We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sharon Pferschy. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sharon below.

Sharon, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

In 2015 we decided to move closer to our day jobs, but couldn’t find a neighborhood that would allow us to keep our pet pig, Kevin Bacon. He was potty trained just like a dog…but the associations just wouldn’t allow him. So we found an old, 100-year old farm house that came on 3-acres, with about a 1-acre farm field already in use. Coming from the technical part of the aviation industry, neither of us knew anything about farming, so we did what anyone would do…Tony googled what crops are best for making money on a a micro-farm, and lavender and garlic came up. We didn’t know what to do with lavender back then, so garlic was the obvious choice. Plus we figured we could just eat whatever we didn’t sell. Our youngest came up with the Garlic Breath Farm name, and everyone gets a giggle out of it, so it stuck pretty well.
In 2019 Tony quit his government job to work full time at Garlic Breath Farm, sales quickly tripled, and the rest is history. If we had never taken a risk on growing Garlic Breath Farm, we wouldn’t have gotten to be part of the incredible, natural world of organic farming and surround ourselves with amazing people at the farmers markets each weekend,

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

We already covered how we got here, but what you may not know is that it takes 9 months for a garlic clove (acts as a seed) to turn into a garlic bulb, and that there are hundreds of varieties of garlic.
The kind of garlic we specialize in, at Garlic Breath Farm, is garlic that is high in allicin. Allicin is the medicinal part of garlic, and is anti-bacterial, anti-microbial and anti-cancer: So when we sell you a bulb of garlic, we are selling you health and wellness, sometimes hope, always high flavor, and a chance at growing your own garlic.
We are known to help raise other garlic farms and farmers, expert garlic gardeners, as well as culinary titans.
Another major part of our business structure is giving. We love to donate to food pantries so much that we grow a percentage of crops just to give away. As it turns out, food pantries rarely are the recipients of organic garlic, so to share our passion is to share our hearts.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

One of our biggest regrets is having to create the farm ourselves. Yes it had an acre of growing field, but there was no infrastructure to help support the farm and anything it grew. We had to build the drying shed to hang the garlic, the chicken coop, a shed, and now a roadside farm-stand in order to allow us an additional income steam. We spend so much time building things that we now look back and see how it has slowed our growth. If we were to do it again, we would buy a ready-made farm so the we could focus more on growing and less on building,

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Tony and I have been married for nearly 15 years. Prior to starting Garlic Breath Farm together in 2015, we worked for the FAA as software specialists. Our offices were next to each other and everything was great, aside from a 45-minute commute to our day jobs. We lived in a normal house in a normal neighborhood with sidewalks, and just happened to own a pet pig. Once we decided to move closer to work, that began the story of Garlic Breath Farm :)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.garlicbreathfarm.com
• Instagram: @garlicbreathfarm
• Facebook: Https://Facebook.com/garlicbreathfarm1
• Linkedin: @garlicbreathfarm
• Twitter: @garlicbreath4u
• Youtube: Garlic Breath Farm

Image Credits

Sharon Pferschy