How Blythewood couple has grown a community around their farm

A mighty loud and motley amount of squawking – enough to make you wonder what the heck was going on inside a wooden shed – became my introduction to Crooked Cedar Farm in Blythewood.

Selvin Harrell thought nothing of the commotion, coming from 80 laying hens and one self-absorbed rooster.

“They’re loud this morning – busy laying eggs,” Harrell said. “The majority of eggs are laid in the mornings.”

“I sell every egg I can pull out from under a chicken,” said Harrell’s wife, Edwina. “Once you eat a homegrown egg, you’ll never want to go back.”

The Harrells have been out here on this sultry July morning since 6 a.m. “Here” is their small farm, blessed with nutrient-rich clay soil and spreading out from a curious crooked cedar tree across some 10 acres. They’ll be out here a few more hours picking a remarkable variety of delectable, organic produce, field washing it in the tractor shed and then setting it all out for sale in the sun room of their brick home.

Loyal customers will start turning up soon thereafter, compliments of Edwina’s diary-like emails that she sends out to several hundred people on a regular basis. Really, the missives are more than just a litany of what produce is available. They’re a pleasant respite from the rest of the world, a reprieve from what’s going wrong and a reminder of what’s working right.

Take Edwina’s July 27 correspondence.

“Good Morning,” it begins. “It felt so cool early this morning, but now the heat is building and we are hustling to get the produce picked and get out of the field. The slow picking has begun on the snap beans and butterbeans so we will open this week a little later in the morning to give us more picking time … The tomatoes are coming in very good this week, especially the red varieties, but we are still picking some Cherokee Purples as well. Lots of new items are ready this week with the cantaloupe and winter squash ripening. The squash and zucchini are saying farewell soon, but the butterbeans are slowly filling out and we are picking a small amount of okra.”

Oh dear. The squash and zucchini are “saying farewell soon.” Now if you don’t love that perfect little turn of a phrase concerning produce, well, you might as well go buy yourself a store-bought tomato and stop reading here.

“People tell me all the time, ‘Oh, I love your emails!’ ” Edwina said.

And the Harrells love what they do.

They met at a wedding in Ballentine about 43 years ago. “My sister married his first cousin,” Edwina explained. “We were both in the wedding. We started dating when I was 16 and Selvin was 20.”

“Her mother had a fit because she was dating such an old man,” Selvin quipped.

The Harrells got married and chuckle about being newlyweds.

“Our first purchase when we got married was a freezer from Sears,” she said. “Twenty-two cubic feet.”

“We had to get it financed because we didn’t have enough money,” he noted.

So, if you will, fast forward through the couple’s CliffsNotes.

Two sons, grown and flown from the nest. Three grandsons. Selvin’s job at Clemson University’s Veterinary Diagnostic Lab for 36 years. Edwina’s accounting work with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control for 32 years. A move to the Blythewood property in 1976.

“As it got to be time for us to retire,” Edwina said, “we were still young and we knew we were not just going to sit down. We love the outdoors and we love to garden. We thought, ‘We’ll do flowers and sell them.’ Then we thought, ‘Should we do flowers or vegetables for people to eat?’ We decided we’d clear some of the property and do vegetables.”

The Harrrells grow a remarkable amount of produce. Among their bounty are 10 varieties of tomatoes including Selvin’s pride and joy, the heirloom Cherokee Purple tomato.

“An heirloom has to have been around for 50 years,” Selvin explained. “The Cherokee Purples are hard to grow because they haven’t been bred to be free of a lot of tomato viruses.

Most of them grow ugly and deformed, with cracks and odd and unusual shapes, but their flavor by far makes up for their appearance. You can’t judge a Cherokee Purple by its looks, you have to actually taste it.”

The morning’s picking was coming to an end and the Harrells would soon head to the tractor shed where they would rinse the dirt off what had been harvested.

“It’s a labor of love,” Selvin said. “It can be frustrating at times because of the weather. The weather can be your biggest enemy or your biggest blessing.”

“I just love to see it all grow and then pick it,” Edwina said. “Working the farm also means you see a lot of people and we like to be around people.”

Even folks who are not as well-versed as the Harrells in the ways of growing produce.

“One time,” Selvin said, smiling, “we had a customer who looked at our cucumbers and squash and eggplants and said, ‘These are too small. You need to put them back in the garden and let them grow some more.’ They were serious. Very serious.”

During the summer season, Crooked Cedar Farm is open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. The hours can change if the Harrells have appointments that take them away from the farm or if what they are picking causes them to be in the field longer. The Harrells also grow winter produce. “We notify everyone through Facebook and email on a weekly basis,” Edwina said.

This story was originally published July 31, 2015 at 1:47 PM.