Susie Quick of Honest Farm: Small Business Blog Interview

Susie Quick wrote in with some answers to my probing questions. We reviewed her organic farm blog, Honest Farm, last week.

"I noticed a lot of links to it today from news sites, which was nice."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Susie Quick: All feedback has been very enthusiastic. We pretty much started the blog at the same time as the farm intentionally as I wanted to be able to enlighten and educate people about our mission at the same time we were starting a farm stand.

We're a bit of a hybrid as a company, a nonprofit that's attempting to support itself by selling the vegetables and flowers we grow on our organic demonstration farm in Midway, KY. We have educational programs we've begun and want to expand for next year. I hope to get some funding from private foundations and some government programs that fund sustainable farming education projects for the children's garden and programs. Midway, KY is a bit like Mayberry, wonderful and idyllic and inhabited by a lot of interesting people. They've been hugely supportive and use the site to keep up on the latest in organic food news and to get recipes.

I also have links to my cookbooks on amazon and have a place for donations for our nonprofit organization, which is convenient for our customers and supporters.

It's been difficult starting both a farm and a blog and keeping up with both. The physical labor involved in the farm is demanding and not for everyone. I work 14 hour days planting, cultivating, and picking. There hasn't been a lot of time to create all the content I wanted on the site and to keep up with the blog. You mentioned I hadn't had a lot of posts in September and that's true. But if you would compare my farm blog with those of other farmers I think you'd discover that by comparison, I'm almost obsessive compulsive.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

SQ: Mostly stuff I find interesting or the sort of things people talk about at the farm stand, like the recent tainted spinach from California. So, after discussing it with customers this past Saturday I decided to update them on the latest news and also offer the perspective of an organic farmer and a cook. I noticed a lot of links to it today from news sites, which was nice.

I also blogged about the 'ugly side of organic farming' as I think a lot of people think of having an organic farm as this hip and appealing, simple life pursuit. But when the insects arrive to destroy your spring crops, the worm turns, so to speak. I included pictures with before and after shots of my gorgeous cabbages that were terrorized by cabbage worms, now the bane of my existence. I want to educate people about farm life and also show them organic food and living isn't a vegetarian hippie pursuit (though there's nothing wrong with that) it's for real people who just want the healthiest and most delicious food they can get for their families. And for people who want to support local farmers and protect farmland from development, which many people are interested in here in Kentucky.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

SQ: I have to be honest, I am a self-denying blogger. I mean these days it's a bit like the 80s bumperstickers: Blogs Are Like Assholes, Everyone Has One. I just wish someone had come up with a different name for it. Though there are bloggers I find interesting and intelligent and I think the revolution of new journalism is exciting, many seem so in love with themselves and their imagined importance in the universe that they fail to communicate anything substantial. These I call "Blah-gers." And they're littering the internet with inanity.

I wish someone would start a site and call it something like www.worthreading.com. It could be the answer to the modern newspaper. And I want to be the food editor!

But seriously, as a former newspaper reporter and a magazine journalist (and cook book author... order one from my site!) I rarely had the freedom to communicate in my own voice, unedited. It's fun. For instance, I was an editor in Glamour for some years and I had to channel the voice of a 19-year old college girl because that was our audience. Now I can be my crotchety self. I try to keep it all on topic in the organic/green lifestyle and cooking and gardening vein though. I doubt many people care to know about how cute my dog is when he goes into the field, picks an ear of corn and peels and eats it. But I could be wrong.

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? How do you like the program?

SQ: WordPress, love it though there are a few glitches. For instance, I use a mac and it doesn't work with Safari so I use Firefox for writing and editing in it. But I love the fact that a Luddite such as myself who never took an html class can update her site, add photos and videos and not screw it up completely. I still have a lot to learn but that's the great thing about it. So easy you can blog nearly instantly.

PJ: Did you create this blog yourself?

No, those really smart (and affordable!) folks at newdrone.com, Tom and Cathy, designed my 'unbloggish' blogsite for me. I think of it as a 'stealth' blog in a way as I really detested the look of all that text ad nauseam most blogs contained. Working for magazines like Real Simple and Weekend I know how appealing photography and design are so I wanted something that looked great visually but that also functioned as a blog. A place where you can find a great recipe for brownies and see nice pictures of farm animals and vegetables as well as get the latest food news. What I'd really like to do is make it more of a place like Mayberry, with video of farm life and some cooking demos. I'd like to create an enewsletter -- I have a lot of people signed up already for the weekly email I send out -- that looks like the site that I could send out once a week. But that takes money and this year I am most definitely a nonprofit in every sense.

PJ: Is there anything else you would like to share about your blogging experience?

SQ: I would encourage people to dare to be different. Too much of media (and business sites) is copying what others do and already to me, many blogs are now "Blah-ogs." I go to Huffingtonpost.com now for instance, and I can tell you what the attitude and topics are going to be that day. So predictable. No surprises. In order to get attention I think it's important to be spontaneous in your words but also keeping pushing the envelope and thinking deep thoughts about what your customers/viewers want to know about. If you don't blog or update with graphics and photos then you're just another static information site, right? I'm guilty of this to a degree but this winter (now that corn, tomato, and bean picking are nearly over) I hope to add some more video and keep things lively.

I'm also launching some tasty food products I hope to sell via the internet as well as to local customers. So we'll likely be emphasizing that in the design in the near future.

Tags: honest farm, susie quick, midway ky, midway kentucky, organic farm, organic farming, childrens garden, children's garden