Kevin Maxwell
On Fingerprint Farms, my family and I produce regeneratively managed pasture raised beef, chicken, eggs, turkey, and lamb and sell the meat direct to the public via custom orders on Fingerprint Farms' website, at the market located inside Stone Trough Mercantile, the Cowtown Farmer's Market, and the Mansfield Farm and Cottage Market. To my joy and surprise, as life-long city dwellers, the raising of our animals on the farm (while complex and challenging) has appeared to come quite naturally to us, praise God.
As some of your know, we started out as Stone Trough Winery and have recently rebranded to Stone Trough Mercantile. To me, the winery sounded like a walk in the park (it hasn't been) because growing wine grapes has proven to be our biggest challenge yet. In fact, in our third attempt (sobs and tears flowing), I decided that the vineyard would be better aligned with the regenerative practices we use to manage the farm by incorporating the vines into a permaculture planting scheme. I call it the Vicharden (you know.. a vineyard, inside an orchard, inside a garden).
Since moving forward with the Vicharden, we have developed a hillside oak grove located adjacent to the Vicharden into an outdoor venue where we will be hosting Vicharden Parties, featuring Stone Trough wines and Fingerprint Farms products. We also plan on hosting Christian fellowship nights called "Gather Together Thursdays", other private events, and even a U-PICK harvest coming soon.
Regenerative management principles favor planting multi-species crops rather than mono-crop planting, so that is what we are doing. For the last two years we have been planting wine grapes, orchard trees (apples, pears, peaches, plumbs, apricots, figs and even pomegranates), and berries (mostly blackberries) and vegetable gardens within and between the grapevines and trees. In addition to the plants we plant directly into the Vicharden, we developed a wild flower meadow between the oak grove and Vicharden. This has brought in a bunch of pollinators and beneficial insects in close proximity to the Vicharden. This plan has proven to be fairly successful, as it appears we will be going into our third year with healthy vines (we have lost the other three plantings within a year of planting when using a mono-cropped vineyard system), trees and garden, so we are very excited about that.
And speaking of blackberries, we planted so many more of these as they have been one of the most successful plants we planted in the Vicharden over the first two years. So much so, that our plans are to invest heavily in blackberry production so that we can host a U-PICK harvest in the Vicharden.
Personally, I have truly fallen in love with the Vicharden concept and hope to have many of our direct sales, including the meats, occur out on the farm as we continue developing the U-PICK concept. I love having people out on the farm and sharing the experience of being on a chemical free farm, where they can see God's creation working together the way he designed it to function.
Furthermore, we have put aside our wine making plans, in favor of working with experienced wine makers around the state to produce wines for our label. Making this shift allows us relax a bit about the vineyard and wine production, so we can focus on running our newly established wine bistro located inside Stone Trough Mercantile, truly bringing farm to table to our community as many of our bistro menu items feature meats directly from Fingerprint Farms. The bistro is another way for us to bring our community in on all the goodness that the farm has to offer while allowing us the pleasure of still pursuing our love for Texas wine and sharing it via our Vinophiles cellar (a private selection of Texas wines that we love).
All this being said, we hope you will join us, either out on the farm or by enjoying a meal inside Stone Trough Mercantile. We look forward to seeing you soon.
Sincerely,
Kevin
