Tuscaloosa Chocolata
Snow’s Bend Farm

By Nelson Brooke, Black Warrior Riverkeeper

Ten miles west of Tuscaloosa, AL, as the crow flies, Snow’s Bend Farm sits on a large bend in the Black Warrior River. The area’s rich bottomland soil, “Tuscaloosa Chocolata,” is composed of fine silt and large amounts of organic matter deposited over millennia in flood events. Alabama’s mild climate and the soil’s fertility have made the farm an excellent agricultural site since prehistoric times – as evidenced by a mound and many artifacts. The farm was used by the Mississippian people more than 700 years ago for agriculture and hunting.

In 2004, after learning and practicing organic agriculture around the U.S. and in Ecuador, Senegal and Morocco, Margaret Ann Toohey and David Snow returned home to begin their own farming operation on the Snow farm. Through hard work and intense determination the Snow’s organic garden has grown from less than a quarter acre in 2004 to nearly three acres in 2006, producing 50 different vegetables – encompassing nearly 250 varieties – and numerous cut flowers. Snow’s Bend Farm’s produce is marketed solely in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham through a CSA, farmers’ markets, a few fine restaurants and a small grocery store. Their plan is to transition 150 acres to organic production and diversify their operation to include livestock and perrenial fruit and nut orchards.

“Farming has enabled me to be my own boss, do something I feel good about and eat really well,” says Snow. The Snow farm has eliminated tons of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides from the watershed and restored wetlands giving native plant and animals of West Central Alabama a place to express themselves to their fullest extent.