The sun beats down and the temperature is 100-plus degrees as Cam Terry works his way down a row with a shovel.
"I am hilling potatoes," Terry says. "I just took a plow and cut this trench alongside the potatoes and now I'm throwing loose dirt up on them. That helps us increase our yields a little bit because everywhere where that stem is coming into contact with the soil and is watered will produce potato tubers. So we're doing a little bit of manual labor."
Terry operates Lick Run Farm, based in the heart of Roanoke.
"We're in a unique situation in the city, having a well," Terry says. "We are able to keep stuff watered, but that comes at a cost. Here I am at 3:30 in the afternoon and it's 100 degrees, slinging shovels. It's hard."
Vegetable farming is hard work. Maybe especially at an urban farm like Lick Run Farm. It's part of a growing network of local food in Roanoke that also includes LEAP and the Roanoke Region Food and Farm Trail, among others.
"We've been increasingly growing vegetables for four and a half seasons I've been here," Terry says. "Now it's a little more than an acre in vegetables. It's all sold here locally through farmers market, to people that come here on the farm and restaurants we work with. It's very hand scale, as you can see."
The 3.5-acre farm sits on 10th Street within sight of Interstate 581. It's nestled along Lick Run, a creek that runs from Evans Spring, past the farm, and eventually on to downtown, where it flows beneath the pavement.
The land now home to Lick Run Farm historically was the Crowell Nursery, which operated from the 1940s up until the mid-90s. The project to turn it into a farm began in 2010 . Terry took it over in 2022, after previously operating a farming business out of multiple backyards.
Agrarian Commons, a national nonprofit, now owns the property and leases it to Terry.
"We have a paid staff of four, plus strong volunteers," Terry says. "We grow some 45 or 50 different vegetables throughout the year. It's sometimes easier to tell what we don't' grow than it is what we do. We don't do much fruit yet. We would like to do more with that in the near future, because there's nothing that keeps people's attention at the farmers market like fresh fruit."
Right now Terry sells vegetables through their related business, Garden Variety Harvests, at a local farmers market and to restaurants. But he's constantly adjusting the business plan. And, he's in it for years to come. Even despite days like today.
"Asking me how much longer I want to be farming on a 100-degree day is a tough thing to answer," Terry says. "But we love the lifestyle it brings to us. I know a lot of folks who go to jobs they hate every day. I love this job. Every day."
You can find vegetables from Lick Run Farm at the Grandin Village Farmers Market, or at the farm on 10th Street NW, in Roanoke. The farm plans to open an on-site farm stand later this summer.
