Jon and Mandy Giffin: Owners, Forest Gully Farms
The roughly hourlong drive southwest from Nashville to Forest Gully Farms is marked by winding rural roads, beautiful countryside and tunnels of foliage. Once you make it to Forest Gully, you’ll see that residents have installed homemade road signs along the surprise turns — turns that otherwise might leave urban drivers in a ditch or careening off a cliff.
Forest Gully provides a camping experience that allows guests to fully integrate themselves into a beautiful, self-sustaining ecosystem. Upon arrival, campers are greeted by the farm’s welcoming committee, Jedi and Trooper, tails wagging and tongues out as they frolic around your car. The dogs prefer their tips in the form of pats and goumi berries.
When the Scene visits Forest Gully Farms, owners Jon and Mandy Giffin are waiting on a handmade bench. The couple built the experimental mini-farm two years ago as a way to provide an authentic living-off-the-land experience, pairing Jon’s knowledge of horticulture and Mandy’s love for wildlife.
The first item on the agenda is touring their expansive garden. Jon reckons there are more than 100 different species of plants growing there now, most of which he planted, though some have popped up on their own. Jon describes it as a dense ecosystem of useful plants, as he plucks a leaf from a nearby branch and offers it to me to eat. Almost every plant in the garden is edible or medicinal, he says, and many are local species. But the Giffins aren’t purists — the garden contains various foreign plants and fruits. They strive for sustainability via natural diversity, and changing their garden to meet the needs of the land.
“It’s been trial-and-error the first couple years,” Mandy says. “We are kind of trying to just listen to what the ground wants us to grow.”
All guests are encouraged to eat from the garden and the grounds around it. There’s also a chicken coop, which houses about 10 friendly chickens that provide guests with farm-fresh eggs they can use at their pleasure.
Down the way from the gardens and chickens lies Forest Gully Farms’ most distinctive feature — the huts. Designed like something out of a J.R.R. Tolkien novel, the in-ground structures are made of white cedar from the local lumber yard.
“They have everything but hallways,” says Jon. He points out that a nighttime excursion to the bathhouse is your best chance to spot a shooting star or a bobcat.
The grounds feature three different huts — two for sleeping and one for cooking. All look like Hobbit dwellings from the outside, but inside they feature air-conditioning and heating units, linens, blankets and pillows. The kitchen is stocked with cooking ingredients and a coffee maker, and there’s a gas grill just outside. Garden beds on either side of the cabins’ circular entrances function as self-sustaining spice cabinets.
The camping site is complete with a traditional firepit, for all your fireside singing and scary-story needs. But the prime hangout spot is about a half-mile into the woods, where a waterfall feeds into a small natural pool where campers can swim. It’s surrounded by hammocks and more homemade benches.
Along the trails that lead through the brush, you might spot salamanders and centipedes — and of course Jedi and Trooper. Jon points to different plants that have sprouted over the years, again popping leaves and berries into his mouth along the way. Mandy points out different plants she uses to make medicines, juices and jams — all of which she shares with the guests.
A leather guest book in the cooking cabin allows campers to get creative with their entries. From beautiful drawings of the huts, to scribbles from kids showing their appreciation and passages in various languages, the book serves as an outlet for people from across the world to share their experiences.
Jon and Mandy say the farm is already booked up for most of the summer, and it gets busier and busier each year. They don’t, however, have any intention of building more huts.
“We don’t want to run some large operation,” Jon says. “We just really want to provide that sustainable experience for our guests. If we were to expand anything, it will be the plants we grow.”
Programming is another aspect the Giffins hope to expand. Currently, the farm offers foraging tours in the gardens and surrounding forest for guests interested in learning about local horticulture and sustainable living. Jon and Mandy say their goal is to make the farm a place of learning and growing.
“Our main goal is to expel the fear of nature around you,” he says.
