David White squats down next to his wife, Anita, as he drops a tiny seed into the moist soil on his farm in Lula one hot summer afternoon.

As White glances up to the sky, he wipes off the beads of sweat on his forehead. All in a day's work on It Began With A Seed Farm.

The husband and wife team, along with the help from their two adult sons, began farming for a living nearly nine years ago. They operate community-supported agriculture, or a CSA, with about 50 shareholders, and sell their produce at local farmers markets.

The hours are long, the work back-breaking, but the reward is a crop they can be proud of.

"It's amazing. I mean, that little bitty teeny tiny thing (seed) ends up being an onion," Anita White said. "It's amazing to watch the plants grow. I love it."

Readers can follow their efforts in a photo essay by Times photographer Sara Guevara, who chronicled their growing season from seed to market in images that will appear in Thursday's edition of The Times and on gainesvilletimes.com.