Radish - The Publication

We have a local publication called Radish that often does articles on growing food and farming.

They featured our farm in the June issue.

Here are the highlights.

Farming is Work That Matters

I was at the MOSES organic farming conference at the end of February. Several of the classes that I went to were out standing, real life changing stuff. I sent the teachers a note and told them they did a nice job and should be very proud of doing "Work that Matters".

Most organic farmers are doing "Work that Matters" too and here is why.

Numerous Reflections From The Rochester Compost Pile

I wrote an article last year about people I have met and the funny things they do at the compost pile. This is a continuation of that theme.

I got approximately 150 pickup loads of compost this last growing season at the waste to energy facility in Rochester. So I am down there a lot. This season was a bit unusual in that I got several loads of compost just last week. The weather was so mild that I could apply it without worrying about frost.

Here  are some stories from the folks I have met at the pile...

Ashes to Ashes

The phrase "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust" is often used in funerals but doesn't appear in the Bible. It comes from the funeral service in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It is based on Genesis 3:19, Genesis 18:27, Job 30:19 and Ecclesiastes 3:20. Those reference all say we are made from and return to dust. The Bible uses the word dust for the elements of the earth.

When a body decays what is left is compost and minerals. Not trying to be morbid here, those are just the facts.

How do these minerals and other nutrients get into our bodies in the first place. I'll bet you are way ahead of me here. They come from the foods we eat.

Did you know when the cell utilizes nutrients there is an ash formed from the metabolism of the nutrient. Nutritionists talk about some food being alkaline and others being acidic. It is this ash that they are talking about. So when they say limes are alkaline even tho they taste very tart and acidic, it is the ash that is alkaline. I'm getting off track a little here as I wanted to talk about soil.

Soils are formed from the weathered minerals, pyrogenic minerals, and organic matter. Let's dig a little deeper...

How to Grow Nutrient Dense Foods

Most agricultural soils have been depleated of the minerals that we need in our foods. If the mineral is not in the soil it cannot be in the vegetables grown in that soil. The minerals in the soil come from centuries of weathering of the base material (typically rock) of the soil. So the build up is much slower than the minerals used by crops and typically removed from the soil.

So what's a farmer to do...

Compost or Putting Man on the Moon

If we had spent the money used to put the first man on the moon to develop the technologies to make compost.

Agriculture would look totally different today.

Things like...

Thinking Differently - As easy as 1, 2, 3

Farmers can often circumvent the conventional wisdom and improve their bottom line by just thinking differently.

Let's look at some examples...

Top 10 Vegetable Freak Posts for 2014

On reflection over the past year I though it would be good to review some of the top Vegetable Freak posts for 2014.

Here they are...

Super Soil, Super Food - A Land Stewardship Project Guest Post

 I recently wrote a guest post for the Land Stewardship Project. Lisa and I took a course from them 12 years ago called Farm Beginnings. If you are looking to engage in farming at any level I would highly recommend it. We have maintained a relationship the Land Stewardship Project team over the last decade and appreciate the chance to give back to them for the investment they made in our farming endeavors. Brian will write occasional articles about our farm journey.

The post follows or you can find more information on their web site.

Commitment to Quality

Quality on our vegetable farm starts with the soil.

When we moved to our farm about 12 years ago the farm had been farmed conventionally with corn and beans. Nothing unusual about that, the farm had not been abused, it wasn't over grown to weeds or highly eroded. I'm sure they had been using the typical agricultural chemicals, fertilizers and GMO corn and bean varieties. We had good soil types to work with. The soil types were, way better in fact than at our previous home where the top soil had been sold and all that was left was red clay (we rebuilt this soil with compost over 7 years and when we were done it was some of the best soil I have ever seen).

However, the soil on our new farm was "biologically DEAD". Maybe It would be more politically correct to say the soil was biologically suppressed, the biology was there it was just sleeping and had to be awakened.

So what to do?

