About the Farmer

A few miles down East Crossroads Drive in Lebanon, a small plot of land encompasses over a century of one family’s history.  There’s the greenhouse, where the Griffith family operates Crossroads Growers, a few barns, and several family homes dating back to 1912, all surrounded by the fields that have seen at least four generations of the family’s farming endeavors.

                “All this belonged to my grandparents,” said Velma Griffith.  “It probably even belonged to my great-granddaddy before that.”   Over the years, Velma has watched many things grow up at the family homeplace: vegetable gardens, fields of tobacco, an apple orchard, cattle, and not least, her own children and a granddaughter.   “I can still picture my granddaddy selling sweet potato plants by the side of the road,” she said. 

                For Velma and her son Chris and daughter-in-law Dorothy, the farming heritage continues with the operation of Crossroads Growers.  This time of year, the small greenhouse is lush with life, as the Griffiths offer flowers and bedding plants to customers jump-starting their own gardens. 

                “We’ve got a long list,” said Chris.  Aside from flowers like geraniums, petunias, dahlias, impatiens, and begonias, the family offers a wide variety of vegetable plants as well: tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, squash, cucumbers, and strawberries. 

                The Griffiths sell the plants directly from the greenhouse and at the Lebanon Farmers Market.  They also operate a small commercial calf-cow business. 

                For Chris, though, farming is only recently a full-time job.  “I’ve been involved with this kind of thing since the mid-‘80s on a part-time basis,” he said.  Back then, as an employee of a garden center, Chris worked mainly as a landscape designer and supervisor, and that expertise helped him keep a few small agricultural projects going on his family’s land. 

Then, in 1997, Chris went to work as a sheriff’s deputy, and served for nearly a decade before being shot in the line of duty while responding to a call.  He spent two weeks at Bristol Regional Medical Center recovering, but the injury ended his career. 

Now, the greenhouse and cattle take up most of Chris’s time.  “I’ve been chasing cattle all day,” he said.  “There’s always something to be done—a fence to repair, that sort of thing.”  But that hard work, he said, comes with real fulfillment. 

“We like to watch things grow from seed, to see it go from almost nothing to something,” Chris said.  “And being here—the history of it.  Yeah, I’ve been chasing cattle all day, but doing it on the land where I can think back to getting off the bus right down the hill and running around the farm when I was a kid.”

Working as a family keeps the labor enjoyable as well.  While Dorothy still works at an insurance agency, she often puts in a second shift at the greenhouse, and the family also gets some help from Chris and Dorothy’s grown daughter Joanna, who lives nearby.

On the family land, “we’re able to think back to the way it was, when this was a way of life,” said Chris.  “But for us, it’s something that we just enjoy.  We try to keep it as a stress outlet, rather than a stress creator.” 

You can find Crossroads Growers at 1507 E. Crossroads Drive in Lebanon, or reach the family at 276-345-3008.  The family’s plants are also available at the Lebanon Farmers Market, located in the market structure in front of the Russell County Government Center at 137 Highland Drive.  The market is open on Saturdays from 7-1 and Wednesdays from 11-3.  For more information, contact market manager Tricia Zalewski-Harris at 276-202-7732.

Article and photo by Paige Campbell