Loose Leaf Notes

Today, she is the owner of Kat the Farmer, a salad-centric market “farmlette” where she grows herbs and salad greens on ¼ acre of the Check property that she and her husband own. Kat the Farmer is also a food company with a certified kitchen where Johnson prepares ready-to-go salad kits and her own brand of wholesome salad dressings, carrot ginger, lemon garlic, sesame lime and herb garden.

Her confidence to work with “what she already had” grew in gradual steps after she and her husband bought property in 2017 and built their home while Johnson was working as a manager at Field’s Edge Farm in Floyd. When the couple purchased their 8-acre property with 7 acres of steep forest land, Johnson was thinking ‘it’s not farmland but will make a good home site.’ She looked at purchasing properties she could farm on and talked to banks about loans, “but nothing opened up.”

The couple lived in a small trailer while building their home and a large storage shed, now called the pack shack. Then, Johnson took the county’s free C4 business planning and marketing class, headed up Floyd’s Community and Economic Development Director Lydeana Martin. “Part of the class is a pitched competition with judges,” said Johnson, who revealed that her business plan and pitch had won second place and a $4,000 grant. She invested her contest winnings in the purchase of a trailer, which she insulated and turned into a walk-in cooler.

Johnson supplemented her grant money with other financing and worked on her business plan and setting up infrastructure throughout 2020. She began making and selling her first products in February of 2021 and attended her first farmers market in the spring.

She makes the most of her “tiny footprint.” “Salad greens are the most concentrated crop you can grow and you can get lots of successions,” Johnson said. She currently wholesales to the Roanoke Natural Food Coop and outlets in Floyd – Slaughters, The Floyd Country Store, Riverstone and EcoVillage Farm Stores – and is looking to widen her wholesale reach. She retails at the Blacksburg Farmers Market on Saturdays and Floyd Farmers Market on some Thursdays.

Her weekly delivery service in Floyd and Roanoke (with free delivery offered for July and August) is called “The Salad Lunch Club.” Customers can pre-order online (katthefarmer.com) and have their order delivered or picked-up at the farm.

Kat the Farmer’s vegetables are grown using organic inputs and methods. The salad kits are packed airtight and, because the ingredients are so fresh, they can last in the fridge for a week.

A recent farm Facebook post announcing “This Week’s Seasonal Salad” included iceberg, butter and romaine lettuce, Napa cabbage, kohlrabi, cucumber, red onion and radish micros. Johnson sources some salad ingredients from other local farms to fill in her kits.

“I work two days a week in the kitchen, one day doing deliveries, one day at the market and all the other days (except Sundays) I spend in the field, planting and weeding,” Johnson said.  She also works part time as a Certified Naturally Grown Certification Specialist. She has a farm blog and makes informational Youtube farm videos, such as one about building her walk-in cooler.

But she doesn’t recommend learning from Youtube videos alone and stresses the importance of passed-down farming traditions. “I’ve learned so much from older farmers and just talking to people. All that will be lost if everyone is self-taught on everything,” she said, adding that she has also has had to learn to figure things out while working on the job.

The response to Kat the Farmer has been encouraging.  “I feel very welcomed by the Blacksburg Market and its community of farmers and eaters,” Johnson said. “I have made a few thousand salad kits by now, and I am getting lots of love on my fresh greens too, even the unusual stuff,” she added.

Note: For more information check out Kat the Farmer on Facebook and online at katthefarmer.com.  A Kat the Farmer farm tour can be found on youtube. – Colleen Redman