Small Rain Farm exists to nurture the land, grow within community and live out ancestral agrarian possibilities.

This season we will be shifting from a CSA model to one supporting local growers’ and gardeners’ growing seasons by producing high quality vegetable and herb starts and seedlings. Our varietal selection consists of seeds that are primarily sourced from BIPOC seed growers in the North and Southeast U.S. In addition to some standard and non-traditional varietals, we focus on varieties that are culturally relevant to communities we are in relationship with.

HERBS

  • sweet basil

  • tulsi

  • chives

  • sage

  • thyme

  • anise

  • echinacae

  • lemon balm

  • huacatay

VEGETABLES

  • kusa squash

  • mizuna

  • mustard greens

  • slicing and cherry tomatoes

  • cucumbers

  • hot and sweet peppers

  • eggplant

  • okra

  • lagos spinach

FLOWERS

  • marigold

  • gaillardia

  • celosia

  • echinacae

  • black pod nigella

  • roselle

  • calendula

OTHER PLANTS

  • japanese indigo

  • american wisteria

  • white sesame

CURRENT VARIETIES

Where can you find me this season?

Eno River Farmers Market in Hillsborough
starting in late April

Black Farmers Market in Durham
starting in late April

OR BOOK AN APPOINTMENT TO SEE WHAT’S GROWING IN THE GREENHOUSE

“small rain”

The name of the farm come from a passage I highlighted long ago in Eloquence of the Scribes by Ghanian writer Ayi Kwei Armah:

“...Something about the name they had chosen for their group spoke directly to me, humbling me. They called their troupe Medupe. I asked what the word meant. “Small rain,” Malesa Lebelo said, before Dumakude ka Ndlovu added that farmers where they lived distinguished between two types of rain. One type was violent, spectacular, pouring down tremendous torrents in a short period, sweeping away topsoil, uprooting fragile vegetation, causing erosion, making gullies and ravines. Big, useless rain. Small rain, on the other hand, fell slowly, so softly it felt like mist. Lasting hours and days on end, it could moisten soil for planting, and irrigate growing crops without damaging land. It was the kind of rain that did the groundwork for future harvests. The children from Soweto wanted their poetry to do that kind of patient, slow, long-term, practically invisible preparatory work.”

I hope the work of growing and caring for the land, wherever my feet stand, is fueled by that slow, patient, practical and life-giving work.