A return to a simpler, healthier way of life: Homesteading expands in Nashville area - The Tennessean

Jamie McGee Nashville Tennessean

Published 9:00 AM EST Feb 4, 2019

In Leigh and Olin Funderburk’s farmhouse kitchen, rows of tomato jars line the cabinets and the smell of homemade bread just pulled from the oven fills the room. Outside, sunflowers grow near blackberry bushes and a hen house. Come spring, the Funderburks will begin planting vegetables in their garden, along with several other area residents renting garden plots, that will fill their plates throughout the year.

The couple is among a growing number of Nashville-area residents homesteading or experimenting with the lifestyle. They grow their own produce, make their own bread, gather eggs from their chickens and pollinate and protect their crops with bees and other insects instead of relying on herbicides and pesticides. It’s part of a larger shift to sustainable living, fueled by a desire to eat natural, chemical-free foods, to live frugally and to return to a simpler life.

“There's a huge, growing interest,” Leigh Funderburk said. “People want to know where their food comes from. People want to go back to being self-sufficient so they can control the cost of their groceries, control their living expenses, and they want to be empowered."

Demand for Nashville chicken permits has more than doubled in recent years, with 323 permits issued in the year through December, compared to 145 in 2013, according to the Metro Public Health Department. In Tennessee, the number of residents keeping bees has quadrupled to about 4,000 in the past decade, an increase driven largely by a declining bee population and the need for more pollination as more people seek to grow their produce, according to Tennessee Apiarist Mike Studer.

Funderburk, who worked in corporate sales until 2013, gauges the growing interest based on the local enthusiasm for workshops she hosts in her home — regular courses on topics ranging from cooking with plant-based foods to canning to bread making — and on the number of garden plots she and Olin rent out to others on their 15-acre Stoney Creek Farm. In 2009, three people rented plots, compared to about 17 to 20 today. Olin Funderburk was able to retire from his construction business and now works as a consultant helping clients develop sustainable gardens and operations on their own properties.

“It’s about helping people learn how to be self-sufficient and where their food comes from,” Leigh Funderburk said. “We have families that come out here during the summer and the kids have never picked a green bean or a tomato. They are just not exposed to that.”

Many of those the Funderburks work with are younger couples with young kids, often with one parent who wishes to quit working and learn to live more simply. Some have started their own small businesses, Olin Funderburk said, describing a woman who sells fresh-cut flowers she grows, another who sells eggs laid on her farm and a third who opened a berry-picking farm as another source of income.

“Our lifestyle allows us to live simply,” Leigh Funderburk said. “I can all my vegetables so we eat out of the freezer all year ... It’s a lot less expensive overall than to buy from the grocery store.”

Keith White, who lives in a Cool Springs condominium, began growing vegetables at Stoney Creek Farm years ago after he was diagnosed with cancer and became more focused on nutrition. He first subscribed to a Community Supported Agriculture market, or CSA, for homegrown produce but he realized he wanted to be growing vegetables himself, as he had done as a child growing up on a farm in Macon County — only this time without pesticides.

"I didn't have a place to grow my own garden, but I missed working in the soil and having my own garden," White said. "If you ever grew up doing it, it's kind of in your blood."

In the spring, summer and fall, White visits his 10- by 20-foot garden plot once or twice a week, tending his carrots, tomatoes, greens, peppers, cucumbers and radishes, and in the winter, he grows lettuce inside his home. He still buys other produce at the grocery store, but finds he saves significantly on food, even with the price of the garden rental.

White and Leigh Funderburk both grew up on farms, but many of those turning to homesteading have no background in it. Kelly Albright, who sells eggs, chicken and ducks from her farm near Whites Creek, began to read books about farming when her son was born. Her husband was returning to school and with just one income stream, the organic produce and hormone-free meat she had hoped to feed her family became too expensive.

"What was important to us was that our kids eat healthy food," Albright, an accountant, said.

They began with broilers, chicken raised for their meat, after Albright met a friend at a Clarksville farmers market who offered to help butcher them. Once on their Nashville farm about six years ago, Albright bought a dairy cow, added laying chickens and pigs and planted a vegetable garden. Her husband, she said, thought she was "completely crazy," that the homesteading was a passing phase. But they have since transformed their self-sustaining operations into a small, profitable business. Albright says her motivation is the lifestyle and nutrition more than the additional income.

"I wanted my kids to experience where their food comes from, I wanted them to grow up doing chores," she said. "I know they have pride in what we do and the food that we eat."

Each of her two kids, age 9 and 11, have jobs on the farm and Albright says she wakes at 5:30 a.m. to tend to the animals before going to work. Springs and summers are busy but during the rest of the year, the pace slows.

Albright said several neighbors have begun milking cows or goats or raising chickens in recent years, and she has helped some of them get started.

"It is so rewarding," she said. "It's really cool. I think when people see what's possible then their minds expand to, 'I don't have to do exactly what she does, but I can do something that fits my life.'"

Reach Jamie McGee at 615-259-8071 and on Twitter @JamieMcGee_.

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