Half Hill Farm partners with former tobacco farm to grow hemp


Half Hill Farm is now partnered with a former tobacco grower to produce premium indoor grown hemp flower. The new 5,000 square feet indoor grow space at Boze Farms in Carthage, TN should be fully operational later this year.

The indoor grow will provide bulk wholesale flower to stores and manufacturers including Half Hill Farm’s Wellness Emporium retail stores across the state. The new climate controlled facility will also supply their new CO2 extraction lab in Woodbury to ensure in-house quality controls from start to finished product.

“We know retailers and consumers have a lot of options on the market,” said Half Hill Farm owner Vince Oropesa. “That’s why we’re focused on providing a premium value with quality growing and processing that can scale to meet demand.”

Many hemp farmers and processors in Tennessee rely on solvent extraction that can process mass quantities of hemp at a time using ethanol or butane. Half Hill Farm’s new extraction and testing lab will use higher quality supercritical CO2 extraction. The slower process uses a few pounds of hemp at a time and will help ensure only the best hemp is extracted producing a better quality product option for consumers and manufacturers.

“We know we can’t CO2 extract everything,” said owner Scot Smotherman who heads up the partnership. “But there’s no shortage of good quality ethanol extraction service options for larger volume grows.”

Half Hill Farm was the first USDA certified organic farm in Tennessee to grow industrial hemp. We are now a licensed hemp grower, processor and permitted food manufacturer producing quality CO2 extracted CBD hemp oil blends in 500mg, 1000mg, and 2500mg formulas and a 1000mg full spectrum CBD hemp topical salve.

More than 2,900 grower licenses were issued to Tennessee farms by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture this year. For perspective, neighboring Kentucky is the nation’s third largest grower of hemp, and they issued 1,000 grower licenses this year.

The year round indoor grow and the ability to scale into several hundred thousand square feet elsewhere on the farm was a critical component in Half Hill Farm partnering with Boze Farm.

“Farming has taken a real beating over the past few years, “ said Joe Darren Boze. “We’re hoping hemp helps turns it around.”

Jimmy Joe Boze, Joe’s father, started growing hemp when his tobacco contract was suddenly pulled. He still proudly makes pre-rolls from last year’s harvest and humbly says he did it to see how it will go. While he’s hopeful, and sees how it helps people, he’s wary and still describes this year as ‘poking around to see what works.’

“This ain’t my first rodeo,” Jimmy Joe added with a wink and hint of good old farmer’s been-there-done-that attitude. “Let’s see what the boys can do with it.”

Visit our farm’s retail stores:

Construction begins on hemp testing and CO2 extraction lab In Woodbury

Half Hill Farm began construction on a hemp testing and supercritical CO2 extraction lab today at their Woodbury location. The lab will be one of only a few such facilities across the state.

Hemp farmers and manufacturers will be able to send crop or product samples to the lab for required testing to ensure quality and state compliance. The expansion will also help integrate Half Hill Farm’s partnered indoor hemp grow operations with production of high quality supercritical CO2 extractions for food, beverage and supplement makers.

“Bringing this healing plant to the people and keeping the value of the crop close to home is important to us,” said co-owner Christian Grantham. “Tennessee is ready to lead in this growing industry, and we are proud to keep this investment in Woodbury.”

This year, more than 2,700 industrial hemp grower licenses were issued to farmers by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. The state’s chapter of the Hemp Industries Association, the lobbying arm for farmers and industry stake holders, is now the largest in the country.

“Hemp is going to change our country,” said co-owner Vince Oropesa. “What I see it do for our customers will make a believer out of anyone.”

Since many customers use CBD products for personal health reasons, Half Hill Farm created partnerships to monitor the entire growing process from seed to flower harvest. The new lab will take those select buds and prep them for sale or extract them into oils.

“Our commitment to health and wellness runs deeper than the buzz of hemp,” said co-owner Scot Smotherman who is leading the farm’s hemp growth. “Being involved in the entire growing process all the way to extraction is critical to controlling quality.”

Half Hill Farm was the first certified organic farm to grow hemp in Tennessee. They are a licensed industrial hemp grower and processor and permitted manufacturer making CBD hemp products in an FDA registered facility under Good Manufacturing Practices. The farm got its start making mushroom extracts that are used across the country by cancer patients as adjunct therapies in consultation with a doctor.

Half Hill Farm recently opened two new health and wellness stores operating as the Wellness Emporium in Bell Buckle and Woodbury with plans to open two more this Spring. Their beverage and tonic manufacturing expansion late last year now has their products in 15 stores in Middle Tennessee with plans to expand for distribution later this year.

