Farm Products: Growing Practices
Cover Crops
Cover crops are fundamental to healthy soil. They return key nutrients, contribute to erosion prevention, suppress weeds and retain moisture. They can likewise provide important temporary habitat to a range of beneficial birds, insects and other species. We integrate multiple varieties – including clovers, sunflowers, rye, buckwheat and millet – throughout our field rotations and manage them with both biodiversity and agriculture in mind.
Crop Rotation
We grow a wide range of crops to supply our customers with variety and also because increased diversity in our agricultural fields contributes to a healthier farm ecosystem and helps protect us from weather and disease shocks. By rotating crop families – both cash and cover – from season to season, we prevent the accumulation of pest and disease reservoirs and maintain nutrient balance in our soil.
Green Mulching
Soil is a living ecosystem filled with microbes, fungi and insects that provide vital functions including nutrient cycling, breaking down plant residues and stimulating plant growth. Wherever possible, we use a green mulching system – planting vegetables directly into low growing cover crops. This helps suppress weeds, adds nitrogen, prevents erosion, retains soil moisture, provides habitat for beneficial insects and reduces the need for plastic mulch.
Smart Tillage
Mechanical soil tillage is hard to avoid for vegetable growers who use organic practices. It’s the most efficient way to prepare fields and allow for the production of more food. Unfortunately, it also does serious physical damage to the soil and the microbial life within it. To minimize disturbance, we till only when absolutely necessary, target just the spaces we are planting and aim for ideal weather conditions.
Bringing Ecology and Wildlife Management into Farmed Spaces
Crop pests thrive in disturbed and nondiverse environments. Their predators generally don’t. That’s why we amend our farmed spaces with habitat for beneficial species. In addition to avoiding bare ground – e.g., through green mulching, cover cropping and seeding clover corridors between our rows – we provide nesting boxes, raptor snags, native meadow patches and other features that encourage eastern bluebirds, tree swallows, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, preying mantises, spiders, American toads and others.
Low-No Chemical Applications
Contrary to much popular understanding, many organically grown vegetables and fruits are heavily sprayed. Copper, for instance, is routinely sprayed on apples and tomatoes. Organic methods often do not account for biodiversity in terms of what farmers are permitted to apply. For us, spraying is not a convenience but a last resort. We try to put the healthiest and most resilient plants in our fields as well as take all the additional measures indicated above to reduce the need for chemical sprays of any kind.