Jamila Norman Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine, and each week I talk to the most interesting women and culinary creatives in and around the world of food. It is so nice to be back. I took a little break, and was on vacation in Paris with my family, and it was the first real vacation I've taken in forever. After that, I headed to Atlanta for a Cherry Bombe event and carved out some time to interview today's guest while I was there.
Jamila Norman is the founder of Patchwork City Farms in Atlanta, and the host of “Homegrown,” a show on the Magnolia Network. Farmer J, as friends call her, is also on the cover of the latest issue of Cherry Bombe Magazine. She's one of the most exciting urban farmers in the country, and through her work in Atlanta and on her TV show, she is doing a lot to encourage folks to garden, plant their own food, and take an interest in farmer's markets. I'm so excited to bring Jamila's Cherry Bombe cover story to life. Stay tuned to learn more about this fascinating farmer. If you're looking for the issue of Cherry Bombe with Jamila and friends on the cover, you can subscribe at cherrybombe.com, or buy an issue at your favorite local bookstore, magazine shop, or culinary store.
All right, and speaking of Atlanta, thank you to everyone who came to our event at Chef Anne Quatrano's Star Provisions. It was the very first live event for our other podcast, The Future Of Food Is You. And it was a blast meeting so many of you for the first time and catching up with some old friends. A big thanks to Chef Anne and her team and to Kerrygolld and Walmart for supporting our event.
This coming Thursday, July 13th, I'll be in Austin, Texas. Yep, back on the road, racking up those Delta miles, for a dinner at Olamaie Restaurant with Chef de Cuisine, Amanda Turner. It's part of our Sit With Us series with OpenTable. Come solo or bring a friend or two, it's going to be an evening of great food and drink. The Cherry Bombe team and I will be there and we can't wait to meet you. Learn more at cherrybombe.com, under the events tab. You can book your seat while you're there or book via the OpenTable app. Search for Olamaie in Austin and click their experiences tab. I'm telling you, once you know about the OpenTable experiences tab, you are going to be hooked on finding other experiences in your town, or any cities you happen to be visiting. Speaking of which we're also hosting Sit With Us dinners in Los Angeles at AOC, and San Francisco at Foreign Cinema. Our New York dinner at Zou Zous's is already sold out, so don't delay on the other cities. See some of you soon.
Now, let's check in with today's guest. Jamila Norman, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Jamila Norman:
Thank you for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
Or I should say welcome back. It is so nice to be interviewing you in your hometown.
Jamila Norman:
Yeah, it is. I'm glad you guys are here in Atlanta. Yes, and this is our second time, so I love being back.
Kerry Diamond:
We are in the land of Patchwork City Farms. Why don't we start with a little chat about just what Patchwork City Farms is all about.
Jamila Norman:
Patchwork City Farms is a farm I dreamed up back in 2010, here in the city of Atlanta. It's a farm that exists on multiple patches of land-
Kerry Diamond:
That's the farms, right?
Jamila Norman:
Right. Patchwork City Farms, because we're in the city and they're not large tracts of land. But right now I have 1.2 acres that I own that I'm farming on, and then I've partnered with the city of Atlanta to farm an adjacent kind of quarter acre property. And then I have one other lot around the corner, in partnership with a nonprofit that's another third of an acre. So kind of like collectively two acres of land that we're farming. But we grow all organically grown produce, sell it to families at local farmer's markets, and farmer table restaurants, and we're just growing, building, expanding and doing amazing things.
Kerry Diamond:
So you are an urban farmer and you are making a living from farming?
Jamila Norman:
Yes, I am making a living from farming. I have a team of two people, two full-time equivalents, I'll say that, there's three people working on the farm, but not everybody's full-time. And yeah, that's what we do. We grow vegetables, we go to market, we host small events right now, we make a living growing food.
Kerry Diamond:
Farming was a pivot for you, it wasn't what you set out to do.
Jamila Norman:
Farming was not what I set out to do. It definitely was a pivot. I started off as an environmental engineer. I wanted to save us from the pollution that we were-
Kerry Diamond:
All around us.
Jamila Norman:
All around us, that the things that we were doing to the earth. So I was all into Greenpeace, all into saving the world.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us what it means to be an environmental engineer.
Jamila Norman:
So an environmental engineer is someone who is creating and solving problems related to environmental things. So we're designing water waste, water systems, pollution, abatement systems for... It can be any industry, from power generation to food production, to manufacturing. Everybody's either using water, they're putting something in the air or they have to deal with something in the earth. So landfills, I mean all kinds of things.
I worked for the state of Georgia on the compliance side, so I would have to go visit the industries and make sure that if they say, "We're cleaning the water before we're discharging that to the river," that they're actually cleaning it. Walk through their systems, walk through their manufacturing facilities. So I got to see how a million different things were made, which was really amazing and really cool.
