Come out and learn from Liz and Brian on their Certified Organic fruit and veggie farm in Mentone!

About Mountain Sun Farm:

Mountain Sun Farm is a certified organic fruit and vegetable farm located on Lookout Mountain in Mentone, Alabama. It was established in 2017 after farming on leased land for 3 years.  We only sell our produce through our CSA and occasionally a self-serve stand at our farm gate.

As of winter 2024, we plant about 6 acres of crops per year. The farm has ideal sandy loam and loam soils, and is at the headwaters of Little River in one of Alabama's cleanest watersheds. Sitting atop Lookout Mountain, our crops enjoy a slightly cooler and breezier climate at 1650' elevation.  The farm's elevation, topography, and isolation protects it from potential pollution risks of industry or conventional agriculture.

Our farming methods prioritize ecological diversity and improving soil quality through intensive cover cropping, crop rotation, organic fertilizers, promoting beneficial insects, and only using naturally-occuring OMRI-approved pesticides that are not synthetic and can be used safely alongside all the non-pest life on the farm (birds, frogs, humans, insects, ect.).  We use applications of beneficial soil bacteria/fungi/nematodes, plant extracts, and minerals to control plant pests and disease. We do not use any herbicides, we instead use mechanical cultivation and cover cropping for weed control. Aside from strawberries, we don't use plastic mulch on our farm.

We both graduated from Auburn University's College of Agriculture in pursuit of our long-held goal to work in organic agriculture.  Liz's background is in fruit and vegetable production - she worked and learned with two of the most successful and established organic farms in our area: Randle Farms and Jenny Jack Farm.  Brian's background is in environmental chemistry/microbiology - he's glad to now apply science with bare hands in the field outside of a laboratory.

The farmland and farm business (and all the farm loans) are owned by Liz and Brian.  2024 is our 10th season farming full-time as self-employed farmers with no off-farm jobs - and we're now raising a wee-wun on the farm, too.

What is CRAFT?

CRAFT stands for Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training and is a model for on-farm peer-to-peer training and network-building for farmers. The original CRAFT network formed in upstate New York and has been replicated many times since, adapted to meet the needs of each particular place.

Alabama CRAFT includes farm owners/operators as well as farm interns, apprentices, and employees, and aspiring farmers. It builds on past efforts to build community and share knowledge – including but not limited to the Regional Alabama Farmer Socials, and ASAN’s kindling workdays and crop mobs and Skillshare Trainings. Full 2024 Schedule can be found at asanonline.org/CRAFT

Alabama CRAFT is supported through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP). TOPP is a program of the USDA Organic Transition Initiative and is administered by the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) National Organic Program (NOP)