In addition to their popular functional beverages, mushroom extracts and apple cider vinegar tonics, Half Hill Farm also makes quality CBD hemp oil extract blends in 500mg, 1000mg, and 2500mg formulas and a 1000mg full spectrum CBD hemp topical salve.

The new hemp testing and extraction lab will be operational in the Summer. You can follow Half Hill Farm’s progress on FaceBook.

Please consult your doctor before taking any of our products for health reasons. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Organic grow plan for licensed industrial hemp farms

Today, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture began mailing out over 2,700 industrial hemp grower licenses for the 2019 grow season. If the record number is any indication, it could be the start of something big in Tennessee.

We are already getting lots of calls from farmers looking for buyers of flower and biomass. One of the requirements many buyers, including our business, will want is organically grown with no evidence of pesticides or other banned inputs in organically grown hemp.

One mistaken use or exposure to a banned input could render all your hard work unusable for certain buyers or the consumer, so we created a working draft of an Organic Grow Plan for licensed industrial hemp growers that outlines a few relevant National Organic Program standards used to certify a crop as organic by the USDA. It is not a full exhaustive plan and are not requirements, but it can be a great guidance to ensure quality and get you on your way to certifying your hemp as organic.

Half Hill Farm was the first certified organic farm to grow industrial hemp in Tennessee. We are a licensed grower, processor and permitted manufacturer that makes quality CBD hemp oils and other products. We are currently partnered with an indoor grow and building a CO2 extraction and testing lab at our Woodbury, TN facility. We are one of many retailers and manufacturers who will want quality Tennessee grown flower and biomass for our stores and products and hope this document can help ensure your product passes quality testing.

Collaboration: If you are a certified organic grower of hemp, or use organic practices you feel need to be added to this document, please leave a comment with the addition or contact us directly. If you have favorite organic products you use that you’d like shared, or have questions, add them in comments. We’ll edit changes into the document. We want this document to be open sourced and available to everyone. If you are one of the many new hemp growers in Tennessee, congratulations and we hope the very best for your farm’s new direction!

Stories of healing: how CBD hemp oil has changed lives in Tennessee

In the time since industrial hemp was legalized in Tennessee, over 1,000 Tennesseans have died from opioid use. The problem is so bad all over the country that it has been declared a national emergency by the federal government.

Some politicians funded by pharmaceutical contributions – like Tennessee’s Rep. Marsha Blackburn – have made the problem worse by removing the DEA’s authority to stop the flow of opioids into our communities. Now that the public knows which politicians are getting paid to keep the pills flowing, these same politicians are misusing state agencies as cover to focus the public’s attention instead on the purported dangers of hemp.

While some politicians use our tax dollars on behalf of pharmaceutical companies to convince us God’s creation is the problem, the fact remains that there have been zero deaths from the use of CBD extracts from industrial hemp in Tennessee. You can thank God for that, but there is something else you can do to protect our access to this natural gift.

Help us share stories of healing: We’ve seen veterans, farmers, pastors, police officers, teachers, family and people of all walks of life find healing using CBD. How has CBD affected your health? Please share your story here in comments and give a voice to hope and healing across the state of Tennessee!

Made in Tennessee: CBD full spectrum extract hemp oil

Half Hill Farm is proud to introduce our 2500mg CBD full spectrum extract hemp oil for better health & well being. Each drop is 5mg of CBD. Our farm’s hemp oils also come in 500mg (1mg per drop) and 1000mg (2mg per drop) formulations.

Half Hill Farm uses organically grown domestic industrial hemp from Kentucky that goes through CO2 extraction and then is formulated and blended in our FDA registered facility in Woodbury, Tennessee. Each batch is tested by third-party independent labs to ensure quality and compliance with results linked from the label.

Half Hill Farm was the first certified organic farm to grow industrial hemp in the state of Tennessee. We helped change state law to bring the promising health benefits of CBD to the people and were the first retailer of CBD in Tennessee. We are now on the manufacturing side producing quality CBD hemp products.

  • 500mg CBD full spectrum extract hemp oil (1 drop = 1 mg) – $48
  • 1000mg CBD full spectrum extract hemp oil (1 drop = 2 mg) – $87
  • 2500mg CBD full spectrum extract hemp oil (1 drop = 5 mg) – $189

Want to retail our products in your store? Sign up for a wholesale account here. You can purchase our farm’s CBD Hemp Oil and other CBD products at the following locations:

Please consult your doctor before taking any of our products for health reasons. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Half Hill Farm among Tennessee’s first to grow hemp

Industrial hemp grows on Half Hill Farm in Woodbury, TN

(Woodbury, TN) — Half Hill Farm is the first USDA certified organic farm in Tennessee to grow legal hemp. The state legalized hemp last year despite decades of federal prohibition under the Controlled Substance Act. Growing hemp requires a background check and permit from the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.