Kerry Diamond:
Not to use the obvious term, but when did the seeds start to get planted in your head about being a farmer?
Jamila Norman:
You know what? I didn't set out to be a farmer. I just set out to grow food, which is two different things, right? The seed was planted actually a super long time ago. I've always wanted to retire with land, grow my own food, just live off the land.
My family came from agriculture in the Caribbean, so that seed was always there. When I moved back to Atlanta after having gone to school in Athens, Georgia, having my kids, moved back to the city for jobs, because Athens is a small town. And I always loved Southwest Atlanta, which was a really big concentration of diversity, people of color, but it was also mixed income.
I moved to this neighborhood and one of the things that was very glaring was food choices were horrible, and not really great healthy food choices. Lots of corner stores, a grocery store, but not the best, and lots of fast food. So I just was with a couple of other people. We just were like, "Well, let's grow food for our families." And it just started off like that. It started off with a little plot in the local park in the neighborhood-
Kerry Diamond:
So a community garden situation?
Jamila Norman:
Yeah, we started off with just a small community garden that we started in a park. Then partnered with a church in the neighborhood that surprisingly enough, two blocks from my street had three acres and they had an acre garden. So we started working with that.
Kerry Diamond:
Three acres is big in a city.
Jamila Norman:
Yeah. Well, you find out real quickly, Atlanta has a lot of big tracts of land.
Kerry Diamond:
I am always blown away when I come to Atlanta, I'm so confused by the city and the layout, and I always think I'm in the suburbs because it's so green.
Jamila Norman:
It's so green. And Atlanta is not a... A lot of cities up north, New York, Chicago, D.C., they are cities that were planned on a master grid. Atlanta started off really small, and essentially all of the neighborhoods were former suburbs that kind of got incorporated into Atlanta over the years. And so it's a sprawling city, and it's a city that is like, there's no master planning, but it's always maintained a lot of its green space. You feel like you're in the suburbs and you're five minutes from downtown. And there are large tracts of land, that was two blocks from my house.
The city has a lot of property, churches have a lot of property, and they're just big tracts. It'll be five acres, seven acres, three acres, 10 acres, a acre and a half, that's just all over the city. And Southwest Atlanta had a lot of just sort of green space. It's the least densely populated area of the city. And so there was just sort of a lot of opportunities.
So when I started growing food, and the first official contract that Patchwork got, we took over a one-acre lot that another nonprofit had started, and they sort of burnt themselves out because it was just all volunteer. We had started working with them, and we didn't want to see that disappear, so we were like, "Okay, we'll take it over." Petition the city. At that time, it was Atlanta Public School. And we took over that acre and started growing food on an acre and quickly realized it's a lot of food. I mean, I just incorporated it because we needed to sell vegetables, and you have to have a business.
Kerry Diamond:
You had your full-time job?
Jamila Norman:
Oh, yeah, I was a full-time engineer, raising three kids.
Kerry Diamond:
And a mom.
Jamila Norman:
Yeah, absolutely. But an acre is a lot of food. And so we started going to market and started selling to restaurants. The farmer table scene in Atlanta was really buzzing with all these beautiful restaurants that are out there, and Hugh Acheson, and just all of them doing amazing things in the city and looking for really good ingredients to build up their menus.
And me with an engineer mind, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to dive in and learn all about it and figure it out, and all of that. And so 2009 is sort of when I started that community garden. In 2010 was like, "Well, I guess we need to incorporate it, become a business." And at the time it was me and this other young lady I met, Gathagu, also known as Cecilia, and her family was from Kenya.
And so her grandparents were the last of her generation to grow food and really be farmers. And my great-grandparents were in the Caribbean, and so we met each other in the West End, committed to food, committed to food sovereignty, all of the things. And we're like, "We're going to grow food, we're going to save the hood," all of the things. And we started Patchwork together, and it just mushroomed out of control.
Kerry Diamond:
As good projects do.
Jamila Norman:
As good projects do.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you wrestle it to the ground?
Jamila Norman:
Oh, my god, I'm still wrestling. That's going to be a lifetime. And it's really just growing and becoming and adjusting, and there's always something to learn. There's always things you can incorporate.
Kerry Diamond:
You learned a lot from the ladies at the church, I know that.
Jamila Norman:
Oh, yeah, I learned a lot. At the church, it was Good Shepherd Community Church, was a woman by the name of Miss Lizzie. And I would wake up in the morning, get my kids ready, go to work... Drop them off at school, go to work, she'd be in the garden early in the morning, it's like 7:00 in the morning or something like that.
And then I would come home from work and she was still there, working, doing whatever. And she was retired, and I mean she had to be in her 60s at the time. And so I would go volunteer with her Saturday, Sunday, like on the weekends. And for the longest, the pastor used to be like, "You should come to church, Jamila."
