Growing up, I always wanted to be something like a farmer. I plant some crop, help it grow, and then it feeds many people and makes for a prosperous world. In High School, my best friend and I had a sort of space where we started a little garden growing some plants. Nothing bear nearly enough fruit to feed a whole person, but nevertheless it was really meaningful for me to grow some things that brought others joy.

In high school, I came across a community of other people like me who were a similar age and also were playing around in the dirt planting various seeds (most of which planted just for the joy of it, not expecting much to come than the experience of planting the seeds). This community was sort of giving away this fertilizer that helped young people start their gardens. I thought this fertilizer-giving organization was really neat, and when I got the opportunity to go give away fertilizer there after high school instead of studying agriculture in some boring classroom, I was thrilled.

Throughout the year I packaged a bunch of fertilizer and gave it to high school students to help them start their own gardens. On the weekends my high school friend and I would still bring life to some new plants just like we did in high school (we planted our plants in the style of a gardener, not a farmer). I felt during this process: "ah I want to become a farmer. This is a good practice making fertilizer and I enjoy what I do, but after this I must go on to create my farm."

There's a big difference between a garden and a farm. A garden exists mostly for the sake of itself. A farm exists to scale and serve a bunch of people. There are not very many people who become successful gardening, but there are many successful farmers (yet process of becoming a farmer isn't clear).

I left the fertilizer charity to go make a farm in Japan with my high school friend. I found that the art of farming is different from gardening. In gardening you create just for fun and what you think would suit your taste. In farming you must make for taste other than your own. I don't really know how to farm, and so the farm that my friend and I had failed. Our lives slowly devolved into a minimal subsistence life, which I didn't mind much (I don't need much to be happy).

Around that time I met a really special person. She came from a far away land and we met at a farming event. She likes farming, but doesn't see it in the way that I see it (as an activity to be done for the joy of it, like a gardener's mind). I think she sees it as farming as a means to create a life for herself and that to be a part of the process of the farm means to install yourself as a benefactor and maintainer of it. This farmer-first mind is amazing to me and different from the mind of my friend and I who thought first as gardeners with a love for just the act of putting the hands in the dirt.

Anyway, on a personal level she changed a lot of the ways that I view the world. I never thought I could have a life like the one I have with her, and so I decided to make many difficult decisions to make our life together possible.

I closed down my failing farm venture and joined another existing farm. This had some benefits, it meant that I could afford to cook some food for my partner and that I didn't have to continue devolving into subsistence lifestyle (although this was ok for me and my friend, for my partner, she couldn't live like that). It didn't feel quite right though, I was joining a farm that I didn't really believe in and it felt like a compromise.

Right before really diving into my work on this new farm, I got a call from the fertilizer company. They want to give away even more fertilizer and they think I am the person that can make some really good fertilizer for a lot of people. This was a hard moment. In my heart: I love my work giving away fertilizer, but in my mirror I see myself as a farmer, not a fertilizer distributor.

They proposed me go back to Vermont, leave my new life, and begin giving away fertilizer again.

I said no. I decided I should start a farm here in California, "HQ-SF", and then that farm can make the fertilizer we give away to the people. I wanted to make a new venture and it would start with just me and then with time expand to have many more founder-like farmers come and make fertilizer-creating crops here in the Californian Bay.

I used to just package up the fertilizer and give it to people in Vermont, but now I farm the fertilizer in California using the same techniques that my recipients of the fertilizer use to grow their own gardens. This process feels much more satisfying and natural for me. I feel I am living as a farmer now and creating fertilizer to give away at the same time. The crops I grow are ground up into the fertilizer that feeds many gardens. It's not just packaging, it's a farm.

They say it's about the destination. Actually, it's about the journey. Actually, not the journey but really about the company (the people you surround yourself with). I hope to make a great farm alongside some friends and for this farm to make fertilizer that helps a lot of gardeners get their start. Right now it's just me, but I hope it will grow soon. I hope then one day a few years later to make a new farm with the lessons I've learned and perhaps to make something for all the people, not just my fellow dirt lovers.