COLUMBUS, Ohio – She started with a small garden on one-tenth of an acre in her backyard in 2015. Today, Kate Hodges’ certified organic farm (called Foraged & Sown) has turned into a thriving business.

Hodges, her sister Jane Larson, Holly DeLong and Karli Leffel operate multiple growing sites (their backyards) in central Ohio, including a larger production site in West Jefferson.

Foraged & Sown yields a wide range of herbs, vegetables, berries, greens and roots, with products made with those items and eventually sold at farmers markets, local grocers and online.

Their processed goods include herbal and caffeinated teas, herbal salt blends, herb-infused preserves, garlic and saffron. Foraged & Sown is known for its certified organic garlic and seasonal herbs like calendula.

 “Our dual focus on cultivated and foraged produce encompasses a broad range of herbs, fruits, greens and roots,” Hodges said. “Our foraging ethic leans heavily on research and monitoring for each crop harvested to ensure true sustainability.”

For Hodges, it all began with foraging. Prior to 2015, she led classes on the identification of wild edibles and the work led to her getting involved in the local food community. Hodges taught foraging classes at Wild Goose Creative, an artist-centered and artist-led contemporary gallery and performance space near downtown Columbus. There she would show students how and where to harvest useful plants from a semi-urban environment, ones that get overlooked daily.

“When you don’t treat your lawn, all sorts of weeds grow, but most people don’t know that a lot of them are edible, like dead-nettle, henbit, chickweed and cress,” she said.

The farm has been certified organic by the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association since 2017 for both their fresh produce and seedlings and as a handler for their farm-produced teas and salts. In 2020, they added Real Organic Project certification, verifying that their growing practices are focused on the health of the planet.

Hodges is no stranger to those at Ohio State University. Hodges remains a business planning specialist at OSU’s Northeast Ohio Ag Innovation Center. Hodges has also been the primary project manager for USDA Rural Development Value-Added Producer grants, a S.A.R.E. farmer-rancher grant, regional Central Ohio agricultural grants, and a Finlandia Foundation National award.

Outside the office, Hodges likes to get her hands in the soil. Among her many interests is fiber arts of all kinds. Foraging is dearest to her heart, however. She eventually moved to a house with a small yard. With the encouragement of others, she began branching out.

“I was heavily into leading forage classes early on and some friends urged me to expand beyond the foraging classes,” she said. “The problem was, my entire life I created things in quantity, too many to gift to people. After years of doing this, it was easy to transition into a small business.”

The growing of herbs and other plants sprouted on Hodges’ one-tenth acre yard. Within a few years, Foraged & Sown expanded to include partners Larson, Leffel and DeLong. The group worked mainly within a pair of 10-by-20-foot hoop houses on Hodges’ small yard, but eventually purchased 3.5 acres from Rock Dove Farm in West Jefferson in 2020.

Hodges said it was a taxing process (their Farm Service Agency-guaranteed loan was difficult to obtain due to the nature of the business), but necessary. Hodges’ small yard in the Columbus suburb of Linden was getting crowded and the newly purchased land in West Jefferson allowed for many more plants, and that meant expansion.

In time the group began focusing on growing ingredients for unique products and combinations. All, Hodges said, were built around flavors. Their inventory has grown to include fruit preserves (sour cherry, apricot and concord grape jelly), dried herbs and a full slate of herbal teas. Tulsi basil, fragrant rose petal, lemon verbena, mojito mint and pineapple sage are just a sample of the products they utilize and feature.

“Everything we produce is built around having flavor,” Hodges said. “We’ve used herbs and paired them with foraged plants. We’ve been adding flavorful perennial berries and niche items that other people are not growing. We’re expecting a lot more output in the coming years. We don’t make soaps. People ask me that all the time. I only deal with items with flavor, and you can’t eat soap.”

The trio all have off-the-farm jobs and spend weeknights and weekends producing many goodies from their produce. They have partnered with North Country Charcuterie to have their products packaged in gift boxes and sold through Yellowbird Foodshed’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

“One of our big sellers is our Farm Flavors Samplers,” Hodges said. “Our Mystic box combines Mystic herbal tea blend, Nobility fruit preserve made with Concord grapes, and Soil, Sun & Sea culinary salt blend. The Sunrise sampler includes herbal tea blend, Catawba apricot and thyme preserve and Lemon Spicebush salt blend. We’re really into the salt blends here.”

A growing business that began on just one-tenth acre.

“Not one of us were raised on a farm, nor were we involved in 4-H or FFA,” Hodges said. “We’re all experienced in gardening with our parents. And, now we’re gaining more experience by going to nature programs and learning about the natural world.”

Hodges said there’s pros and cons with any business, including theirs.

“As with any type of farming there is a lot of labor involved and it can take a toll on the body,” she said. “With this business it’s all hand work. We use our neighbor’s tractor to do some of the beginning of the season prep. The rest of it we use a two-wheel tractor. All of the planting and processing is done by hand. The worst thing to harvest for us is chamomile, where we have to stoop over for hours.

“On the flip side of things, it’s really fun to host people at the farm. It’s just a three-and-a-half-acre space, but it’s neat. It feels alive. Most of the things we’re growing smell really great. The best way to experience that is in person.”