And one day I was like, "You know what, pastor," I grew up Muslim, but at the time I'm just like, I'm not really practicing in anybody's religion, just spiritual. I was like, "My church is out here in the garden." And I was like, "This is where I'm called to do my work." And after that and he was like, "You know what? I really respect that." That was it. I was part of the church, but I was in the garden. And I was like, "If I'm in there, who's going to be growing the food?"
Kerry Diamond:
What was it that got so in your blood and in your heart that way?
Jamila Norman:
It's like a zen outside, and you're growing and you're tending. I love the sun, I love the outdoors. I love fresh air. I don't like the bugs. You could just go and go and go. And at first I used to be like, "Miss Lizzie, you can't be out here like this all the time." But then I started joining her, and it's like you literally get lost in the work, and then you're like, "Oh, my god," you have to peel yourself up to go home.
So I would come out and just learn from her. And she grew up on a 200-acre farm in South Georgia and just was like, "This is what I know, and this is how I'm enjoying my retirement, and this gives me purpose. It gives me something to do. This is what I know, this is what I can do." And so I just absorbed everything I could from her, learned from her, just kind of help them bring their things to market, and just sort of close the circle for them from a financial standpoint, because they were pouring so much into the garden and really struggling to figure out how to kind of sustain it. So we helped each other in a bunch of different ways.
Kerry Diamond:
When did you decide to make this your full-time job?
Jamila Norman:
You know what? The universe decides things for you sometimes. I had a four-year overlap of working as an engineer for the state and also running Patchwork City Farms. And we incorporated it in 2010, we took over that contract at the school and then me and my business partner, we just were at it. So it was holidays, weekends, after hours. I would leave the farm and go home like, "Okay, kids, here's some food, here's some," run to the farm, do what I could until sunset.
And I was just struggling because I was an engineer with a salary, a full-time job, steady benefits, weekends off, vacations. And I was just like the last two years, "Oh, my god, I got to figure out how to get out of here." And then the state started downsizing and just sort of laid engineers off. And I happened to be one of those engineers, and I was so happy. It was a little scary, but I was like, "Oh my god, such a weight off." Because I couldn't make that decision for myself, because you're wrestling, you're like, "I have kids, I've got a house, I got a mortgage, I got to figure all this out."
Kerry Diamond:
It was the push you needed.
Jamila Norman:
It was the push I needed, and I'll never look back. And the state walks you out when they let you go, and the guy was like, "You're so chipper." So happy. So it was the push I needed. And then I just went full force figuring out the farm. That happened, and then I still had challenges with the property where I was, because I was leasing, it was public property. The neighborhood at this point now was changing. There was a lot of gentrification happening. People that were moving in felt like this public space was better utilized as something else, not as a farm. We were doing work with students.
I think at that point we had gone to the Slow Food Conference in Italy. We were getting written up, national recognition, and there was this local community of people who were like, "We don't think that's what you should be doing with this land. We need a parking lot." So the City of Atlanta, they didn't renew the contract. We had a five-year contract, three guaranteed and two one-year renewals. And so we were able to secure the first renewal, but the second they were like, "Oh, we just don't want to deal with the drama."
Kerry Diamond:
And this is a big problem for young farmers.
Jamila Norman:
This is a big problem for young farmers. And it was sort of at that time in Atlanta, so much of people moving from the burbs back into the city trying to figure out like, "Oh, my god." And it wasn't like an isolated case for Patchwork, it was really happening to a lot of other farmers, young, older, black, white. It really didn't matter, because at this point now land is valuable and people are either calling in those empty lots that they were like, "Oh, I'm not doing anything with this." And now it's like, "Oh, this lot is valuable, I could put a house on here or I could put some apartments or something like that." So it was definitely a trend. And so I found myself having to move my farm in 30 days, which-
Kerry Diamond:
How do you move a farm in 30 days?
Jamila Norman:
There's a lot of loss, there's just a lot of things you have to just... You can't. I sold off some of the structures. There were crops in the ground that just were gone. I mean, you can't take a well with you. So there's all kinds of stuff that, it was not a happy time. And then I transitioned onto another property in the same neighborhood, a couple of minutes away, in partnership with a nonprofit organization.
And quickly realized that relationship was... That was not a good fit. So before really setting roots there, I think that was maybe six months, I was like, "Hey, you know what? Let me just sort of end this right now." And it was very clear to me that if I'm going to continue farming in Atlanta, I have to buy a property, I have to own it and I have to have control, because it takes a while to really build a farm.
You're building the soil, that's really your base, and your biggest investment is that soil, and then all the infrastructure around it, your wash station, your storage, your well, your irrigation through the fields. You can't just pick that up and take it to the next place. I think I was maybe a year and a half where I was not farming. I was looking for land, I was a landless farmer as some of us were calling ourselves at the time.