Half Hill Farm grows several hundred plants in a pilot partnership with a co-op of farms under Tennessee Hemp Farm. Using various farm methods, participating farms hope to learn how much seed and fiber production they can expect from a plant not grown legally in the United States since the 1950s.

“My guess is hemp will grow just fine here in Cannon County,” said Half Hill Farm’s Christian Grantham. “The exciting part for us is what can be done with it.”

While industrial hemp contains little to none of the psychoactive ingredient THC, hemp seeds produce the highest omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids of any grain. Milled seed is an excellent source of oil and plant protein, and hemp is one of the world’s most renewable sources of industrial fiber.

“It won’t be long before you start seeing several Tennessee products made with hemp grown and processed right here,” Grantham said. ”As part of our farm’s mission, we can’t wait to share the health benefits of hemp through value added products.”

In the mid 1800s, Tennessee farms reported growing over 2,200 tons of cannabis using it to make rope and industrial canvas used in boat sails and to bag cotton harvests. According to state records, production fell with competition from other states.

Growing commercial hemp is still illegal under federal law. Permitted farms in Tennessee work closely with state and federal authorities under new farm rules for states that legalize hemp or recreational & medical marijuana.

Under state law, farms growing hemp can sell hemp fiber or viable hemp seed to a manufacturer and value added products direct to consumers. The first hemp crops in Tennessee will harvest in late September.

Learn more:

UPDATE 12-10-18: We now manufacture quality CBD hemp oil extract blends in 500mg, 1000mg, and 2500mg formulas. Learn more or sign up for a wholesale account.

Getting the most from your Shiitake mushroom log

Shiitake mushroom logs in the woods at half Hill Farm

Last night looks like the last of forecasted freezing temperatures for early Spring here in Middle Tennessee. If you have one of our Shiitake mushroom logs marked SP15 (Spring 2015) or earlier, now is the time to prep your log for an early Spring flush.

Shocking logs: Get a five gallon bucket and fill it with rain water or water from a nearby creek and then soak your log for 24 hours. Place the log in a wooded area with roughly 80% shade. You can place it under a bush near your house’s North side if you do not have woods. If you have more than one log, use a larger tub like the one pictured above. The water should not be chlorinated tap water and should be very cold. This hard soak and cold temperature followed by the gradual warming of outdoor Spring temps will “shock” the mycelium into “pinning,” the beginning stages of mushrooms.

Pinning: Each pin that forms pushes through the bark as you see pictured above and will develop into the beginnings of a mushroom within 2-3 days followed by a rapidly growing mushroom over a five day period. Depending on the weather throughout Spring, you could experience 2-3 natural cycles of mushrooms with roughly two week resting periods between each flush.

Harvest: Once you start to see the mushrooms unfurl their outer edge (typically tucked under the mushroom cap), it is time to pick mushrooms. At this point, the mushroom is in the early phase of releasing its spore. Simply cut them off at the log, brush off any debris and either eat them fresh, store them in the fridge for up to two weeks, or dry them to use for months to come.

How to purchase: Each Shiitake mushroom log from Half Hill Farm produces up to 90% of the log’s dry weight in mushrooms over a 3-5 year period. You can purchase your own inoculated logs from 15 lbs. one foot logs up to 50+ lbs. four feet logs at our farm here in Woodbury, TN. Just give us a call and let us know you’re coming!

RECIPE: Shiitake mushroom soup


A 5 lbs. mid-Winter harvest of organic Shiitake mushrooms from Half Hill Farm.

Once your Shiitake logs from Half Hill Farm start producing mushrooms, you can dry them, store some in the fridge for a couple weeks, or eat them! That’s exactly what we did using the following recipe and an unexpected January harvest.

There’s a lot you can do with your Shiitake mushrooms and a lot of good stuff it will do for you. One recent study, for example, shows medicinal compounds in Shiitake mushrooms can eradicate HPV, a virus that causes 99% of all cervical cancer, 95% of anal cancer, 60% of oropharyngeal cancer, 65% of vaginal cancer, 50% of vulvar cancer, and 35% of penile cancer. Here’s more research on this and other mushrooms we grow, and here’s our recipe for how to make some Pho-tastic Shiitake mushroom soup.

