SSAWG | Experienced Organic Farmer Network

Years in commercial operation: 14
Total acreage: 4.9
Acres in organic production: 4.9
Acres in non-organic production: None
Soil type: Blackland clay improved
Climate zone: 9

Crops: Cherry tomatoes (1/2 acre); lots onions, leeks and garlic (all multiplying) and red onions; pole beans, peppers, eggplants, squash, melons, corn, radishes, turnips, carrots, potatoes, fennel, broccoli, cabbage, greens (kale, Swiss chard, lettuce, spinach, collards, mustard). Since 1996 only heirloom varieties. Pecans (12 trees currently producing), 70 peach trees, 30 pear trees, 25 plum trees.

Equipment: Troybilt 8hp tiller, weed eater, Cole Planet Jr., bicycle push plow, various hand tools, some quite unique.

On-farm facilities: 17 x 36 greenhouse for raising seedlings, 20,000-gallon cistern, 3 sheds, and 10' deer fence.

Labor: Tim Miller is a full-time farmer and stay-at-home father; his wife has a full-time, off-farm job. 2-4 high school freshmen from a Waldorf school come for two weeks each year for a learning/work experience.
Weeks/year in production: 52 Total weeks making sales: 52

Certification: since 1989 by Texas Dept. of Agriculture

Markets: 1/3 to farmers' market, year-round on Saturdays, 28 miles away, with a very upscale crowd who tend to buy

Certified Organic crops first. 1/3 is nursery/greenhouse sales of native plants and vegetable plants at special events and to nurseries. 1/3 through a CSA, started in 1993, with 15-20 members. Also starting to sell multiplying onions, leeks, and garlic to Southern Exposure Seed Company.

Value-added products: Wreaths using grapevines and native grasses grown on the farm

Special expertise: Trench composting with woodchips; Long-range weather forecasting; Instructing backyard and community gardeners (lots of handouts available)

Tim Miller grew up in Wisconsin, where he began working on a local estate as a gardener while he was in high school, staying there for nine years. After getting a college degree in geography, he moved to Texas in 1984. From 1985 to 1994 he worked as garden developer and program coordinator for Austin Community Gardens. He began managing a local organic farm in 1989, and in 1991, bought his own farm. He worked at all three endeavors until the mid-1990s, when he dropped the other jobs and began to concentrate on his own farm. He also owns some family land in Wisconsin, planted to timber, to which he devotes a few weeks a year and from which he expects some long-term return.

In an area where long periods of drought are interspersed with torrential rains, Tim prides himself on being a "dryland" farmer relying not on irrigation but on special techniques to conserve sporadic water resources. To channel water, the farm has almost two miles of trenches (1-2 feet deep), and four hand-dug ponds. The trenches, filled with woodchips as needed, act as sponges for the water. The woodchips then compost in the trenches and are used on the adjacent beds. Rock mounds also slow down the water. He has recently refurbished a cistern built in 1916 and plans to use it to irrigate his fruit trees.

Land preparation has been by custom plowing, but as beds have been established over the years, less and less plowing has been required. Most crops are grown in permanent raised beds 4-12 feet wide and at least 70 feet long, with the trenches or woodchip-mulched paths in between. At any one time, about 1/3 of the beds are in cover crops or native weeds in an informal rotation. Cover crops include cowpeas, common vetch (around fruit trees), and Elbon rye, which helps with nematode control. Soil amendments include bloodmeal, fish emulsion (for foliar feeding in the greenhouse and on greens), and small quantities of granite sand and iron sand for trace minerals. In 1998, Tim acquired and stockpiled 40 pickup loads of very aged dairy manure. To make compost, he is using the manure in combination with wood chips, grass clippings, and native weeds, which he cuts with a scythe from the beds and surrounding areas. He currently has four ongoing piles, each about 5 x 10 x 6 feet.

Of the seeds Tim uses, 80% are saved on the farm from heirloom varieties-he even has his customers bring back the seeds when they buy his melons. Pests and diseases are not a problem, except for grasshoppers. For these, he provides plots of switchgrass and Johnsongrass, which the grasshoppers prefer to his food crops. He encourages birds and lizards and a fence planted with deer-attractant crops both keeps the deer from the garden and brings them close for hunting.

Scavenged materials encourage creativity and keep costs low. For example, the deer fence is recycled fencing panels, his row covers are thick, felt blankets recycled from erosions control fencing around new subdivisions, and a treasure of I-beams recycled from highway signage will be used in a pole barn he is currently constructing. With his emphasis on recycling, saving seed, and hand tools, investment in and expenses are low. Net income from the farm in 2001 and 2002 was around $6,000. His goal this year is $15,000-20,000, the increase coming from larger harvests from his growing fruit trees, especially the peaches. Since he's been planting 20-40 fruit trees a year since 1991, his fruit harvests should continue to increase.

Tim is considering expanding and thinks the farm is "at a crossroads." He is actively searching for an additional 2-5 acres to lease, and is especially interested in arrangements that might allow him to raise more fruit. A new farmers' market opening just a few miles away offers the possibility of a convenient outlet and he may also start a seasonal retail stand at the farm. Next year, he may hire some help for the first time. Despite his long commitment to dryland farming, he is even considering putting in gravity-flow drip irrigation, since it offers the possibility of larger and more dependable harvests.