Kerry Diamond:
Was that a frustrating period, Jamila?
Jamila Norman:
You know what? It wasn't. It wasn't really frustrating. I also started a farmer's cooperative at the same time that I started the farm back in 2010. So I was working part-time under the co-op, supporting other black farmers in Atlanta. I was also doing some farm consulting work for another farming organization in the city. And then one of my friends who was like, I told him, "I got to find my own property." And he said, "Jamila, how's that property search going?" Just out of nowhere? And I'm like, "Oh, crap, I haven't really been doing it." I was like, "Let me jump on that."
And so I just Googled land for sale in Atlanta. And a couple of hits came up. I went and looked at some properties. I knew that I only had a certain amount of money and I was like, "Look, this is all I can afford. Let me see what I can find." And then I saw this property right around the corner from my house. It had no picture, but I did a little Google Maps and I saw it from above, and I was like, "Oh, wait a minute, this is a nice corner lot." No trees, which was really good because it's already cleared. It was $18,000.
And then just little interesting things happened. The IRS was like, "Oh, we owe you money." And they sent me a couple of thousand dollars, and I cashed out my retirement at the state, and I borrowed a couple of other few thousand dollars. And lo and behold, I had $18,000, just at the moment that this thing happened. And it just all came out of nowhere and it lined up. And then I put in a contract maybe a week or two later after I did that initial search. And I'm telling you, if I had waited a day longer, it wouldn't have been available, because as soon as I put in-
Kerry Diamond:
I just got goosebumps.
Jamila Norman:
I know, when I tell you, I was like, "Oh, my god, this is divine." That's how I found the property.
Kerry Diamond:
And that's the 1.2 acre property you still have today?
Jamila Norman:
That 1.2 acre property that I still have today. And now I get to dream, I get to plant, I get to build. I have a long-term vision for it. It's just, it's farming. It's not the pressure of, "Am I going to be here? Should I make this investment? Does it make sense to invest this much on a piece of property that you don't own? Will it be here?" I'm like, "This is mine."
Kerry Diamond:
Right. Just the not having to deal with, "Can this be yanked out from under me at any time."
Jamila Norman:
Exactly. So it just opened up a whole new world of possibility. And I just feel like I can breathe, and just work and build, and everything that I put in it, I'm building equity for my family, for myself, for the community and stability for their neighborhood. And for the community and for people who depend on this food, whether they're restaurants, businesses, homeowners. Because when those farms disappear, people are driven back to the options that they have or the options they don't have. And so it's building that resiliency, not just for myself but also for the community that depends on it.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest.
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You're famous for growing a whole rainbow of produce.
Jamila Norman:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us some of the things you grow.
Jamila Norman:
Oh, my god. So I go through my list every year of seeds, and I tell myself, "Jamila, you have got to reduce the amount of things that you grow." But literally it's like 80-something different fruits and vegetables over the season. And a lot of it is like if I grow carrots, I'll grow yellow carrots, orange carrots, red carrots. I grow beautiful... Things got to be beautiful. Vegetables are a hard sell.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, you have so much style, I mean, hopefully people, maybe they watch your show, they've seen pictures of you in the magazine or something. But you are one of the most stylish farmers in all of America.
Jamila Norman:
Well, I mean, I'm a farmer, but I'm also a lot of other things. You got to be stylish, and the food's got to be stylish.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, I would expect nothing less from you.
Jamila Norman:
Right. And people shop with their eyes, so it's got to be beautiful. It's got to be enticing. And I just want to show the breadth and the variety of what's really available. Because I mean, you go to the grocery store and the options, it's orange carrots, and that's what you think carrots are. And actually carrots originally weren't orange. And so we bred carrots to be orange, but they come in a rainbow of colors, from white all the way down to almost black.
So you just want to bring variety. You want to bring things that are interesting. You want to bring things that are different. All of the greens, all of the carrots, beets, radishes, turnips, eggplants, tons and tons of herbs because I love herbs, and herbs just make things delicious. Strawberries. Some of the best strawberries in Atlanta. I mean, I'm going to say it.
Kerry Diamond:
In terms of income streams, you're at some of the farmer's markets. You do wholesale for restaurants?
Jamila Norman:
Yeah, I do some... Yeah, restaurant sales. But not wholesale to grocery stores or anything like that.
Kerry Diamond:
Got it. So restaurants. Do you do CSA boxes?
Jamila Norman:
I used to do CSA boxes, but I don't anymore. What we were doing, and we'll probably pick back up again, we were doing weekly farm baskets, so that way people were getting a little bit too fatigued with CSAs like, "Oh, my god, here's more vegetables again, what do I do with it?" And so it just gives people a little bit more flexibility of just like, "Hey, this is what we have for the week. If you like it, get it, if you don't, see me next week."
