Category: By the Farmer Himself

As we work around the farm there is a good deal of time spent alone on various tasks. It is not uncommon to overhear in the distance someone listening to their current audio book or pod cast. I tend to get on a jag about a specific subject and listen to everything I can find related to the topic.  This spring it has been the environment that has caught my attention. I have listened to several different angles of discussion but the one I found most interesting was a look at human interaction with our surroundings since we have been around. You don’t need me to tell you that we have had some pretty substantial impacts on the environment. There are some parts of the discussion that make you wonder what folks were thinking, others that poke holes into our common understanding of things, and others that have really been positive. There are a lot of opinions on our future and where we will end up, it is all a bit overwhelming to take in.

          This week things dried up enough to get into the fields and begin the outdoor growing season. Four years ago, we completely overhauled our growing operation, taking a completely different approach to using our ground to produce healthy crops. We had been fighting the ground for results and it was clear we couldn’t keep this up. Frankly, it was just too difficult. There are enough challenges in the day without having the ground resisting your efforts. Our exact strategy is another discussion and really my purpose here is just offer a bit of encouragement.

          Tillage of the ground has been all but eliminated but each spring the raised rows are lightly turned to mix in organic matter, last years weeds, and to reset the rows for planting. When I was finished with that task this year, I looked back at the field with amazement. Our entire growing area was comprised of dark black soil with great texture. Just four years ago it would have been more suited to making bricks. In the picture, the right side is an area of soil outside our growing area, what a difference. I text the picture to Laura and true to form she responded so profoundly, “Wow, there is so much potential there.” That thought has been bouncing around in my head since she said it, now I am looking everywhere for that same effect.

          I understand this is quite anecdotal but any of you are welcome to come stand in the middle of my anecdote and see for yourself how although many issues surrounding our day-to-day involvement with our environment seems too large to solve, or that we have passed a tipping point, each of us can add to the positives if we make the effort.

          2020 was a year, wow what a year. Even in all the chaos that exposed so many weaknesses in many of our daily way of living there, is so much potential to enjoy and care for our environment. As the growing season gets started, I encourage you to look for opportunities to grab hold of the potential around you and build an anecdote of your own.  

-Robert

In my last update I promised we would do our best to gather the information and make decisions based on that information. I am not providing breaking news when I tell you that things in our business are continuing to evolve, just like everywhere.

Most of you have experienced the shortages in supplies and food through the grocery stores during the past few weeks. In the never ending blame game that makes up a lot of folks daily activities, I have heard shortages blamed on hoarding or stockpiling. No doubt some of that is occurring, but did you realize that on a typical day 36% of folks get their meals eating out. Compound this with the number of meals typically served to our students through the schools and you have a significant increase in demand for food.

Thankfully during this crisis many companies have stepped up to produce the much needed equipment for our hospitals and the heroes that staff them. These items can be manufactured quickly to meet the demand. The food system is not quite as responsive. When additional demand is placed on the supply whether it is animal or vegetable, it must be grown and this takes time. The young chicks in the brooder cannot suddenly be forced to mature size. Decisions to up production on some items can only be made in very narrow windows, often a matter of days or a week depending on the crop. Food that has been produced for restaurants and commercial uses does not easily move to the retail sector to meet demand. No one can really tell us how long this will last or what the long term effects will be and I know that our food system is only a part of the things that must be managed during this time, so please be patient as we respond and adjust.

I do think it is important for each one of us to be aware, alert and responsible in our actions. For our part, things have become a bit more clear… in a murky sort of way. The State of Ohio, working with the farmers’ market association has acknowledged the need to provide some type of market during the season. While we have not heard from our market managers it seems likely that the seasonal markets will take place with additional rules and procedures to protect vendors and customers alike.

We have decided to grow some of the popular garden plants to have for sale again this year. Many of you expressed desire to grow your own supplemental gardens and so we will have plants available at the markets. We will also be opening our on farm store to provide a safe space for those of you not comfortable going to the markets or who like the experience of visiting the farm. We expect this to be ready sometime in early May.

Our Farm Club will continue to operate as normal throughout the season.

As far as progress goes, we are on schedule for seasonal crops. The greenhouse continues to fill up and the outdoor planting should begin this weekend as things dry up a bit and temperatures warm.

If you are interested in getting farm updates, you can subscribe to our email list here.

Please stay safe and say a prayer for the sick, as well as our health care workers and their families.

