Hometown: Judsonia, Ark.
Family: Son, Darren Algood (28), and daughter, Amber Algood (30)
In Town: Kathy puts her master gardening skills to good use at the Pioneer Village in Searcy, Ark., as part of a community project of maintaining the premises of the historical 19th century village. Kathy is a member of the local bee club and iris society, where she has won Queen of the Show.
Daniel is self employed at Algood’s Trim and Custom woodwork. He’s a licensed contractor for remodel work and does subcontract interior trim work on new homes.
In The Country: Kathy manages Dripping Springs Farm, where she and Daniel have been growing produce since they married 30 years ago.
They own 10 acres and are currently constructing a large high-tunnel greenhouse so that they can get a headstart on future crops.
“Our farm is a market produce growing farm. This is our third year growing to sell produce. We consider ourselves homesteaders and try to be self sufficient to the best of our ability, we have always had large vegetable gardens and grown a variety of fruits as well.”
It all started many years ago when they decided that they wanted to visit the grocery stores less and provide themselves with as much healthy food as possible.
“Our goal is to grow enough produce for ourselves and also to be able to supply, in the future, to restaurants or grocery stores with fresh local produce that is grown naturally with no chemicals or synthetic fertilizers.
“We have a dream of earning enough income at home so we can stay home and do the work we love here and provide ourselves with enough income to live comfortably. It’s a work in progress dream.”
At Dripping Spring Farm, the family grows blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, muscadines, grapes, pears, apples, Japanese persimmons, figs, blueberries and pecan trees. Kathy makes jams and jellies from the fruit, and uses her own dried herbs to make teas, such as raspberry and fig leaf, lemon balm, lavender, tulsi and other varieties of basil and mint.
“We have a greenhouse that we house tropical fruits such as oranges and lemons for our consumption and tropical plants I sell in the spring time. We have taken on a new venture with our microgreens and it has taken off.”
