An introduction

My name is Miles Rose, I am the one behind Earthly Wilds Farm. I created this micro-scale off-grid market garden for many reasons. To provide food security for myself, my loved ones, and my community. To experiment living an alternative lifestyle, one that is in accordance with my own values. To provide an example for others to learn from, and one day help others achieve their own similar goals as well.

I have been fascinated with gardening since my early teen years, and ever since, I have been growing a garden almost every year. I moved living situations quite often in my past, which did present a challenge to my gardening hobby. But that just gave me the opportunity to design many new gardens for different environments. experimenting, failing, and trying again year after year, each garden getting larger, or more ambitious, or more unique than the last. Urban community gardens were some of my first and most direct experiences growing vegetables myself as a young teen. I am very grateful to have had access to these communal spaces while growing up in a densely populated city, where I otherwise wouldn't have had any plot of soil to steward myself.

I always loved to travel, despite the fact that it is basically the opposite of gardening which involves staying in one location, So when I learned about a program that combined the two, I was interested. I took advantage of the "WWOOF" program to find options to learn more while traveling. "W.W.O.O.F" stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Essentially, it's about connecting small organic farms with people who want to learn how to grow organic healthy food. You learn to farm by working a set number of hours in exchange for room and board. You can WWOOF almost anywhere on earth, which is awesome because WWOOFing reduces the cost of living while traveling ridiculously cheap. So when I found out about an opportunity to learn organic farming while traveling to the tropical paradise of the big island of Hawaii, I jumped at that opportunity. I spent 2 months learning all about how to grow, care for and harvest from tropical fruit trees and pineapples. Still, after all my travels, I decided to return home to Michigan and plant my own roots here.

I worked for several small farmers and gardeners for a few years during my late teens around southeast Michigan such as "Food Field" (a 4 acre vegetable farm in Detroit), and "Tiny Acres" (an urban vegetable garden composed of 4 city lots combined together, in the town of Hamtramck) and "Garden Solutions" (a gardening and landscaping company that tended to their client's ornimental gardens located all around the suburbs near Detroit). I learned all that I could about their different styles of growing. I quickly found out that each grower has their own distinct philosophy for growing, and I also began to develop my own philosophy for how I would want to design my own farm one day.

Eventually, I was able to secure a land tenureship agreement to start my own small off-grid farm. It is situated on a small section of a large acreage located in Torch Lake Michigan, owned by a non-profit called The Chalfonte Foundation. It is on this land in Torch Lake Michigan where I founded my farm "Earthly Wilds Farm", named for its respect to mother nature, the Earth's Wild ecosystems, and a philosophy of living in balance with nature, using simple off-grid technologies to tread lightly on the earth while still having a positive impact. I hope that my small farm will have a positive impact on the local community by providing people with fresh healthy food. I also hope that this farm will provide a positive impact on others who hope to achieve a similar goal, let my methods and my story serve as an example, another data point to add to your own research and dreams for the future, and provide inspiration for what is possible.