Couple raise a variety of produce in their spare time

Published 7:40 am Friday, August 14, 2020

Spouses, Dan Crossfield and Kelcey Prater, are the faces for their Tallulah Farm at the Boyle County Farmers Market every Saturday.

When asked what all they raise, Crossfield said with a big grin, “Well, you see it here. We grow a lot of root vegetables, tomatoes — heirloom and cherry. We grow a bunch of herbs. A lot of different kinds of peppers — hot, mild and sweet.”

He also grows the large, beige colored butternut squash, “Cause everybody else does summer squash, so we try to do the winter squash,” Crossfield explained.

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And on their display table, right next to the tall, yet delicate celery stalks and packages of micro greens, Prater sells her homemade sourdough bread and chocolate chip cookies.

Kelcey is “dabbling in different flavored breads,” so she may have some new varieties at the market soon.

“We eat it more (bread) than anybody else,” Dan said

Even though Tallulah Farm isn’t USDA certified as an organic farm, “it is all natural.”

Dan said they don’t use any man-made chemicals or fertilizers on their crops. “We’re also a no-till farm.”

“We don’t rototill or plow the ground.” He said they farm by using a method where compost is put down, then some alfalfa meal, bread meal and feather meal, which is mixed into the soil with a rake.

“I plant straight into that,” Dan said.

When they aren’t working in the garden or baking in the kitchen, the couple have full-time jobs off of the farm.

Dan works third shift at McKechnie Vehicle Components in Nicholasville and Kelcey works in the Garrard County Court Clerk’s office.

Crossfield said he likes to grow everything. “I’ve grown stuff off and on my whole life.” But farming is “kind of new to her,” he said looking at Kelcey as she placed a loaf of her bread into a customer’s sack.

“The baking part is new to me.”