So that was working really good. And it also really created more access, because with CSAs, if you didn't have that full amount upfront, it kind of kept a lot of people out. So essentially you're just breaking it out, so many more people within the community and the communities that I was aiming to serve were able to access.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so smart. I mean, who wouldn't want to do a CSA? But like you said, it's the money, it's the time. You're not always cooking that much, and you don't want any food waste.
Jamila Norman:
Yeah, exactly. And then people, like summer vacations happen when they go on vacation, and then they're like, "Oh, my god, I'm going on vacation. Who's going to pick up my CSA box? Is that food going to get?" So it was just all the things. And just over the years of having doing it for so long, I just was like, "Look, how can I adjust to serve the people in the community that I'm in?" Because I mean, I'm in the city, so it's a very dynamic group of people that are shopping from me. So I think it really depends on where you are in the community that you have access to. One model might work really well, but for me and the people that I was reaching, I was like, flexibility is what they needed.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us what farmer's markets you're at.
Jamila Norman:
So right now we're at the Piedmont Park and Oakhurst Farmers Market. So both of those on Saturday at the same time, 9:00 to 1:00. So we just harvest really heavy, hit up two markets, and then we are off on Sundays.
Kerry Diamond:
That is a big rule for you.
Jamila Norman:
Oh, my god. And I've had to develop that, because for a good eight, nine years, anything that anybody, "What are you doing Jamila? Oh, can we get?" "I'm on the farm, I'm at market, I'm on the farm." And so you'd work essentially Monday through Saturday. Then you're in market Sunday, and then you're back at it. And so it was always on the farm, missing out on so many things. And I mean, definitely the cadence of a farm, you can't be at everything. But also I was like, life, my friends, my family, things are just going by and I'm missing out.
Kerry Diamond:
It's like having a restaurant.
Jamila Norman:
Exactly. And you're like, "Oh, my goodness." Like food, I mean, people, when it's raining, "Oh, my god, Jamila." "I'm on the farm." We can't stop growing just because the weather's a little bit bad or it's too hot. "Oh, it's too hot to be outside." You got to put on your hat and you're sweating that day when you're working. We have to be there. And also just wanting to build in some sense of rest and refuge. You'll wear your body out. And so I was like, "I have to build it in that we have a day of rest." And then Mondays are like paperwork, got to take some time to do paperwork, answer the emails, do this, all that planning. So we generally work Tuesday through Friday, and then go to market on Saturdays.
Kerry Diamond:
So if anyone has a great opportunity for you, send that email on a Monday.
Jamila Norman:
Send that email on a Monday. And I try to really schedule a lot of my meetings and things like that. But Mondays, man, you can get me.
Kerry Diamond:
Now we know. We're going to plan all our Jamila asks around that. Do the restaurants ask you to grow anything specific?
Jamila Norman:
No, not yet. And I've definitely offered restaurants like, "If there's anything you're looking for, definitely let me know." It does take a lot of pre-planning because some crops you're a year out, people don't realize how much time, planning, and just goes into certain crops. Even my strawberries, they get planted in November, December. We have to order them in July.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, a whole year ahead?
Jamila Norman:
Yeah. We have to almost right at the start order strawberries, garlic, onion. We order them now, we plant them in the fall. They make it through the winter. They start kind of growing leaves early spring, and then by about end of May, beginning of June, you harvest. They're in for six, seven weeks, and they're done. So if somebody wants like, "Oh, my god," somebody asks, "I want alpine strawberries," which are these white strawberries. Delicious. It's almost like a year ahead that you have to be like, "Oh, this is something that we want." So there is a lot of pre-planning.
Now there are some crops that I can grow in 30 days where somebody's like, "Oh, we're looking for some microgreens, or we're looking for some baby greens," things like that. Some different types of radishes. We can do that in a month, turn around, order the seeds, get it going, but depending on the crop. So generally a lot of the restaurants are just like, they're really working with what's available and just making the best. And I try to always have a big variety so that they have a lot to pull from.
Kerry Diamond:
And then there is mother nature who doesn't always cooperate.
Jamila Norman:
And we can't really blame mother nature because we've been messing up.
Kerry Diamond:
You had a tough time earlier this year.
Jamila Norman:
Yeah, a tough time earlier this year with a deep, deep freeze at the end of... Because it was December, we had that freeze, and just across the state there was 80, 90% crop loss.
Kerry Diamond:
Say that again. People need to take that in.
Jamila Norman:
Yeah, 80, 90% crop loss. Of course, we saw the forecast, "The freeze is coming." And in Georgia, that type of freeze does not happen. We have 32 degrees is regular freeze. And so we have our hoop houses, we covered all of our beds with the frost cloths. Those frost cloths, they give you somewhere between, depending on the variety, three to five degrees of freeze protection. So if it's 32 degrees, it's freezing, it'll take you down to maybe 28. But we were looking at double digits. It was maybe 10 with a windshield factor of negative 10, and it was sustained for multiple days.
