Our Work - Sustainble Agriculture

WE ARE ALL NATURAL!

We do not use black plastic to prevent weeds .  We use the following techniques

• mulch with grass clippings that we get from our tracvac from mowing our bridal paths.  Combine this with straw from our goosen which breaks it down faster.  Plus recycled newspaper or cardboard that will extend the time before we have to do it all over again.
• planting cover crops for the purpose of rolling them down upon the soil to keep it warm and deter weeds, and planting in spaces made amidst the flattened out natural cover.

WE GROW HEIRLOOM SEEDS ONLY!

 This requires us to start many plants custom from our local greenhouse because using this technique of mulching is much more efficient when you start from plants.  We are also working on building a hoop house and green house here to increase the amount of plants we can start with.

Tomatoes

I learned how to plant tomatoes when I was really young.  My father taught me.  When he was young, his family grew lots of tomatoes for Campbell Soup - when that company was small and just starting out.  One of the things with tomatoes is of course the full sun - but most important is how to prepare the soil.  They need a loose soil with hummus, sand, and richness that only comes with giving back to the Earth each year.  We use well rotted manure, a tiny bit of limestone, peat moss, and sand - mixed in to our own native muck style soil.  This lifts it enough so that tomato roots dont have "we teet" a term for when they are planted in wet soil that stays that way.  Regular watering is important.  Since we generally receive dew drops overnight, and the tomatoes have mulch - we have much less watering to do on our own.  Which is great because our crop ranges from 1500-2000 plants each year.


Peppers
“Peppers do not tolerate cold soils.  It’s best to wait until even a couple of weeks past the last frost to transplant your starts outdoors. You want nighttime temperatures not below fifty degrees.  Give compost right when you plant,” he adds, “and don’t fertilize again until after they start blooming.”