What Happens When It Rains 4 Inches in Three Days

We had 4 inches of rain in three days last week and had another 1/2 inch of rain this afternoon. I have had quite a few people ask me if we have had a lot of erosion, standing water or flooding. Well frankly we have had none of these issue and here is why:

What Do We Do With All That Compost (With Time Lapse Video)

We are very creative about the use of one of the most amazing resources in Rochester.

So just what do we do with all that compost...

Ideas for Marketing More Compost

One of the folks that worked at the waste-to-energy facility asked me for some ideas on how they could better serve their customers and how they could sell more compost. They were getting quite a pile of inventory.

I'm one of the biggest advocates for compost from the waste-to-energy facility. I'm sure we send several hundred folks to get compost each year in the course of our work at the farmers market and talking to fellow growers.

Here are 26 ideas for an even bigger success...

35 Million Pounds of Compost

When I was in college I worked for a summer for a guy that fixed tractors and other kinds of heavy equipment. He prided himself on having every possible part and if he didn't have it he would get it.

Reminds me of the amount of compost at the waste to energy facility. They have all anyone could possibly need. I'm estimating a bit but looks to me like they have approximately...

Black Gold - The Value of Compost

There should be a national compost week the first of June, where we celebrate the coming of summer by enriching our soil. You have heard of "Gold Rush" the local flea market phenomenon. Well this is a different kind of gold..."Black Gold".  (No not the Beverly Hillbillies kind either.)

Here are 10 little known benefits of compost, the "Black Gold" of the garden...

Humerous Happenings at the Rocheser Compost Pile

Compost is truly one of the many wonders of the natural world. I get 5-6 pickup loads a week so I am at the waste to energy facility in Rochester a lot. The county does an excellent job of processing leaf and grass clippings into black gold.

My fellow composters are the salt of the earth but sometimes the things they do at the compost pile in pursuit of their world class gardens just make me laugh... 

How To Make Compost Tea

What is Compost Tea?

For all you tea lovers out there you can add compost tea to your list but you don’t drink it, you use it on your plants. 

You make compost tea by steeping compost in unclorinated water. The mixing process can be a simple as burlap bag in a bucket of water, or some very advanced tea makers use bubbling air to mix things and keep it aerobic (good microbes).  Some tea makers also add some nutrients for the microbes, typically a sugar.  

So why go to all this trouble? 

First Compost of the Season and Spring Onions

I got the first load of compost at the Waste-to-Energy facility today. I think they mark the start of spring by my first pick-up load of compost. It is nice to see everyone after a long winter. I got about 150 pick-up loads last year so I am one of their better customers.

My first pick-up load of compost of the season is typically used for the...

Soil for Future Generations

Dad had a 40 year long collaboration with the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) in the 70's dad built terraces, in the 80's he planted windbreaks and completed a wet area tiling program, and in the 90's he completed riparian strips, headlands and continued a hay rotation. In the 2000's the CSC came out with a new program to integrate various conservation practices under one umbrella. There were three tiers a first level with basic practices, a second tier with intermediate level practices and a third tier with some really stretch goals that a farm could achieve over time.

When the tier system first came out the CSC came to Dad's farm to evaluate his practices against their system. What they found was one of the few farms in the state of Iowa that met all the tier three criteria and then some. Dad didn't do all these things to achieve a tier system or fit into a government program,

The Gobblers Knob Controversey

In our previous post on compost, I was explaining how my father was very innovative in the making and use of compost. He often used compost to rebuild areas with poor soil, Dad called one of these spots that the glaciers messed up "Gobblers Knob", because they would see turkeys in this area of the field. It is a bit of a local land mark with the neighbors and he had a colorful sign commission that he posted out in the field to show how to get there. (No one ever went there except my Dad or his family, this was kind of an inside joke, and he thought that was great.) But I digress...

It was kind of steep on "Gobblers Knob" and so Dad had it growing local prairie species like "Big Blue Stem" and volunteer clovers. It was very pretty in the early summer when everything was blooming but later in the season the organic matter from these native species was massive. So he got the idea that he should compost all this organic matter and return it to the soil. Gobblers Knob was a little thin on top, kinda like my Dad's hair, so Dad thought it could use a little enrichment. No not his hair, "The Knob".