And so a lot of what we plan in the wintertime, they can handle a deep freeze, they could handle that. But it was the sustained nonstop at that temperature for an extended period of time, and it just was too much. And that was actually the second freeze that we'd had. So we had one before, it wasn't that hard. Most of the plants made it through. But then that last December freeze came through and just was devastating.
And even the things that were covered up, the things that were in the tunnels, it just blew right through all of that. It's definitely an effect of climate change. When I started farming in Atlanta, I mean, it's a very different sort of weather pattern than now. We used to always have a winter break, because the winters were like, they were cold, but they were consistent. And so you would put those last crops in at the end of fall, and then your farm would be kind of in a suspended state, and then you just wait till early spring when things start growing back up, and then you start harvesting.
So we would have the winters off and that would be great. A lot of farmers would go off for two weeks or a month and we'd be like, "Oh, my god, we're getting some sun somewhere." And then the winters started having, it would get cold and then it would get hot. So then you'd start gaining crops that would come in during the winter, and then you're like, "Oh, crap." So we started having markets that went year round, because we could no longer just put the farm to rest. Then we'd have some winters where it was just not cold at all. It just stayed super warm.
So then you're dealing with that, and you're like, "I guess this is good, but then I don't actually get to rest." And now we're having winters that are crazy freezing cold. So now it's oscillating between, is it a warm winter, is it a hot winter? And warm winters are not good because they don't kill off the bugs, so you have really tough bug pressure the next year.
And super cold winters, you're just like, "Should I plant that crop? Should I not plant that crop? Is it going to make it? Is it not going to make it?" So some of the crops I had to replant and they rebounded. Other crops, you're just like, the timing is just, it's not going to be good. It's going to be pushing into my spring season, it's going to be pushing into summertime, and it's going to be taking up space.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm a huge farmer’s market fan, as you know. I've noticed the seasons when things are ready is changing, like cherries came a lot earlier this year. The tomato season seems endless now. I feel like tomatoes come early and they're still in the farmers markets in November.
Jamila Norman:
Yeah. And it's probably because what's been happening is farmers are realizing they're having to bring in more infrastructure. So we're having to put in more grow houses. And it's expensive. I mean, I have a tunnel on my farm. It's 30 feet wide, 96 foot long, and that's average size. Materials and install's like $20,000 just for that one. And you're having to do multiples of those.
So it's becoming a lot more expensive for us to operate our farms because we have to get this type of infrastructure to protect your crops. But it does give you that opportunity to bring things in earlier, and have them go a little bit later. The peach crop this year, I think they lost 80, 90% of the peach crop, apple crop, blueberry crops in Georgia. And these are big, big ag items for the state.
Kerry Diamond:
Just Georgia peaches alone.
Jamila Norman:
Yeah. So the season is like, there's a moment right now and it's not going to be much longer. And the peaches that survived are really good. They're so good.
Kerry Diamond:
Because they're tough.
Jamila Norman:
They're tough, I know. But the flavor's amazing, but then-
Kerry Diamond:
Tough in spirit, not in taste.
Jamila Norman:
Exactly. Yeah, tough in spirit. And they really develop the flavor. But in terms of the availability, and so sometimes we have to explain to customers why this thing might not be here, or it might not be as much, because they're like, "You guys are running out of peaches." It's like, "We don't really have that many, because most of them are gone." So the flowers bloom because you get a warm period in February, and they're like, "Oh, good spring's here." And then the freeze come and takes them out. Fruit comes from a flower, so the flour first, and then the fruit. And so if you lose most of the flowers, you've lost most of the fruit. The season is definitely shifting. Some things are benefiting from it and other things are not.
Kerry Diamond:
Most people don't talk about TV as in being easy, but TV certainly sounds like it might be easier than farming.
Jamila Norman:
I can work a whole day on the farm, physical labor, in the sun with the bugs. But yes, TV is exhausting. I'm not used to talking that much. It's a mental exhaustion. So when I'm filming, it's like I'm on, I have to be on, and I'm with the families. And I go home and I am like, "Ugh." Over the years it's definitely gotten much easier. So we have a rhythm now with the production team. We have the same camera crew, so we have a rhythm now. But when we first started, oh my god, it took me a day to recoup. I was like, "Hats off to anybody in entertainment."
Kerry Diamond:
That was an unexpected little gift that dropped in your lap.
Jamila Norman:
It did. It did.
Kerry Diamond:
Because you weren't out there with big dreams of being on TV one day.
Jamila Norman:
Not at all. Never in a million years would I have seen that as a career path for me. Yeah, I'm minding my business, just running a farm, doing the thing. And it's interesting because I don't know what was going on in the universe and the TV world, but that was the third production company that had reached out to me about doing something around farming and TV. The first one was like, they were looking for kind of a drama farm situation. And I was like, "There's no... We love farming, there's a real farming-"
Kerry Diamond:
The Real Farm Housewives.
