Talking Hill farm

Our last intern Tom, just seemed to fall from the sky!

Located in the green rolling hills of Monroe County West Virginia, Talking Hill Farm sits on the backside of Swoope’s Knobs about 2300 feet above sea level looking over 4 different counties of south east WV. Monroe county boasts of not having any trafiic lights. We live 15 minutes from Union, the county seat, that did have a blinking light for alittle while, but folks felt like it was overkill. More like Virginia, our area is in the Karst limestone region of the Allegheny mountains.

Who we are:
Monica is an amazing horticulturist. With a horticultural degree and 15 plus years of gardening, nursery work, landscaping and permaculture behind her she is a well spring of knowledge about plants. She runs about 1/2 acre of biodynamic annual beds for seed production mostly marketed to Southern Exposure Seeds and Sow True Seeds. The rest is food for ourselves and what is left over we sell at the local tailgate markets. Last year her vegetables earned the coveted “Too good “ award from the Lewisburg farmer’s market. In the winter she works for Sow True seeds.

Bill homesteaded here in the early eighties and planted 2 acres of pear trees which he has tended organically and sells regionally as one (if any) of the only European pear producers in the region. He is planning to incoporate a biodynamic regime with the trees this year as well. Sad but true, his 2 acres of pears represent 1/10th of the entire commercial pear crop in WV. In the last 5 years he has planted extensive perennials around the farm. Nuts, natives, 40 varieties of pears , and a cider orchard take up about 5 more acres of plantings. The last 2 years he has initiated woodland grafting in which he is improving the genetics of his woodlot by grafting improved varieties of hickories and pecan onto his existing hickory trees. He is experimenting with eleagnus, honeysuckle, hawthorn and mayhaw. In the winter he presents provocative agrarian topics through farm conferences and his fruit school, organizes community edible parks, makes his wiplstix travel violin, and tends his nursery.

What to expect as an intern: We are looking for a person/ people who have good communication skills, are self motivated, hard working, enthusiastic about diversified rural living, creative, fun loving, love to experiment, eat well, active contributors to their community... We are not keen on drugs, but do like to partake in the consumption of moderate amounts of homebrew. Pets would be considered but not sought after. The hours we work vary. Usually starting early, then with a siesta during the heat of the day and recommencing in the afternoon until dusk. For our sharing of knowledge, room and board , and a small stipend of 75.00/week we would expect a minimum of 6 hours of work/day 5 days a week or 30 hours over a week. We are not production annual farmers. We are very diversified and often go between many projects in a day.

Accommodations are rustic. We have 180 acres which dip and dive in and out of deep woods and fields. Right now we do have a nice camper on loan with a complete set up with a kitchen, we have barns, and old farm house, and plenty of camping space. We will be happy to consider developing any of these places to suit interns that are committed to work with us for the season.
For recreation we have 5 ponds, 160 acres of woods, creek and waterfalls. We are about 1.5 hours from the New River Gorge and Cranberry wilderness. About an hour from Blacksburg,Va and 40 minutes from Lewisburg, WV (voted “coolest small town in America” by some obscure travel magazine last year). It is a fun little town with some alternative community folks, lots of arts per capita, and home of one of our Farmer’s markets.

A year at Talking Hill: The season starts in February with putting in about a 100 maple taps and boiling the sap down. Then around April we begin preparation for the annual beds, and Bill is doing some of his dormant and bloom sprays in the orchards, and prepping trees for the growing season. June is marked with mulch harvest leading into the cherry harvest. Summer rambles on with garden work, irrigation, and misc. projects. Things pick up in the end of the summer with the pear harvest and then its seed and food processing in the Fall until apple harvest and filling the cider barrel in October.

Some of our projects this Spring will be finishing construction of the sugar house, instillation of scrounged cisterns, straightening up barns, lots of grafting, some more fruit tree plantings, hosting fruit school, O.M. is the mantra and that stands for organic matter and we are always moving it around, developing our woodland herbal site, mushroom innoculation and countless other farm related activities.

References- Its imperative that we embark on this journey together knowing as much about each other as possible to assure every chance we can for having a safe, fun, productive, expansive, learning experience. Our last intern, Tom, is willing to correspond with anyone who has questions about Talking Hill Farm and what it might be like to work with Monica and I in West Virginia. His email is: tknaust@gmail.com

Monica at the barn garden in early summer. Talking Hill in the background.