We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ahman Thurston a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ahman, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I am Ahman. I have a great passion for growing and I am an aspiring traveler, a nomad is what I would call it. The mission behind my movements is true wealth. One of my most important goals in life is to be more self reliant, and to live in a sustainable & ecological manner. I want to build a life that is in agreement with the land and that can provide for people (especially my family) long after I am gone. I want to build something that is a living example of true wealth. I was looking for a way to make opportunities for myself, a way to enlighten people and chance to help heal the land. My personal gardening business has given me the opportunity to do that. I get to spend time expanding my skills, I often meet people who are likeminded & who support my movements and I am able to spend time with my hands in the dirt & surrounded by plants, two sources of life for humans and for countless other intriguing beings.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up in the Metro Atlanta area, I have roots in South Florida and Selma, Alabama, and I was raised by a family of outdoors people; so I grew up spending a lot of in the woods. As I got older I grew more aware and connected to the land and I started to understand how essential it was for the well being of living things, especially humans who have grown to be so distant from the land and all that it has to offer. My cousin introduced me to foraging (identifying and gathering wild plants) and I fell in love with it. As my senior year of high school approached me I came to the point in life where I was told to decide what I wanted to do in life. I chose to pursue my passions, and I started looking for ways to turn my hobby into a way to provide for myself. One thing lead to another and then my business ‘The Nomadic Sol’ was formed.
The service that I provide is personal gardening, I start a garden for my client and I guide them through the process of becoming a grower. Currently these gardens consist of the tradition raised bed garden box or in ground garden but my goal is to expand to a point that I can build to micro farms, market gardens and permacultures food forests; sources of both food and income for my clients. Another one my goals is to build community permaculture gardens. Permaculture is short for permanent agriculture, this an approach to agriculture that is low input, high output and sustainable, so these gardens will be low maintenace, plentiful and practical for people to maintain; not for monetary gain but for common prosperity. These gardens will both connect and feed communities; they will help solve the problem of the diminishing presence of community within the human culture and food insecurity.
I want my business to give both myself and other people the opportunity to live life differently. I do not believe that I can change the world but I do believe that I can help people change their worlds.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

To initially fund my personal gardening business I started using an app called Taskr, which eventually turned into a side hustle which is my property managment business. Taskr is a platform where people can hire you to complete or help complete a task for them. Some examples of these task are: yard work, help moving and help packing or unpacking. I did Taskr for a while to build clientele for my property management business and also to promote my main business, personal gardening. So I did(and still occasionally do) Taskr and property management as a way to fund my passion.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

The most effective strategy for growing my clientele has been through word of mouth. I do a some marketing on social media and I am always putting up flyers or handing out my business cards to promote my business however word of mouth has gotten me the furthest. I prioritize visiting different farms, gardens, markets, shops and etc in my local area and just having conversations with people, talking with other growers, with random people and with business owners. People are often intrigued or inspired by what I am doing and they help me spread the word about my services and in some cases I have met people that have become valuable assets by directly or indirectly connecting me to suppliers, information or other resources that have benefitted my business and myself as an individual. Face to face, real life interactions have gotten me far in this industry!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thenomadicsol.wordpress.com/
• Other: https://linktr.ee/thenomadicsol