Today we’d like to introduce you to Mady Hastings.
Hi Mady; so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My husband Matt and I met in 2014 when I first moved to South Carolina right out of college. As a registered nurse, I worked and lived in and around Greenville for a few years before we started our family and bought a subdivision home in Simpsonville. When we found out we were pregnant with our third child, we decided to move to a larger home in a more rural area, giving us more bang for our buck. The home that we ultimately settled on was sold with an additional neighboring lot, which was empty. I had started showing interest in landscaping and gardening in Simpsonville with our minimal yard, so Matt mentioned we could make this new empty lot into a large garden. Somehow, it turned into a plan to create a market garden with a farm stand, and we could sell and provide food for the community. The only issue was that we had never grown vegetables before, and we had to teach ourselves everything from how to grow from seed, build our soil, harvest, fertilize, and more. It was overwhelming, but we had blind faith that we could do it. Shortly after transforming our lot into the garden of our dreams in the Spring of 2021, we were told that there were zoning issues and that we could not do what we were planning on doing. I was told I could not have a farm stand and that I could not sell products from home. Feeling defeated, I almost gave up, and with our son coming any day, we decided we’d scale down and wait till the next year to go all in and pivot the business to something that would work for us and the city. Low and behold, the week my son was born, I received a call from the Main Street Laurens organization asking if I would participate in their farmers market starting that weekend. At two weeks postpartum, with our brand-new son, and two older children in tow, we attended the second farmers market of the season as a family and successfully started Market Gardening.
Fast forward to 2023, I have attended two local farmers markets, established a close business relationship with a brand-new fine dining restaurant, Rootimentary, in the heart of our city, and established a partnership with the Laurens County Food Share program, which provides produce at reduced prices to the community and donates to the food banks in the area. I have built roughly 13,000 square feet of gardening space from scratch and have grown 60+ varieties of produce and flowers. This year will be our biggest year yet, and we are excited to put our heart and soul into each avenue.
You wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but the journey has been smooth so far.
This has been a challenging road. Like I said in the previous answer, we dealt with zoning interruptions and complaints from citizens close to us who did not want us to be here or grow food here. We’ve dealt with online hate comments telling us our home is an “eye sore,” and people have come onto the property and steal our produce from the plants. We arrived and quickly learned that we were not welcome in this small town, aside from a few very good neighbors who have supported and loved us through the last couple of years. Instead of letting it get us down, we’ve decided to stay steadfast, putting more love into the community by providing fresh, organically grown, affordable, and accessible food to the people here.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about Hastings Corner Farm and Garden?
Our business, Hastings Corner Farm and Garden, is a market garden growing fresh produce using organic practices on less than 2 acres of land here in the city of Laurens, SC. Our market garden is small, but we use companion planting and other methods to keep our garden space densely planted to produce the highest yield of each plant possible. We grow anything from leafy greens like spinach, arugula, lettuce, and kale to tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, okra, and more. We also grow a variety of cut flowers and have the largest build-your-own bouquet bar at the Simpsonville Farmer’s Market. The thing that made us stand out the most at the market this past year was our giant sunflowers! We grew over 10 varieties of sunflowers, which was amazing because most people did not realize how many types there were! What sets us apart is that we are a family business involving our children at every turn. They attend markets with us, help customers, harvest, and even plant seeds. Our customers love seeing our whole family at the market working together, and it makes us feel like we are just expanding our family one customer at a time. I am most proud of our reasonable pricing, product quality, and focus on using eco-friendly and conscious packaging. Our packaging uses minimal plastic, which is 100% recycled.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those just starting.
My main advice for anyone just starting is to remember if you’re ever feeling buried, you’re just being planted. What comes after that initial struggle is beautiful if you persevere and refuse to give up. Market gardening comprises so many skills that take time to master, and each year is so different. A friend once told me that for any other profession, your years of experience are built from hundreds of thousands of projects and days that are different from one to the next, where you can go to sleep, wake up, and do better the next day. But in farming, or market gardening, your years of experience equal that many times of trying something. 30 years means 30 times, not 10,950 times of showing up. It’s important to remember that mistakes are made in this field, as they easily happen. That perspective has helped me minimize the mistakes and over-celebrate the wins.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.hastingscorner.com
- Instagram:instagram.com/hastingscorner
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064916673023
