by Deborah Wechsler (updated 2006)

Mark Cain  
Dripping Springs Garden
1558 CR 548
Huntsville, Arkansas 72740
drippingspringsgdn@gmail.com

Years in commercial operation: 21
Total acreage: 40
Acres in organic production: 5
Acres in non-organic production: None
Soil type: Clarksville gravelly loam
Temp zone: 6b

Crops : Blueberries (2 acres); cut flowers (46 species); 38 different vegetables, notably garlic, salad greens, sweet onions, specialty potatoes; ornamental plants, bamboo plants, shiitake mushrooms.

Equipment: Kubota 2600 tractor with loader, brush hog; Celli 52" spader; converted Ford manure spreader for side-delivery of sawdust to blueberries; Troybilt 8hp tiller; Sears 26hp mower & cart; 1994 4WD Ford truck for on-farm hauling and used with topper for second market vehicle; an '89   Econoline cargo van for farmers' market deliveries.

On-farm facilities : Timber-frame barn, 24 x 48, with attached 8 x 24 packing shed—packing shed has stainless steel commercial sinks for vegetable cleaning, flower bucket washing, etc. (Barn is used for equipment storage, curing of garlic and onion crops, drying of everlasting flowers, production of special order bouquets, and intern housing upstairs); 10 x 12 x 8 ‘Arctic' walk-in cooler housed in barn for vegetable/cut flower refrigeration; 30 x 80 wood-heated double-poly greenhouse for seedling production, with ground-beds for cut flower production; two 48 x 20 unheated hoophouses with roll-up sides for outdoor production of cut flowers or vegetable crops; one 14 x 40 single-layer plastic greenhouse as cool-house for hardening off plants and production of transplants in summer; outdoor benches for plant pots, hardening-off seedlings, etc.

Labor: Mark Cain and farm partner Michael Crane, full-time. Two interns full-time each summer via ATTRA on-line listing and through the Multicultural Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture (www.mesa.org), April through October. Hourly employees hired as needed for extra harvest help. During the blueberry harvest, employ about 6 local workers, 2-4 days/week, paying $4/gallon (05).

Weeks/year in production : 46. Total weeks making sales: 37

Certification: Certified in 2005 through the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry (Food Safety Division)—this department is authorized to certify farms in Arkansas. Certified 1986-2002 through Ozark Organic Growers, OCIA, or Arkansas Certified Organic.

Markets : Fayetteville Farmers' Market, 50 miles away, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings, April through mid-November. Also special-order flowers for weddings and other occasions.

Value-added products : Bouquets made on-the-spot at market and for special orders; decorative garlic braids in fall; decorated gourds; evergreen wreaths for holiday sales; blueberry preserves.

Special expertise: Field-grown, specialty cut flowers for bouquet production and single-stem sales; blueberry production; raised-bed ‘bio-intensive' techniques for maximum production per unit of area cultivated.

I. ORGANIC FARMING

Business partners Mark Cain and Michael Crane raise more than 30 varieties of fruits and vegetables and 60 varieties of cut flowers on their 40-acre farm in the Ozark Mountains near Huntsville, Arkansas. Production at Dripping Springs Garden, which has been in operation 21 years, is concentrated on five acres of field and greenhouse production that are organically-certified. About half of their annual production is devoted to cut flowers, which produce from $20,000 to $30,000 in gross annual income per acre and more than three-quarters of their annual income. Two paid summer interns who are selected via websites in national searches help with the work. These interns are usually agriculture students who spend a summer in a beautiful environment while they learn a bevy of production and marketing techniques. The farm operators believe that organic agriculture is the best system of agriculture for the environment and the preservation of natural resources, and is also the best way to produce delicious, nutritious food for their customers. A main goal of organic production is to build healthy soils that are better able to produce crops without so many inputs and amendments. Organic practices have enabled them to build a wide customer base of people who regularly buy their food and flowers because of this quality assurance.