Shiitake Mushroom Soup

  • 2 cups chopped Shiitake mushrooms
  • cubed tofu
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 4 tbsps of fresh grated ginger
  • chives
  • cilantro
  • 4 cups chopped Napa cabbage
  • rice noodles (or rice & quinoa)
  • 8 cups of chicken or vegetable broth
  • soy sauce (or Bragg’s) & lemon to flavor

You can use either rice noodles or a little rice and quinoa. Either way, cook these first and set them aside. You won’t need much – about a total of half a cup if using rice/quinoa.

Put a little olive oil in the soup pot you plan to use and cook your cubed tofu. When complete, stir-fry the chopped garlic cloves and ginger with the cooked tofu. This takes a couple minutes. Now add the broth, mushrooms and either noodles or rice/quinoa. Let this simmer for 20 minutes and then add the Napa cabbage and let simmer for five more minutes before serving.

Place a little chopped cilantro and chives in a bowl and fill the bowl with soup. Add a generous squirt of soy sauce or Bragg’s and a squeeze of a couple lemon wedges and enjoy!

How to get more vitamin D from your Shiitake mushroom harvest


Shiitake mushrooms growing on oak logs at Half Hill Farm in Woodbury, TN

If you purchased a Shiitake mushroom log from Half Hill Farm that is tagged “F14,” now is the time to follow your soaking / shocking steps to get your first edible mushrooms within a week.

Once your Shiitake mushroom log starts producing mushrooms, there’s a simple technique that dramatically increases their vitamin D before you either eat them or dehydrate them for long term storage.

Mycologist Paul Stamets details this simple process and science here, but the basic steps are pretty simple:

  1. Remove stems and slice into roughly half inch slices.
  2. Spread slices evenly on drying racks (anything that allows air flow) in the sunshine with the gills facing up for 6 peak hours avoiding early morning dew and evening moisture.
  3. Bring the mushrooms indoors overnight to avoid humidity, then repeat 6 hours of sun exposure the next day to achieve 12 total peak hours of UV exposure.
  4. Finish completely drying your Shiitake mushrooms in a dehydrator, and store them in sealed jars. To enjoy anytime, simply soak them for an hour and follow most any recipe for fresh mushrooms.

According to Stamets, Shiitake mushrooms that are not exposed to sun may have less than 40 IU/100g of vitamin D. With the steps above, you can expect 46,000 IU/100g of vitamin D, D2, D3, and D4!

To achieve healthy serum levels of vitamin D exclusively from your dried Shiitake mushrooms, you will need to eat no more than 10 grams a day which is roughly equivalent to 100 grams of fresh Shiitake (3.6 ounces).

Purchase your own mushroom log: Our one foot Shiitake mushroom logs are available for scheduled pick up on our farm in Woodbury, TN. They are $22 and will produce 15-20 lbs. of mushrooms over a 3-5 year period. Here is how to get yours.

Make your own mushroom log: Schedule your own private 2-3 hour mushroom log workshop for groups of up to four people on our farm, take home the log you make, and start turning your own logs into a sustainable food source. Here’s how to schedule your workshop.

DISCLAIMER: I am a farmer. I am not a doctor. Please consult your physician before using any of our products or advice for health purposes.

Spring planting 2014: farming by the numbers

We spent most of the beautiful weekend (ahead of predicted rains) getting everything planted. Due to the frost two weeks ago, we are about a month behind on everything we had to start over from seed. Of course, the dandelions made it just fine!

Based on having produced a little over 600 lbs. of food last year (our first year), it looks like we may do more than three times that much this year, and that doesn’t include mushrooms, apples and blueberries.

What we planted: (watermelons) Chelsea and Sugar Baby, (peppers) Anaheim, Poblano, Peperoncini, Beaver Dam, Cubanelle, Golden Treasure, (tomatoes) Roma and Lemon Drop, (herbs) Sage, Lavender, Basil, (cucumbers) Zimmerman, Sumter, and some Danver carrots.

Where and how to buy: You can find us this year at our local Saturday farmers market in Woodbury, Tennessee (located at the Arts Center of Cannon County) beginning July 5.

We will also have our 1 foot Shiitake, Reishi and Turkey Tail mushroom logs that should produce 10-15 pounds of mushrooms over 3-5 years. Look for our mushroom extract infused chocolates and other unique seasonal products hand-crafted with love on our farm at the market as well. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to see when we’ll be there.