The first farmer’s market was a success, and chances are, you were able to buy some delicious strawberries from Fiddlers’ Farm. Jimmy and Teresa Reid, along with their three daughters who were 8, 9 and 10 years old at the time, began their farm in Hayden, AL several years ago. Fiddlers’ Farm gets its name from the girls’ love of violin and the many years they played in the orchestra.
While Teresa had always grown up around farming and had loved to keep a garden, the farm life took hold that year when their three daughters asked to go on vacation to Hawaii. Jimmy and Teresa agreed to the vacation if the girls agreed to working on the farm and selling the fruit and veggies to earn money for the trip. Fiddlers’ Farm started with 4 rows of okra that the girls sold within 30 minutes each week at the Finley market. Seeing how patrons loved their okra, Fiddlers’ Farm began to grow into over two acres of mixed veggies and fruit. Before long, they were invited to join Pepper Place and the West Homewood Farmer’s Market and were able to pay for more opportunities than just a 2-week trip to Hawaii, including two road trips out west, a swimming pool, and a down payment for a car.
Jimmy and Teresa’s daughters are now grown with children of their own, but they are thankful for the opportunity that farming gave their girls to learn the value of hard work and the joy of meeting new people. The girls no longer help with farming, and the Reids took a few years off in 2013. However, they missed farming and the markets so much that they got back into it a few years ago.
Jimmy and Teresa’s favorite part of farming is going to the markets and meeting customers. “It is really rewarding when a customer buys tomatoes and comes back to us and shares that they were the best tomatoes they’ve ever had. You can’t put a price tag on that,” shared Jimmy.
Fiddlers’ farm focuses on growing a smaller quantity of fruits and veggies with high quality and taste. They specialize in heirloom tomatoes and strawberries and will have additional veggies, such as squash, eggplant, cucumbers, peppers, cherry tomatoes, and green beans every Tuesday.
