2016 was the Year of Big Change for Tenley Weaver and her farming career. After two decades of operating Good Food-Good People, a local foods distributing network with myriad farmers markets, wholesale accounts, an online ordering program, and a regional Community Supported Agriculture program with over 400 sharers, she was more than ready to take a deep breath and come back home to the farm! And start farming again!

Her home farm was completely off-grid, employing only solar power and gravity-fed spring-sourced water systems, AND in need of lots of investment after years of truncated attention. So she bequeathed the Roanoke CSA to LEAP, waved adios to all farmers markets, and started a very simplified wholesale-only distribution company now known as Loca-Motive Aggregator.

Tenley’s renewed farming effort was named TruFood Growery, and included three sizeable hoop houses and about a half-acre of outdoor garden beds. While continuing to work with many other growers in the region via Loca-Motive, Tenley’s own farm mission became to augment their efforts with diversity, instead of competing against them by growing popular crops already flooding the markets.

She decided to focus on an eclectic array of specialty crops that would be appreciated by the restaurants, retail stores, and the LEAP Farm Share she continued to serve. Asparagus, red raspberries, sugar snap peas, off-beat peppers and eggplants, unusual salad greens, ethnic beans, and a wide selection of culinary herbs formed the backbone of the new-but-old market garden operation at her home farm. Some years later “so-weird-you-gotta-love-‘em” sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes) were added to the mix, and now comprise the single greatest gross revenue on the farm. New crops are trialed annually with a view on manageable labor and harvest requirements for just one person, as well as adding interest and diversity to the extensive list of fruits, veggies, and many other local foods purveyed by her only sales outlet, Loca-Motive.

TruFood Growery and Tenley’s home continue to operate completely off-grid and all efforts are made to produce and distribute in environmentally friendly ways, using biological growing methods with great care taken for soil health and protection of on-farm woodlands.

Now in her early 60s, Tenley’s goal is to remain in production and distribution for another decade, thanks to the flexibility afforded by two self-owned businesses that can change as she ages. Optimist that she is, Tenley believes that sustainably-produced, locally-sourced, nutritionally-dense and undeniably-delicious foods could eventually “save the world!” However, she acknowledges that this may not happen quite so quickly as she once had hoped. Nevertheless, she’s still trying, and hopes YOU are too!