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By Deborah Wechsler (2003)
Charlie Maloney
Dayspring Farm
HCR 74 Box 2885
Cologne, Virginia 23037
dayspringfarm@aol.com
Years in commercial operation: 15
Acreage: 18 total; 14 suitable for production; 6 currently in organic production
Soil type: Sandy loam
Climate zone: 7, but close to 8
Crops: Lots of different kinds of tomatoes and peppers; beans, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, eggplant, flowers, garlic, oriental greens, mustard greens, herbs, kale, lettuce, cantaloupes, watermelons, okra, onions, potatoes, radishes, spinach, summer squash, winter squash, sugar snap peas, sweet corn, sweet potatoes, turnips, zucchini, pac choi, crowder peas, shell peas, edemame soybeans; about 1/4 acre blackberries, 1/2 acre matted row strawberries.
Equipment: '53 Ford Jubilee (NAA) tractor, disc, chisel plow, moldboard plow, 3 tillers (2 TroyBilt, 1 BCS), Earthway seeders, lots of hand tools
On-farm facilities: 2 packing sheds, 2 storage sheds, covered washing area, 10 x 16 hoop greenhouse for starting plants; 10 x 32 unheated hoophouse for extended season crops (lettuce, greens) and raising some cool season transplants
Labor: Charlie Maloney full-time; his wife as available. Their two teen-age children help about 15/hours/week during their home-school year and 30/hours/week during the summer. Their oldest son, away at college, helps full-time for a month or two in the summer. Their oldest daughter, a modern dancer, worked about two months last year, but will have less time to give the farm this year. They have had interns in the past; this year they have one part-time seasonal employee and three CSA work-share barters. No housing provided.
Weeks/year in production: 52 Total weeks making sales: 40
Certification: None. Participants in the Virginia Association for Biological Farming's Ecological Production Pledge Program
Markets: 110-member CSA in its 13th year, most members within radius of 35 miles; 2 restaurants (within 35 miles), 1 local supermarket, 1 farmers market (6 miles away). CSA goes for about 24 weeks, the restaurants for 40, the supermarket for 30, the farmers market for 20. Most clientele are middle/upper middle class. About 75% of production goes to the CSA.
Value-added products: None
Special expertise: CSA Marketing; Growing wide diversity of crops; Tomatoes and blackberries
Charlie Maloney grew up on a diversified farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where as a teenager, he took over responsibility for the farm's two-acre tomato crop. After college and divinity school, he pursued a career in pastoral counseling. In 1987, he began selling surplus from the family garden and became a part-time market gardener. A CSA was initiated in 1990 and as the farming operation grew, he gradually cut back his psychotherapy practice. Two years ago, after 20 years in pastoral counseling, he "retired" and began farming full time.
Dayspring Farm consists of 15 small fields of a quarter-acre to an acre, separated by grassy areas. Fertility is provided by winter cover crops (primarily winter rye/vetch and ladino clover), mulch, and compost, supplemented by greensand, lime, and rock phosphate as needed. About 90% of the compost is purchased from a commercial compost business about 30 miles away, the rest is produced on farm by small-scale bin-&-fork methods, with a flock of 50 laying hens providing manure for the compost. Seaweed and fish emulsion are used to water transplants and as foliar sprays. Summer cover crops (buckwheat) are only occasionally planted. This year, Charlie is experimenting with planting a patch of biennial yellow sweet clover for a bee food crop as well as a cover. He is also bringing an additional 1½ acres into production, planning to rotate about an acre of his current fields out of production into a year-long fallow under ladino clover. For several years, the farm participated in SARE-funded soil management research, and received regular soil testing. Now, Charlie tests mostly when he feels he needs additional information on a particular area.
Crop rotations are informal, based on Charlie's observations and crop needs, with records kept on charts. There are no permanent beds but many crops are planted in double rows. Tractor and tillers are used for land preparation, tillers are used to cultivate wider paths, a hand-made wheel hoe is sometimes used between the paired rows, and hand hoeing is relied on for other cultivation. He uses mulch liberally on any crops that will be in the ground a while. The farm is lucky to have a neighbor who produces an ample supply of wheat and barley straw--the Maloneys can barter work for some and purchase the rest of what they need at a good price.
Leading pests are Colorado potato beetles, cucumber beetles, and flea beetles. Handpicking, row covers, and succession planting are the primary control strategies. Charlie avoids pest control sprays such as pyrethrum, especially since a neighbor began to keep a dozen hives of bees on the farm a couple years ago. He has seen substantial increase in cucurbit pollination with the presence of the bees.
Irrigation was a problem until the Maloneys had a deep well drilled three years ago for both the house and the farm. They ran out a main line to the fields and installed 14 faucets around the fields, so that they now can irrigate about half their six acres with drip irrigation (mostly drip tubing and emitters, some t-tape).
As the farm has grown over the years, Charlie has simplified production, not raising as many crops as he felt he needed when he first started the CSA. Now, he focuses more on standard crops and fewer exotic ones, though he still introduces new crops and produces vegetables that many of his customers otherwise might not buy, such as oriental greens and sweet potatoes. He also feels he's become less accommodating to special requests by the CSA members-perhaps more sure about managing the CSA the way that works best for him.
Income from the farm has almost replaced Charlie's previous job income, while his wife continues to work a full-time, off-farm job. The gross income from the farm last year was $36,000; net income, not figuring the family labor, was about $21,000. Since they started from scratch, debt has been a significant limiting factor in their financial success as farmers. Charlie would like to increase farm income and believes that additional income will need to come both from expansion of the production area and from increasing yield or profit on the existing fields. Putting additional land into production this year was a step in this direction. He is also considering buying a modern tractor. While he does not want the farm to grow beyond a family-size operation, he is carefully watching his experiment with hired labor this year and thinking of hiring additional workers. As the farm's success grows more assured, he feels perhaps he can reduce the stress level and not feel obliged to work quite so much himself. "We are making progress," says Charlie, "and I am feeling more hopeful now than ever that we are sustainable and that we well have something to pass on to our children." |
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