Moss Mountain magic

The sun was shining but a steady breeze kept it from getting as hot as one might expect on a June day in Arkansas. Bloggers from across the state had driven through the hills of western Pulaski County on Arkansas 300, passing through Natural Steps and Roland but turning off the highway before reaching Little Italy and Wye.

The destination was P. Allen Smith's Moss Mountain Farm, which has been attracting national attention.

The July issue of Southern Living magazine features an eight-page spread on Moss Mountain. In the article, writer Steve Bender says of Smith, "The first thing to know is that he's an Arkansas boy, born into a family of farmers and gardeners who encouraged him to develop his artistic side. In the mid-1980s, he studied garden history and design as a graduate student at the University of Manchester in England. Touring the same landmark English gardens that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had visited in 1786 nurtured an interest in the 18th Century landscape and how the lessons of that era could be applied to American gardens today."

Having made his name nationally as a garden expert, Smith purchased the land that was to become Moss Mountain eight years ago. He has since added a large vegetable garden, a fruit orchard, a rose garden, a conference center, a gift shop and a heritage poultry operation. Among the many hats he wears, Smith heads an organization known as the Heritage Poultry Conservancy.

"I've been a poultry enthusiast since I was 10 years old," he says. "In the summer of that year, I proudly showed a white silkie hen at the Warren County Fair in Tennessee and was thrilled to take home a blue ribbon. Since then I have raised hundreds of domesticated fowl--chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese--and several flocks of swans. I'm continually fascinated by the amazing variety of their shapes, patterns, textures and colors and am amused by their quirky personalities. To me, they are the ideal type of livestock for homesteads of any size. One of the best qualities about poultry is how adaptable they are. Since there are breeds both big and small, you can select birds to match the scale of your setting."

Smith made his city home in Little Rock a centerpiece of the national public television series P. Allen Smith's Garden Home. He still owns the house in town but the farm has allowed him to expand his interests. This is the man the New York Times in 2010 called "the Martha Stewart of the South." In that article, Kim Severson wrote that Smith "will never leave Arkansas. Although his brand is carefully designed to be universal and accessible no matter where his customers might live, Arkansas is the well from which he draws his inspiration and power. ... Even when he was shopping for a New York publisher a decade ago, he refused to do business with anyone who didn't first visit him in Little Rock. Still, the publishers came."

Smith describes Moss Mountain Farm as a place that "combines the spirit of a classic American farmstead with many of the current innovations in earth-friendly living." He calls the gardens "extensions of the home's living space that showcase exciting new varieties of flowers and vegetables. ... Along with being the set for my television and print projects, the retreat also serves as a working model to teach lessons in garden design, sustainable living and good stewardship."

Several times a year, Smith hosts garden-to-table dinners that celebrate locally raised food. The state Agriculture Department is taking advantage of Smith's celebrity to promote its Arkansas Grown program. Arkansas was one of the last states in the country to establish an agriculture department. Former Riceland Foods chief executive Richard Bell got the department off the ground. Butch Calhoun of Des Arc now serves as the second secretary of agriculture. As one might expect, much of his time is spent dealing with rice, soybean, corn, wheat and cotton producers. Yet he understands the importance of connecting the state's smaller fruit and vegetable growers with consumers.

The purpose of last week's event--which combined Smith's star power with the beauty of Moss Mountain Farm--was to get bloggers writing about the Arkansas Grown program after meeting some producers. Among the growers in attendance were Chuck McCool, who farms almost 30 acres of vegetables near Rover in Yell County; Mark Morgan, whose family has been growing peaches near Clarksville since the 1890s; Beth Eggers, whose Wye Mountain operation combines a flower farm with a blueberry and blackberry operation; and Bob Barnhill, a Corning native who served 28 years in the Air Force before he began operating orchards in the sand hills of Lonoke County between Cabot and Lonoke.

"We need children to get to know the people who grow the food," McCool says. "There's a new generation of consumers coming, and we have to teach them to appreciate the fruit and vegetable growers in our state."

The Arkansas Grown program has made strides in recent years. Subway restaurants are using Arkansas-grown tomatoes while they last on sandwiches at its restaurants in Arkansas and parts of surrounding states. Lunch for the bloggers was provided by Fayetteville's Greenhouse Grille, which is among a growing number of restaurants in the state that focus on locally grown products. "It was exciting to be surrounded by such enthusiasm and passion for Arkansas grown and made products," Smith says. "I feel good about Arkansas."

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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas' Independent Colleges and Universities. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial on 06/25/2014

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