Jamila Norman:
Right. Yeah, The Real Farmers of Atlanta. I mean, it's just like, "Yeah," I'm like, "We love each other. We're a big community. We're all rooting for each other." So they were just kind of like... And then the second one was this company out of L.A., and they just was into the farm season, and I was just like, my mind was like, "Vacation is coming." And they were just asking me for too much, making me do too much work. I was like, "Dude, I'm leaving. I can't send you stuff." And then 2020 was coming, and we all thought it was a magical year. And these magical numbers, 2020, "It's going to be the year of so many things." And I was like, "2020 my year of yes." I was like-
Kerry Diamond:
Like 2020 vision and all of those things.
Jamila Norman:
Yeah, we had all, I mean, my god, the hopes we had for what 2020 was going to be, and then what 2020 actually became for us. And so it was like my year of yes. So this other production company, they were based in Atlanta, women-led, it was 15 minutes from my house. So it was on the west side. And they reached out, and they were like, "Hey, we just wanted you to come in and have a small... Just a little talk with us about a idea that we have."
And I was like, "Okay, it's my year of yes, let me say yes." And I went in and it was real chill. It was just like me and you talking, and the production company's Eclipse Creative. And Jennifer Mador is the producer, one of the co-owners. And she just was like, "Yeah, so we're thinking about this idea and we know this network that's getting ready to launch. And we kind of looked you up."
I put together a whole pitch deck, everything was in there. And the only thing she needed was just talk to me and just see if I was interested. And I was like, "Yes, you got to do your work." It was just I like... But yeah, but I mean it was just a easy conversation. And we just talked about, "Hey," and I was like, I didn't think this was going to really go anywhere. I'm like, "Sure, yeah, you could pitch it. I mean, what could it hurt?"
And we just talked about a couple of different ideas of what the show could be. What is it that I would be comfortable doing? And at the time, I guess this was almost 10 years into my farming career, and one of the things I'd been getting was a lot of people reaching out, helping them grow their own food, how to stock their own farms, that kind of stuff.
So I was like, "Well, this could be an opportunity if it does manifest for me to share knowledge with a large audience of people that I just really can't get to. So that's sort of what I saw it as, like an opportunity to do that. So if it becomes a thing, great. I can share information with a lot of people, and be like, "Hey, go check out the show." So she put together the pitch. She sent it up. As they say, the rest is history. It was just like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes." It was like five rounds of yeses.
Kerry Diamond:
And they didn't make you change the premise as it went through each round?
Jamila Norman:
We submitted three premises, and then they came back with, "Okay, we like this one." And the one that sort of won out was me helping families transition their yards. And one of the premises was like, "Okay, we follow you and your farm and the things that you're doing, helping families." And then the other one was instructional videos about gardening. So we went with the family premise. And I think it fit with the network and all of the things that they're doing.
And Magnolia, she just kept calling back and was like, "Oh my god, girl, we made it to round two. Okay, we made it to round three." And I'm sitting here like, "Okay, whatever that means." Because I'm just farming. And then they got to the final round and Jennifer tells people all the time, she's like, "Girl, we landed the show, and then you disappeared for two weeks." I was like, "I don't know, I was probably farming."
Kerry Diamond:
They didn't send the email on a Monday.
Jamila Norman:
Yeah. And I was like, "What does that mean?" "You sold the show?" Like, "Okay, cool." And she's like, "We have to film."
Kerry Diamond:
Right, so far from your reality.
Jamila Norman:
So far from my reality. I have no idea what this world is. I'm like, "Uh-oh, what did I do?"
Kerry Diamond:
Well, congratulations. The name is so good, “Homegrown.” It's such a good show. But it must warm your heart on some level to be able to spread your values to a much bigger audience.
Jamila Norman:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And then to get that feedback from people. So people send me pictures of their gardens, "Look what I did, Farmer J."
Kerry Diamond:
You have a big project you're working on, and I want you to talk about it because you are trying to raise funds for it, and maybe potentially looking for some partners to help with certain aspects of it. So tell us what you're up to.
Jamila Norman:
So big dreams on this property that I have for the farm. So right now we're just running a farm and we're just selling produce. And over the years I'm looking for opportunities, sort of build connection, create spaces for people to gather, learn workshops, and get really hands-on. And so we, at Patchwork, were embarking on this really big project of building the facilities to be able to do that on the farm so people can come on the farm, we can have events, we can do workshops, we have a hospitality portion, an events portion, and just really creating a space that is beautiful and engaging.
And so I've got a team, my architects and engineers, we put together our plan. We are the first people in Atlanta that are doing this farm development project. And it was a struggle working with the city to get them to understand. But success, we were able to get our vision approved through zoning. So we got our zoning approval, and right now we're just building out our proforma, putting together the final numbers, and we'll be fundraising.
