Summer fun at the Furman Farm with Kevin Amon ’26 and Anna Jones ’27

50 garden rows. 22 box beds. 10 weeks.

This is what we, Kevin Amon (Assistant Compost Manager) and Anna Jones (Assistant Farm Manager), were given this summer. Alongside our team of four, we run the Furman Farm, an organic garden located on campus.

Farm work gives us a vastly different day-to-day experience than most Furman students.

Instead of attending meetings, you might find us outside planting cucumbers! Watering, weeding, spreading compost, leading tour groups, and packing and delivering orders– we do it all. But that work is far from our main priority, which is making connections within the broader Furman community. We run a farm stand every Thursday at the Shi Institute, and we’ve had visitors ranging from alumni, students, and even Riley the dog and her parents. The farm sells to numerous vendors, including restaurants like Topsoil and Furman’s very own dining hall.

The Compost and Student Manager jobs go hand-in-hand, but their duties differ. Anna is in charge of farm operations: on top of regular gardening, this means running the farm’s social media, communicating with customers and the team, pricing and delivering orders, and taking care of any unexpected situations that could arise, good or bad. Kevin’s job entails collecting barrels of food waste from around campus and transporting them to our compost site. On average, one barrel weighs 200 lbs, and there can be anywhere between five and 10 barrels collected each day. That’s a lot of food!

So, next time you’re in the dining hall, keep a look out for any labels from the Furman Farm. You might be surprised at just how much food our ¼-acre garden can produce!