Welcome to The Work Day, a series that charts a single day in various women’s working lives — from gallery owners to stay-at-home parents to chief executives. In this installment, we hear from Natalie McGill, a farm owner who recorded a workday in July.
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Job title: Farmer, owner and operator at Perennial Roots Farm
Previous jobs: I came to this job right out of college in 2010, with no experience. But along the way, I’ve done a variety of odd jobs to help support my farming career, among them writer, secretary, photographer and legal aid. In addition to farming, I am quite passionate about photography and writing and enjoy supplementing my farm income (especially during the slower offseason months) with those two pursuits.
What led me to my current role: When I was a child, I declared that I wanted to be a tree when I grew up. I’ve long nurtured an intense love of the outdoors and nature and have always felt most fulfilled when working outside with plants and animals. I majored in political theory, and while all my friends were lining up high-powered internships in D.C., I daydreamed about growing my food and living more sustainably. I met my husband Stewart in college, and we connected through our shared passion for agriculture, ecology, animals, the environment, reading and research.
My parents owned land on the Eastern Shore of Virginia: that tiny, too oft forgotten peninsula nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay. In 2010, fresh out of college, we married and moved to Accomac.
At first, we had no idea what we were doing, and I like to say that if the younger me had realized just how hard farming is, I might not have leaped right into it.
What began as a homestead garden eventually grew into a fully operational farm. Now we run a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) that provides meat and vegetable shares to our community. Our farm is biodynamic, which means that while we grow everything organically without the use of pesticides or herbicides, we take the organic growing philosophy a step further: taking care to listen and observe the needs of our land, the animals we care for and the plants we grow.
We currently grow vegetables on a two-acre market garden, raise heritage livestock breeds for pork, beef and lamb, travel to present at conferences, and consult with and host workshops for learning farmers.
How I spend the majority of my day: One thing that you learn quite quickly with farming is that you just don’t quite know ahead of time what you’re going to be doing from day-to-day. It is at once quite humbling and exhilarating in that respect. Every day is new and different, but one constant is that the majority of my days are spent outdoors, whether in the cold of winter or in the blistering heat and humidity of summer or in the days that all farmers live for: the gloriously mild weather of spring and fall.
Farming is a rather fluid profession; some days are much busier than others. Often things do not go according to plan. There is a rhythmic seasonal aspect to farming as well. Springtime features a lot of planting, greenhouse work, and preparing our garden beds. Summertime is perhaps the busiest season: full of more planting, harvesting, weeding, farmers markets, and our weekly CSA. The fall is a bit slower, where we can focus on collecting the year’s bounty and starting cover crops to sequester carbon over winter.
Market days are pretty regular and some of our busiest days. In addition to our weekly CSA, for about seven months of the year, we do about two to three markets per week. It’s a long day from first thing in the morning harvesting to when we finally arrive back on the farm late at night to unload and finally eat dinner.
6:15 a.m.: I tiptoe downstairs to put the water on for coffee, careful not to wake my husband or our three dogs before crawling right back into bed, hoping to catch a few extra minutes of sleep while the water boils. We often get up much earlier than this, but today is a market day and we’ll be up well past our bedtime, so we try to sleep in a bit.
7 a.m.: I awake to the pleasant sight of my husband handing me a nice hot cup of coffee. While I sip my coffee, I go over our harvest list for the morning: I add and subtract certain items, crossing off vegetables like leeks or beets we harvested the night before. I write notes about any additional orders I must remember to bring to market that day.
8:15 a.m.: I step outside on my porch, slip my boots on and start my commute: a lovely three-minute walk through our fruit orchard. I wave good morning to the pigs as our three dogs scurry in and out around my legs.
8:30 a.m.: I consult my final harvest checklist and begin assigning tasks. It’s typically just my husband, our farmhand, Austin, who’s been with us for over two years now, and maybe a couple of interns/apprentices. My husband is tasked with making up our signature seasonal salad mix, which is popular at markets. Our summertime version of this mix features several varieties of heirloom lettuce, arugula, and edible flowers like nasturtium and calendula. I ask Austin to harvest herb bundles: Genovese basil, dill, parsley, cilantro, Thai basil and bronze fennel. After everyone is finally assigned and sorted to their task, I’m off with my own harvest list: fennel, cabbage, head lettuce, bok choy and celery are on the docket for today.
10:30 a.m.: Everything is harvested, washed and drying, so now for the fun part: packing it all up! It’s always a puzzle to try to get everything packed and loaded. Heavy vegetables like carrots, zucchini and cucumbers go on the bottom of each tote, while lettuce, bok choy and the herb bundles are nestled on top. It’s a back-and-forth process in our walk-in cooler that takes awhile. By the end, the entire cooler is stacked with our gray bins full of vegetables, ready to truck to market.
12 p.m.: I finally make it back inside to grab a quick bite to eat before heading back up to load up the truck for market so we can hit the road. One of the main perks of being a farmer is the food! I’m constantly snacking on a carrot or sweet pea or cherry tomato first thing in the morning as I’m harvesting, but lunch is my typical first meal.
Today, I have to make it quick, so I toast some crusty homemade sourdough bread my husband baked the day before. We make a pretty good team. Between the two of us, I’m the cook, and he’s the baker. If we make pizza, he makes the dough, and I make the toppings. If we make pasta, he makes the noodles from scratch, and I make the sauce. I smear the bread with copious amounts of garlic and olive oil. Once it’s nice and toasty, I put some ricotta cheese on it and top with the first cherry tomatoes that have only just begun to come out of the garden, plus a little fresh basil: quick, easy, delicious, and filling.
12:30 p.m.: My husband and I are back at the walk-in cooler to load up for market. It’s going to be a tight fit.
We load up nine crates of vegetables, one cooler of our grass-fed lamb and beef cuts, our pastured pork cuts, one tent, tables, signs, a little portable Coleman grill, and various odds and ends into our Honda. It’s a tight fit, but we’re loaded and on the road.
3 p.m.: We pull up to the farmers market and begin to unload and set up. Displaying all the vegetables is my favorite part of the market: each variety a cascading color of summer’s bounty. Before I’m even finished setting up, customers are already lining up to purchase popular summer items like tomatoes, peppers and figs.
4 p.m.: Sweat is pouring into my sunglasses, and it’s a mad dash back and forth, bagging people’s orders, answering questions about whether this item is an onion or a shallot, directing customers on my favorite way to cook bok choy, all while ringing people up and grabbing their frozen meat orders from the cooler. Each market is unpredictable. We have our beloved regulars who show up rain or shine to support us and do their grocery shopping. We also have all sorts of new folks, curious at the novelty of a farmers market, armed with questions regarding that odd-shaped vegetable or two, inquiring how to cook it and how delicious it is. I always respond that I only grow what I like to eat, so there are no bad-tasting vegetables at my stand.
7 p.m.: The market is over, and we start packing up, ensuring everything is tight and secure before starting our two-hour drive back to the farm. We’re both hungry and ready for dinner, so we snack on some leftover carrots and cucumbers, plus some nuts we brought along.
9 p.m.: We’re back! Once we’ve finished unloading the truck, I head into the house, exhausted, trying to decide if it’s too late for dinner and what I want to eat. Cheese, crackers and some olives seem to be the easiest and quickest option, so today, that’s what I go with, along with an episode of “Reservation Dogs.”
10:30 p.m.: I crawl into bed exhausted and tired, with a long planting and weeding to-do list in my head for first thing tomorrow.