Erica Parker never considered being a stay-at-home mom – or a farmer, for that matter – but after her first daughter was born, going back to work at University Hospital in Columbia, Missouri, didn’t feel right to her.
“I got my degree in psychology, and my husband got his degree in economics and statistics,” says Parker. “But both he and I, even before we met, had this feeling that we were being called in a different direction – we didn’t know exactly what direction but just toward an alternative lifestyle.”
Long story short, Parker decided to grow vegetables and sell them to local farmers’ markets as a way to stay home with her daughter and still generate income for the family. The Sage Garden began on 2 acres of land in Hallsville, Missouri, but Parker and her family are currently transitioning to a 71-acre farm in Prairie Home, Missouri.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 75 percent of The Sage Garden’s sales were wholesale to restaurants. When those sales all but vanished in March 2020, it launched a CSA program that doubled its sales from 2019 to 2020. While the farm specializes in salad greens, which it grows year-round, Parker has begun diversifying their crops to provide even more variety in the weekly CSA boxes this year.
How did you gain access to the land where you started The Sage Garden? That was the biggest hurdle: I needed land to grow on. I searched for land in Boone County, and I found 2 acres in Hallsville that I could afford to buy with my savings. It’s not big, and we’re only growing on approximately half an acre of it, but we have what’s called a “market garden,” so we’re growing a lot in a very small space. We’ve made that 2 acres of land really work for us, and then two years ago, we were able to purchase a second, 71-acre farm through a government program for beginning farmers. So, our farm is really expanding and changing. We’re still growing on the land in Hallsville – because it’s fully functional and generating a lot of income – as we get everything set up on the new land. When we started The Sage Garden, we were bootstrapping our way through the process, but we’re trying to do things right from the get-go on the new land.
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