And it's around two and a half million dollars that we'll need, because it's going to be a new build. Right now I started off with a 1.2 acre patch of grass and building everything from the ground up. And we're going to be looking for culinary and event partners, because we want to do weddings, we want to do farm dinners, we want to do a lot of different workshops around storytelling and really food focus, whether we're serving food, preparing food, learning how to engage and interact with food, and telling stories around food, about food and the source, and all the culture that comes with it.
Kerry Diamond:
So 2.5 million. If anybody knows someone who can just write one check, we'd love that.
Jamila Norman:
One check would be amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
But if it takes a few checks.
Jamila Norman:
It takes a few checks. And so yeah, we'll be hopefully in about a month or so, we'll have our full pitch deck prepared, and we'll be putting it out there. We'll be putting it out on the social media, on the website, and hitting up some key partners and some relationships we've cultivated in the Atlanta area.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's go to a speed round, so we can let you get to the farm and do what you love to do.
Jamila Norman:
I know.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, coffee or tea, what do you drink in the morning?
Jamila Norman:
Oh, my god. Coffee right now, but I always end the evening with tea, so I'm both.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you take your coffee in the morning?
Jamila Norman:
Oat milk.
Kerry Diamond:
What kind of tea do you drink at night?
Jamila Norman:
All kinds. I make a lot of tea blends because that's one of the things I'm working on is coming up with a blend of teas, Patchwork branded. But my family, tea is life. We drink tea for everything.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you cook at home?
Jamila Norman:
Not as much as I used to, but I do. So if I'm like, "Okay, self-care moment," kind of towards the weekend, I'll be like, "Okay, I'm just making a really nice big meal."
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite kitchen tool?
Jamila Norman:
Probably just a wooden spoon really. I mean, I mix bread with a wooden... I like all kinds of things. Yeah, I'm just going to say that.
Kerry Diamond:
I love a wooden spoon. What is always in your fridge?
Jamila Norman:
A lot of greens from the farm. Avocado, citrus, butter.
Kerry Diamond:
What's a song that makes you smile?
Jamila Norman:
Nina Simone, New Day.
Kerry Diamond:
So we always ask footwear of choice in the kitchen, but for you, footwear of choice on the farm, what do you wear?
Jamila Norman:
Okay, on the farm, I'm always in some kind of boot, tall, lightweight, Muck.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, I see a cute little wedge on that boot.
Jamila Norman:
This one? Yes. These are Muck. I love Muck boots.
Kerry Diamond:
M-U-C-K?
Jamila Norman:
M-U-C-K. They're amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
Even for bad winters and stuff?
Jamila Norman:
Oh, yeah. They go from subzero, to anybody who's farming for reals wear Muck boots. And then in the kitchen I usually have some slippers. Yeah, I got these slippers I bought in Greece. They're wool and a leather bottom with a pompom. And I bought 10 of them in all colors, that they were basic.
Kerry Diamond:
They sound so cute.
Jamila Norman:
They are so cute.
Kerry Diamond:
What is your favorite food movie?
Jamila Norman:
“Water For Chocolate” comes to mind.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's a good one.
Jamila Norman:
It's a good one.
Kerry Diamond:
I need to re-watch that, I haven't watched that in a long time.
Jamila Norman:
I know.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, the last question. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Jamila Norman:
Okay, I'm going to say Chef Digby. He is a chef from the Virgin Islands, and I met him in Italy during the Slow Food Conference many years ago, and his food is amazing, and it's just like it's a little bit of home. He's fun. Yeah, we're going to say that, because like it's island life, and we would know exactly what to do.
Kerry Diamond:
I wouldn't be worried about you trapped on a desert island, you would grow the food, the other person would do whatever.
Jamila Norman:
I'd be in the ocean getting the seafood because that's my other love. I love seafood. Yeah, we'd be figuring it out. I'll say Chef Digby.
Kerry Diamond:
Jamila, thank you so much. You've been such a great friend of the Cherry Bombe over the years. I can't thank you enough, and I'm so thrilled you're on the cover.
Jamila Norman:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. If you are a longtime listener, or a new listener and you enjoyed this interview, I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on your favorite podcast platform. If you're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever you listen, just click the little subscribe button and don't miss a single future episode. And thank you in advance. A special thanks to OpenTable for sponsoring this episode of Radio Cherry Bombe, and partnering with us on our four city dinner series, Sit With Us. Visit cherrybombe.com/sitwithus, or look on OpenTable under experiences to learn more about these special dinners this July, in New York, Austin, L.A., and San Francisco. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Hi Joe, I'm happy to be back. Our producer is Catherine Baker. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial assistant is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening. You are the Bombe.