Organic Hobby Farming. Andy Tomolonis

      Fat bumblebees bury their faces in squash blossoms.

      The choice my daughter made that morning—to toss aside her box of packaged, store-bought cookies for a fistful of organically grown snap peas—stirred my heart. Months earlier she and I had planted the seeds—presoaked overnight and dusted with natural soil organisms. The seeds sprouted like little green corkscrews, then developed leaves and clung with threadlike tendrils to the trellis I had built. We watched as the vines climbed higher and blossomed, finally bearing crisp, green pods. The moment came full circle, as we picked and ate our perfect harvest, fresh from the vine.

      There was no price tag. No bar code. No plastic bag or carbon footprint. No fossil-fuel–consuming drive to the grocery store. And most important, there were no worries about environmental damage or toxic chemicals. The peas were flawless and 100 percent guilt-free.

      As our daughters grew older, Valerie and I strengthened our commitment to organic growing, knowing we were producing healthy food for our children and teaching them life-long lessons. We witnessed paper wasps descend and fly away with garden pests. We watched ladybugs arrive en masse to devour aphids on a Stanley prune plum tree. We handled snakes and toads and worms and giant praying mantises. The backyard became not just a place to grow vegetables but also a thriving ecosystem buzzing with life. Carolina wrens scolded noisily from an overgrown apple tree. Fat bumblebees buried their faces in yellow squash blossoms. And emerald dragonflies buzzed along the pepper plants like tiny Black Hawk helicopters.

      Every plant and animal—from microscopic soil bacteria to bug-eating birds—played a role not only in creating guilt-free peas but also broccoli, pole beans, tomatoes, Swiss chard, jalapeños, Asian greens, fingerling potatoes, and dozens of other vegetables.

      When the harvest came, our bounty was often greater than the refrigerator could hold. So we shared our crops with neighbors, coworkers, family, and friends—all of whom were eager to receive fresh organic tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and greens.

      But that wasn’t enough. I knew I wanted to be a farmer.

      My earliest childhood memories were of visiting my Uncle Joe’s dairy farm in southern New Hampshire, watching the cows cross the street on a warm summer evening. As a teenager staying on my brother-in-law’s family farm in Le Sueur, Minnesota, I marveled at the rows of corn that seemed to reach the horizon in every direction. Later, while working as a produce manager unpacking crates of lettuce, I wondered about the farmers who grew such round and perfect heads.

      So when our daughters left home for college, Valerie and I turned our food-growing hobby into a small-scale agricultural business, never leaving our suburban backyard in southern New England. I shaped gardens into efficient raised beds, equipped with hoops for floating row covers that stretched the season and guarded crops from insects. My wife added beehives to the operation. We built a chicken coop and ordered layer hens. I converted lawn to make room for more raised beds, then cleared space to plant berry bushes and fruit trees.