Robert

Well it’s now mid April and we still have some snow on the porch this morning with a balmy air temperature of 33 degrees. To go along with the cold we have had nearly 4 inches of rain, most of which I am pretty sure fell in a 30 minute stretch back on the 3rd. Although our last frost date is still a month away the season is off to a sluggish start to say the least. So it begs the question, what does it mean for the spring as well as the entire growing season.

You know the saying about the best laid plans of mice and men….well if you’re a farmer it’s even more tricky. “Turn up the heat” you might think – and believe me, we have. The farm sounds like an airport with the engines idling as our jet heaters work to keep things alive. When it comes to growing though- it just isn’t as easy as turning up the thermostat.

Plants and insects/diseases respond to the extended accumulation of warm weather, which protects them from temperature shifts during the dormant season. One warm day or even a warm week will usually have very little effect on the rate of growth. This accumulation of heat is usually calculated by tracking the “growing days” each day. This is done by taking the average temperature for the day and subtracting the baseline temperature for plant growth, this time of year, 50 degrees. This time of year we would expect to be accumulating 7-10 growing days of temperature each day. This raises soil temperatures and that combined with increasing daylight leads us down the path of spring.

As we plan and adjust our plans for the season this is one of the key indicators of exactly where we are in the growing process. So if you feel like it has been cooler than normal, then you are right. We typically have had around 175 growing days by this time of year, in fact last year we had 292 by this date. This season we have had a whopping 61, quite a shortfall to normal and a huge swing from last year.

Simply put, crops are going to be slow to start and some may not perform at all especially if we swing to higher than normal temperatures in May. On the bright side, fruit trees will be slow to bloom which should offer some protection from a late frost which can really hurt the crop. This is true of strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and the like. Each season is different and honestly that is one of the exciting parts of this business.

As for us, we have been able to plant pretty close to schedule although things in the field are not growing very fast. I noticed that the Snap Peas are breaking through the ground this morning and all the cool season crops are up and ready for those growing degree days to take hold. So far the potatoes haven’t rotted in the ground and the greenhouse is getting busier by the day. We planted two new varieties of blackberries, two new black raspberries, three new types of strawberries and new asparagus beds this week, as well as the next group of beets, spinach, cabbage, carrots, and radishes. We are looking forward to the start up of our buyers’ club, as well as farmers’ markets which begin in a few weeks.

So hang in there, the 10 day forecast looks very nice, see you all soon!

Often times, even before the “hello,” I get this question:

“Are you organic?”

I used to chuckle, look down at myself and think well 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus, about 0.85% is composed of another five elements: potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium and say “Why yes, I am.”

Well that apparently is only funny to me.

When folks ask us about organic what do they mean, what information are they looking for? If I ask for specifics most often I get in reply, “do you spray your vegetables?”

Last December I sat in a session at one of the leading Eco-Farming conferences in the world that was meeting in Columbus, Ohio. Leading the discussion was one of the nation’s foremost authorities on organic farming. The room was full of small farm owners like us, looking for a way to become recognized for the methods they used that go well beyond organic standards. Many of these folks are in our situation, finding the government certification process too expensive and cumbersome to participate in.

When it was announced that the government might be interested in recognizing these efforts there was quite a bit of excitement, until it was revealed that entry into the new certification required becoming certified organic as a prerequisite. I thought the room was going to explode. Here were 150+ farmers doing the right thing each day but locked out of being recognized for it.

What do you want to know when you ask me if I am organic? I could be Certified Organic and still not be able to tell you I don’t spray my vegetables, since there are over 100 pesticides certified for use by organic farmers. I can still hear my college professor telling the class that no matter the type of pesticide; “If it will kill a bug it will kill you”. A bit dramatic, but you get the point. For most consumers “organic” means what farmers are not doing; not using restricted chemicals, not using GMO’s or treated seed. Most industrial agriculture simply replaced more harmful pesticides with “approved ones” and replaced synthetic fertilizer with manufactured organic sources without changing any of the farming methods that damage the soil and endanger the water.

Don’t get me wrong, if I need to purchase an avocado I am going to buy organic if I can, but let me tell you why. Increasing with the rise of the one stop grocery store since the 1950’s there has been a resulting disconnection between producer and consumer. Since I don’t know the folks that grew my avocado, I will take the extra step and hope that they are in compliance with organic standards as they claim… better than nothing. However, if there is something like honey which we do not produce but use, I don’t go to the store and buy an organic option. I go down the street to our local bee keeper, look the operation over, talk to her, shake her hand and take home my honey. In a time when most of our foods origins can not be easily traced, I will take that handshake every time.