II. DIVERSE FARMING SYSTEM

Diversity of production systems

• Raised-Bed Field Production – When farming on small amounts of acreage, the income from each unit of area must be maximized, using intensive production practices. Growing plants in raised beds instead of single rows results in greater yields simply because more plants are stocked per unit of area. This growing method does require greater amounts of labor for weed control than mechanical cultivation of single rows, but mulch or landscape fabric are used to minimize hand weeding and conserve moisture. Planting beds with transplants whenever possible, instead of direct seeding, ensures full stocking and makes succession planting easier, providing continuous harvests and steady cash flow.

• Greenhouses and Hoophouses – Dripping Springs Garden uses a greenhouse to produce vegetable and flower plugs that would be quite costly to purchase (or unavailable); more than 20,000 sets are produced in the greenhouse each year, which are then transplanted to the fields when the weather sufficiently warms up later in the spring. Both the main 30' x 80' propagation greenhouse and the two 20' x 48' unheated hoophouses are used to protect overwintering or early/late season crops, adding at least one month of flower production to each end of the production season. Costs for the two 20' x 48' unheated hoophouses were recuperated in the first year by producing specialty flower crops.

Diversity of crops

• A blend of high value, specialty, and other crops. When farming on just a few acres, production and the income it generates must be maximized. This means choosing some highly productive crops that are also high in value.

• Crops of specialty vegetables and flowers can also give a grower a marketing edge. Other more common crops should also be grown in the mix for purchase by customers who patronize the farm to buy the high value and specialty produce. For instance, customers who buy bouquets of flowers at a local farmers' market are also apt to buy some produce such as potatoes and onions if they are displayed nearby.

• A wide selection of produce to meet customer needs and extend the growing season. Dripping Springs Garden grows everything from lilies to garlic, including even bamboo. Succession plantings are timed to produce a continuous harvest through the season, providing a steady income. When some crops produce poorly due to untimely frosts, drought, or critter damage, the farm still has other crops to sell.

Diversity of marketing strategies

• Growing a wide variety of sellable crops can produce a broader customer base.

• Displaying flowers at a farmers market will naturally attract customers to your booth. Everyone loves flowers. Initially attracted by color and display, many customers will buy both produce and flowers.

• Dripping Springs Garden found that flower bouquets are really “value-added” products. At the Fayetteville (Arkansas) Farmers Market, they offer some single-stem items, but bouquets made on-the-spot are the best sellers.

• Making bouquets at market is a great draw for customers, who love seeing their bouquet being made. Ready-made bouquets are available for customers in a hurry.

• The farm operators increase flower sales by offering bouquets in a price range ($5, $8, $12 and $20 in 2005). This enables customers to buy bouquets that meet their budgets and flower needs, whether the flowers are being purchased as a gift or to decorate an office or kitchen table.

Diversity of production practices

•Cover crops (Austrian winter pea and wheat as winter covers) that are incorporated into the soil as green manure in spring

•Crop rotations to help control plant pests and diseases. Dripping Springs Garden avoids cultivation of crop plants that are particularly problematic for organic production.

•Mulches to minimize weeds, conserve soil moisture, and build soils

•Landscape fabric to retard weed growth, conserve soil moisture and reduce time needed to weed beds. Labor savings are more than ample to justify the cost of $70 per 300 feet of the landscape fabric when high-value cut flowers are the crop. The fabric lasts five or more years (and has been known to last 8-20 years with care), unlike plastic coverings that usually last a year and do not allow rainfall to penetrate the soil.

•Support netting for some varieties of flowers, resulting in straight, marketable stems.

•Deer fence that consists of two planes of electric poly rope or tape: a single outside strand at 3' from the ground, and 3 inner strands at 18”, 3', and 4 1ž2' from the ground. Deer reputedly have poor depth perception and are reluctant to jump over this type of barrier (inner and outer strands are separated by 3'). Deer are trained to avoid the fence by baiting it with peanut butter or commercial apple scent.

