A market garden that grows for Fairland and beyond using sustainable techniques for water, soil, and habitat care.
Our practices:
• We grow our food in polycultures on beds that have been built by hand on contour
• We compost on site from farm waste and food scraps
• We integrate very healthy, entitled chickens over our acre during the winter and during the growing season use a pastured paddock shift system.
• We use organic seed, heirloom seed, or saved seed from friends, though some seed package gifts that are not the above three categories we are growing out this year (mostly flowers). We are currently researching what seed can be saved to make our stock 100% organic and non-GMO. To our knowledge we have no GMO crops but are researching and will rip them out if so.
• Our annual crops are the understory of the future forest garden
• We utilize rainwater catchment for use with our crops
• We’re planning out a native prairie/butterfly buffer around our site, and let milkweed grow wherever it comes up
We are currently researching/pursuing compliance with both Certified Organic and Certified Naturally Grown. To be transparent our potential obstacles are these:
• Our gardens start a mere 5’ away from neighboring properties
• Our seed stock needs harmonized, see above. Our potential start date for only Organic seeds is June of 2016 for any plants that will overwinter and be available in 2017.
• We currently have access to spoiled hay for mulch on family land that has not been sprayed but has no certification.
