Starting a farm isn’t all about sowing seeds, transplanting  and weeding.  Don’t get me wrong, we do our fair share of those things, but there are an untold number of other details to attend to as well.  In the last few weeks we’ve also been acquiring tools and supplies (wheel hoe, hula hoes, wash station, cooler), readying our market booth (tables, boxes, certified scale, table clothes), finding a rhythm with the irrigation timing, investigating our market options, and naming the farm.  It’s that last item that took the longest I think.

Naming a farm is a delicate matter.  Once you name the enterprise, it becomes your identity in some ways.  It’s no longer just you as an individual.  Plus you begin to market the name and hope people come to know it, and then it becomes very difficult to change.  Needless to say, we went through many possibilities, and we even remembered to write some of them down to share.

There were the family and friends inspired options:

• Tutwiler Farm -named for the subdivision Jeff grew up in outside Birmingham
• Zeke’s Farm – named for Zeke’s Tavern, owned by my grandparents back in the day
• Okin Acres – named for Jeff’s grandparents
• Red Cloud Gardens – named for a very creative friend we have, and a potato variety too

There were the willow inspired names due to the recent willow basket craze:

• Willow Basket Farm
• Willow Stick Farm
• Red Osier Farm
• Salix Farm   (this one sounds too much like sabr1x)

The silly names:

• Total Farm Madness
• Scary Clown Farm

The Oakhill Organics inspired names (we are farm groupies afterall):

• Cedarhill Organics
• Pinehill Organics
• Dogwoodhill Organics

The names that caught on for a while, but were ultimately rejected:

• Tanglewilde Gardens   (does this sound like an apartment complex?)
• Salmonberry CSA   (but we aren’t a CSA yet, and what if we never are?)
• Field Station Farm   (named for our house, the Edgewater Field Station)

And there were many, many more that didn’t get written down.  But what did we finally decide on you might ask?  Pitchfork and Crow. That’s it, the name of our farm enterprise is Pitchfork and Crow.  There’s not a lot of explanation behind it.  We just feel like it fits us and what we’re attempting to do.  Now if you’re so inclined, you can begin referring to us as Jeff and Carri, from Pitchfork and Crow.