•Drip irrigation to water plants and to reduce disease

•Specialized equipment such as spaders to work soil efficiently

•Regular soil tests to show necessary organic amendments

III. COOLERS

Mark Cain and Michael Crane have found that a cooler is an essential piece of equipment and one of the best investments for a flower farm. Originally they used a vintage milk cooler but recently purchased a larger ‘Arctic' walk-in cooler to accommodate the expanding production. With three busy harvest days a week, flowers can be picked at just the right stage and quality, and then stored in the cooler at 38 to 50 degree temperatures (depending on crop). As with the vegetables, cool temperatures keep the garden's production in the freshest state for marketing. Flowers can be harvested at the correct stage for maximum vase life when customers take them home. Occasionally, unsold flowers of sturdy varieties (lilies, gladiolus) are brought home and stored in the cooler until the next market day.

IV. RECORD-KEEPING

Dripping Springs Garden keeps four sets of records so the operators do not “fly blind”. The records enable them to make sound decisions regarding succession planting and variety selection. The four sets of records are:

•A greenhouse journal that records date and quantity planted, planting medium, seed company, etc.
•A daily log that records such information as work performed each day, weather and temperatures.
•A mapping system wherein every planting bed is given a letter and number, and which records the locations of plantings and the seasonal succession of plantings.
•A market journal that records sales, lists special orders, and records what is taken to market.

The fields consist of 41/2 foot-wide permanent beds separated by 2-foot mulched paths. Plants are rotated by not following crops with plants in the same family. Scheduling flower blocks takes precedence and generally, beds are either in production or mulched and waiting. With a background in Fukuoka's "One Straw Revolution" techniques, Mark has worked many years to try to adapt a no-till mulch-based system to this area and has made considerable study of mulching strategies. Many crops are transplanted through mulch to reduce subsequent hand cultivation. Blueberries are mulched with sawdust every other year; the two-acre field requires about 18 dumptruck loads of sawdust at a cost of $65/load delivered. The farm buys quantities of locally produced wheat hay (not organic but unsprayed, and as seed-free as they can get). The purchase of a spader has made winter green manuring more feasible, and wheat/Austrian winter peas is their mixture of choice.

The farm also buys pelleted chicken manure, manufactured locally about 70 miles away. In the past, they have used many other manure sources, but the pellets are very convenient. The litter has been heated to 325 degrees in the pelleting process, which destroys weeds and pathogens, and they can get it either bulk ($150/T) or bagged. Feathermeal (14%N) has been used in the past as a blueberry fertilizer at a rate of 1.5 lbs./plant at bloom.

Irrigation is by drip tape, sourced from a strong, year-round creek on the property. They have few pest and disease problems and tend to avoid large plantings of problematic crops. "It is easier to avoid arugula in spring [when it gets flea beetles] and stick to lettuce," says Mark. Similarly, they avoid squash because of borers. They have had trouble with onion fungal disease, use lime sulfur on grapes for black rot, and plan to try Neem oil for future fungal infections. Armadillos can be a problem, rooting around in the abundant mulch, as can deer. Dogs on the farm help deter deer.

About 50% of gross income is from cut flowers, 20-25% from blueberries, 20% from vegetables, and the rest from value-added products (decorated gourds, garlic braids, evergreen wreaths). Gross sales at the farmers' market last year were around $50,000. About 20% of their expenses went to pay labor costs.

"Over the years," says Mark, "we have had to become more and more practical about what actually makes us money." With limited land available, they must maximize its use. Raising shiitake mushrooms is a new venture that allows them to make use of their forest resources. They also plan to give more attention to the blueberries to increase yields, and have located a co-processor who may be able to process some fruit into jam and jelly for them.

Lifestyle values are important concern: they do not work more than eight hours a day, with a long break at mid-day that allows for personal activities. It's an important benefit for both farmers and interns. "Working all the time is neither enjoyable nor sustainable," says Mark, who enjoys weaving yoga and music into the normal summer workday. "I remind myself often that this is not just about crops and selling; organic market gardening is a form of right livelihood that puts us in a fundamental position in the creation of a healthy culture."