Todd Lister loves to talk. In the midst of an hour-and-40-minute conversation, he told me that his wife once suggested that he wear a cork around his neck so that any exasperated listener could stuff it into his mouth when they’d had enough.

But luckily, Todd has a lot of interesting things to say—which can be expected, considering the circumstances: he is an organic vegetable farmer living in Vesta, a former town between Lexington and Elberton that now is just “a flagpole on a granite monument.” His front yard includes the long-abandoned post office, while his backyard boasts an assortment of tombstones not far from the back door. Beyond the graveyard is a two-story wood shop that he built himself. His wife, Dale Wechsler, is an accomplished fiddler who plays in four different local bands, including String Theory and the Garnet River Gals. He met her during a “pit stop” in Columbia, MO, where he was selling his stash of antiques out of a 30-foot truck bed and she was attending grad school.

After some nudging from Dale—a UGA alum—Todd agreed to move from Boulder, CO, where he owned an antiques store, to Lexington in the fall of 1997. Four years later, they moved to the historic property where they now reside. When he’s not prepping his plants for sale at the Athens Farmers’ Market, Todd enjoys surfing the Internet and playing guitar. I caught him on a grey, misty evening one Thursday after a vegetable drop-off to customers of Athens’ popular “Locally Grown” online produce market.

Flagpole: How did you get into farming?

Todd Lister: I’m like a 40-year carpenter. Even now, I’m a woodworker. I took farming on as a side thing in the last couple years, ’cause a number of my friends are big growers locally—organic gardeners. And one of ’em, I built his house, and I built his greenhouses, and I built him a certified kitchen, and I’ve done his carpentry over the years and watched him build his garden. A couple years ago I said, “I should I be able to do this.”

…I was interested in it, but it was a side thing—I worked full-time in wood. I do historic restoration work, historic preservation work, antique furniture restoration—anything old. Old building dissection… my wife and I used to have an antique store and I’ve been into antiques my whole life.

 …My friend who I did the work for was spending all of his time… playing with plants. And he was telling me about how much money he was making at it—wasn’t bragging about it, just matter-of-factly how much money he had done in summer of ’07. And I thought, “I’ve got some dirt. I should be able to make that work…” The story went around town that Eric [Wagoner]’s Locally Grown website had such demand that if you put something on there, it was sold—all of it, every time… it was really the motivating factor that made me think, “How much can I lose?” The seed pack is two bucks, you know?

…Now, the labor factor—it’s monumental. I mean if I figured my hourly rate, it [would be] about a nickel. But I don’t look at it that way. My whole world of being a woodworker has been about “time is money”—incrementally, every moment has a value that I must not squander. And this is just the exact opposite. There’s no end to the things to do.

FP: What are your biggest challenges as a farmer?

TL: Record-keeping is really big… Look at your beds at the end of the season. How many dollars did that bed make? In the big picture, if that bed didn’t make X number of dollars, I can’t grow that product anymore. It’s not worth my time… like, I grew horseradish last year. It’s just worthless… people at the farmers’ market [buying] big honker pieces of horseradish root? They’re not going to want but a little bit.

…And pests… if some bug is eating a plant in my field, I’m ready to lose my mind…

FP: Do you ever talk to the plants?

TL: Oh, my God! Every plant in that field knows when I’m there. They do… I just have this sense, I have a connection with every one of those plants: I took the seed, I put it in the seed tray. I took care of it gently, with water and sun until it popped up. I watched it ’til it was the right size. I picked a bed; I amended the bed; I built the bed; I put the compost in there; I made it all righteous… I gotta tell you, it’s amazing.

FP: I’m assuming you eat pretty well at home?

TL: Oh, man. I’ll give you an example… we have about 35 very mature asparagus crowns… we have asparagus in huge quantities on our dinner plate three times a week.

FP: Being a lifetime carpenter, what do you think of the quality of our structures today?

TL: …I’m a hardcore treehugger, I despise modern construction. I won’t build you a new house, but I’ll work on a real old one.

FP: So, do you think there are already plenty of houses out there for people to live in?

TL: No, there isn’t. I just don’t want to be the one to help furnish new housing. I don’t want to be the one to be burning up new resources to create modern houses, which by today’s standard, houses are complete garbage. If you have a half-million dollar house at Lake Oconee, it’s a great big piece of garbage… [construction] is not what it used to be.

FP: What were you doing before you came to Athens, before you started farming?

TL: I grew up in Wisconsin, moved to Boulder, Colorado when I was 25… I was young—it was ’75—I didn’t really have a trade. And I latched onto a great Sicilian carpenter from St. Louis that turned out to be a lifetime mentor and friend… gave me all the solid basics of good journeyman carpentry in my first couple years… stayed with that about 20 years; really enjoyed it.

Jeff Gore