Stronger Than Dirt: How One Urban Couple Grew a Business, a Family, and a New Way of Life from the Ground Up - Softcover

Schaye, Kim; Losee, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 060980975X ISBN 13: 9780609809754

Publisher: Three Rivers Press, 2003

Synopsis

A Dream Takes Root

By turns enchanting and inspiring, Stronger Than Dirt is the true story of one couple’s successful attempt to build, from the ground up, an entirely new way of life.

When Kim Schaye came home to Brooklyn from her writing job at a top New York City daily to find a breathtaking vase of wildflowers on her dining room table, she had no idea the bouquet would challenge her and change her life so completely.

Her husband, Chris Losee, had gathered those glorious blossoms from one of the last working farms in the area that summer day, thus planting a seed in his mind to buy, start, and live on a farm.

Stronger Than Dirt is Chris and Kim’s tale, told from the alternating viewpoints of a husband and wife who left behind the grind of their big city life to build what became a thriving flower farm. Battling mud, bugs, snow, deer, and the ever-encroaching weeds, while facing the dropped jaws of their friends and family, Kim and Chris created a successful business with perseverance and a good dose of humor.

Whether you have a passion for gardening, a taste for the perfect tomato, or simply a willingness to take a chance, Stronger Than Dirt is sure to entertain as it reveals the beauty and bounty that embracing the unknown can bring.

About this title

About the Author

KIMBERLY SCHAYE and CHRISTOPHER LOSEE live and farm in Columbia County, New York. In the summer and autumn, you’ll find them selling their beautiful wildflower bouquets and fresh produce in greenmarkets in New York City and the Hudson Valley region of New York State.

From Publishers Weekly

In 1995, lured by a friend's enthusiasm for the pleasures of market gardening and his tales of the money to be made selling produce at greenmarkets, the authors, who lived in Brooklyn, decided to buy 30 acres of land in upstate New York. Schaye, who was an editorial writer for the New York Daily News, got herself reassigned as a reporter in the paper's Albany bureau so she could be close to the farm, and Losee gave up his failing construction business. In lively alternating essays, husband and wife tell the story of their venture. He recounts the details of building a house, tilling the land, constructing a deer fence; she, bemused at her husband's grandiose plans and his unfailing confidence, goes along with everything, including spending the first winter with thousands of tomato and pepper seedlings growing in the bedroom of their temporary apartment in Albany. Increasingly dissatisfied with her job covering the static New York State government, Schaye finally gave it up and entered wholeheartedly into farm work. After the first summer, they sold their house in Brooklyn, took part-time jobs, and through backbreaking labor, made their farm work. Now they have a successful business selling flowers and fresh produce at greenmarkets. Without playing down the hardships of the endeavor-though they're vague about financial details-the authors have written an engaging and unfailingly optimistic book. 16 b&w photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Three Rivers Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 060980975X
• ISBN 13: 9780609809754
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320