Farming with Nature
We are always open with our customers about all our practices on the farm. We invite you to send us an email or talk to us in person and visit our farm so you can see for yourself how we are treating the land, raising our animals, and growing the food. We are committed to using the best practices for a healthy environment. We are growing our own food on this farm too, so there is nothing we offer that we wouldn’t eat or feed to our children.
1. We always choose organic seed whenever possible. Sometimes the specific variety we want is not available as organic, so we have found that in those cases, we choose to buy non-organic seeds. We like supporting other organic farmers!
2. We depend on healthy soils, crop rotation, trap crops and companion planting to keep the need for pesticides to an absolute minimum. There are a few particularly challenging critters that may put us in a position of either spraying or abandoning the crop. In those cases we would likely opt to spray, but always with a product allowable under organic protocols. We have off and on kept bees on the farm and will always be mindful of any potential impact of spraying on the local insect population.
3. Herbicides will never be used in our fields. All of our weed control is done by hand or with the tractor. Cover crops are mowed and/or plowed to incorporate them into the soil, never spray-killed.
4. We do not use petrochemical-derived fertilizers. Soils are improved by cover cropping and composting with a focus on long-term health and fertility rather than just annual fertilizer applications to get a single crop out. Soil amendments are applied judiciously, as needed to balance the soil for the needs of the crop. Again, we limit ourselves to using products approved for organic certification in case we decide to pursue that in the future.
5. Although we live in a location where water is plentiful, we still choose to use drip irrigation to conserve water whenever possible.
6. Our flowers are never sprayed with anything, nor do we use any preservatives. We cut them the night before we sell them if possible. We grow more than we need, so there are always plenty of blooms left in our fields for the bees and the butterflies.