A lot of consumers operate out of ignorance when it comes to their organic food choices. Investigate the real requirements behind your organic eggs, free range chicken or vegetables, it may WILL surprise you. We don’t pursue certification for a number of reasons, ones that are personal and specific to our operation. A certification would not change what we do or how we do it. I was told by my grandfather that character was what you did when no one was looking, and that rings true for us today. The food we sell is the same food our family eats, all 18 of us, including the grandkids. Four generations have spent time here on the farm and hopefully four more will.

We believe strongly in building your tomato from the bottom up. Our soil is our most valuable resource and we are continually working to improve it for our plants, animals and ourselves. Organic farmers, true deep organic farmers don’t want to talk about what we don’t do, we want to talk about what we are doing. Did you know that if you pick up a handful of soil, good active soil, that you are holding 20 miles of linear mycelium, most of it mycorrhizal fungi in your hand? Did you know that this fungi is considered vital for plant growth and that it is easily destroyed by industrial agriculture, organic or not? Strange that nowhere as part of the organic certification process is there any requirements about preserving or promoting this fungi. If mycorrhizal fungi were reestablished as part of larger scale farming it would absorb the excess carbon dioxide everyone is all excited about, but then what would we talk about?

How about we talk about what we are doing here on the farm? How the “deep organic methods” we use (a phrase used by the gardening pioneer Eliot Coleman) can provide the answer to that question, “Are you organic?”

Our buyers’ club is an answer to the reality of our local food movement that has troubled me for several years.

First, each season beginning in May and lasting through October folks can buy seasonal products at their local farmers’ market. At the end of October the exhausted vendors disappeared until the next May when the market reopened and customers were expected to return and pick up where we left off. Just where do we expect consumers to go for their food? Now we can go off on the tangent about seasonal eating, preserving food etc., and to be clear; we have a room dedicated to the storage of vegetables, another for our canned products and several freezers full of the seasons’ bounty- but that’s non reality for most folks today. On the other side of that coin is the development of an environment in which you can buy nearly anything from anywhere in the world whether it is in season or not locally.

Second, farmers’ markets are designed for a vendor to bring a specific product- for example, vegetables. Our farm and many like it produce much more than the one specific product that could be sold and is available beyond the dates that an open air market in Ohio makes sense. Our farm is not a hobby or something we tend on the weekends. It is a living breathing organism that requires care and attention and in exchange yields a bounty of benefits. We raise cattle, chickens, grow an orchard, fruits and berries, all sorts of vegetables for ourselves, why not share these with our local community. There is also technology available to us that allows us to extend our growing season to nearly 12 months here is Ohio, why aren’t we using it? I am enjoying fresh salad greens and carrots harvested today, January 29^th. It was as cold as -10 degrees during this past month, yet in an unheated structure we brought them through just fine.

I decided we have a responsibility to do everything we can to support our local community using the resources we have and the buyer’s club was born.

The club is designed to make available meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables from our farm and locally sourced products that we do not grow such as honey. We have developed relationships with other local vendors over the years and are proud to partner with them. Most of the products we sell are not as seasonal as our fruits and vegetables. Most meat, eggs and specialty items will be available 12 months a year.

The following timeline covers mostly vegetables. Using our season extending techniques we will deliver fresh produce about 50 weeks per year. The growing season is broken up into 2 very distinct growing cycles, summer/fall and winter/spring. Most folks are familiar with the summer/fall harvest of popular favorites like green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers etc. These crops are grown during the frost free part of our season, usually May 15 – October 15. Although many of these crops can be successfully stored for use in the winter, once we have a frost the growing window closes. This is usually the “growing season” most folks are familiar with.

Probably more exciting is the winter/spring growing cycle. Now to be clear, planting for this time period begins in early July and last until early December before taking a break until mid February. Crops will be harvested outside until mid December then most harvesting will come from plants grown under cover.

Winter, the time period after November 15, will have the storage items such as onions, potatoes, winter squash and many root vegetables. Fresh harvest will be broccoli, salad mixes, kales, spinach, baby carrots and many other cold hardy varieties. This period last until early April when early spring plantings begin to mature. It has been our experience that crops harvested this time of year are of higher quality and much more flavorful than when we grow them in warmer conditions. The limiting factor in this season is the harvest window. Crops must be above 32 degrees to be harvested without damaging them. Since most are inside under cover there aren’t many days when this happens, but it can and sometimes harvest may be delayed. Since we don’t ask for your money up front you don’t risk not getting something you paid for, the responsibility is ours to be sure things are available.

It is our hope that the Farm Club will help bridge the gap for those of you who want to eat local food all year, not just during farmers market season.

-Robert