics we’re going to use—we look for cattle that produce pieces of tender meat or have a nice marbling of fat. We also look for good mothering, a good disposition, and good milk production—enough for the calf. The other would be the vegetables. The vegetables that I’ve been raising the longest would be the onions and then maybe the garlic.
Why did you become a farmer?
We bought this farm in ‘85 while we were both working in Washington DC and my husband’s father had an agriculture degree from Penn State, so he lived here in the farmhouse for a good many years. Then we left DC and starting living here on the farm and working in Pittsburgh. That was around 2000. At the same time we built our greenhouse and started growing the Pennsylvania Simply Sweet onion as part of an experiment that Penn State was advising. After a couple of years they decided to move the experiment to Lancaster, but by that time we knew what we were doing so we just kept doing it.
How did you get into doing hydroponic?
Trying to get into something more manageable as I get older. This is a lot of work, it’s a lot of details, and requires a lot of time—but, at least it’s not heavy.
What do you produce?