SSAWG | Experienced Organic Farmer Network

Years in commercial operation: 12 at this farm
Total acreage: 84
Acres in organic production: 2.5
Acres in non-organic production: 65 in permanent pasture (plus 15 in woodland, 1.5 homestead)
Soil type: Clay loam
Climate zone: 6b

Crops: Lettuce, mesclun, spinach, assorted greens, carrots, herbs, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, summer squash, okra, green beans, cut flowers, potted perennials, potted lilies, potted herbs, and other assorted decorative plants. Also raise grass-finished beef and a small flock of poultry.

Equipment: 8hp Troybilt tiller, numerous Earthway seeders, wheel hoe, Oliver 1265 tractor, International Harvester 784 tractor with loader, two manure spreaders, sickle-bar mower, side delivery rake, two square balers, rotary cutter, three disk harrows, 2-bottom moldboard plow, 2-row corn planter, drag setter, post hole digger, hay elevator, 3-pt-hitch rotary tiller, assorted hand tools.

On-farm facilities: Stock barn, four unheated 20 x 96 hoop houses for winter crop production and summer melons (under shade cloth?), 14 x 30 and 30 x 48 heated greenhouses for transplant production.

Labor: Paul full-time on the farm; Alison works an off-farm, school-system job with eight weeks off in summer.

Weeks/year in production: 52 Total weeks making sales: 52

Certification: None in 2003. Certified by the KY Dept of Agriculture 1991-2002.

Markets: Email distribution list, with home delivery November-April ($1 delivery fee, $5 minimum order), for all winter production, some of summer production, and grass-finished beef. Customers on the list are in two local communities and are predominately professional families. Farmers' market in Bowling Green, KY for 25 weeks, Tuesdays and Saturdays, 30 miles away, with a cross section of the community as clientele.

Value-added products: Washed and bagged salad mixes

Special expertise: Winter growing in unheated high tunnels; Marketing and customer relations; Analyzing profitability of a specific farm enterprise

Both Paul and his wife, Alison, come from non-farm backgrounds. Both--a continent apart--became interested in organic growing after reading "Silent Spring" in 1974. They were farming separately on Kentucky farms about 160 miles apart when they met through the Kentucky Organic Growers co-op in 1995. They married in 1996 and started farming together here, on the farm Alison had been farming since its purchase in 1989.

Outdoor crops in their 2.5-acre market garden follow a three-year rotation. Fall cover crops of rye and vetch are turned under in spring. Cow manure from their own animals is composted in windrows for six months and then applied to beds. They have used rock phosphate and greensand for soil amendment in the past and they purchase growing media. In their 6500 square feet of unheated hoophouses, where they raise gourmet salad items in the winter, each bed is treated as a little field and is intensively cropped with no fixed rotation. Bagged, composted chicken manure (3-4-3) fertilizes these beds. Kelp is used as an amendment in the hoophouse beds and in their transplant growing media, and some fish emulsion is used on the transplants.

Most crops are raised from transplants, except peas, beans, and corn. Transplanting is by hand into pre-irrigated soils so the plants need only be pressed into wet soil near the drip outlets. Since 1998, they have a drip tape irrigation system, run from city water. Cultivation is by wheel hoe, hand hoes, and tiller, with a little mulching in the hoophouses with spoiled hay.

Each year, says Paul, they have fewer and few weed, pest, and disease problems Succession planting helps them deal with early blight of tomatoes and squash bugs; timing of planting minimizes flea beetle problems in eggplant and greens. Bt is used for cabbage worms. One recent problem has been fungus gnats on transplants from purchased organic growing media-drenching the media with Gnatrol, a Bt israelensis product, once a week for three weeks gives almost total control. Asparagus beetles are another new pest problem as yet unresolved.

The farm's mix of crops and products provides year-round income and lets them keep in front of their customers 52 weeks a year. The greenhouses provide winter income, potted ornamentals and herbs are important spring income before the summer market garden crops, and their beef is especially important in the fall. About 55% of their income is from crops, most of the rest from beef. Workshops on winter salad production for farmers and garden/craft workshops on subjects such as herbs, soap making, and candle making bring in 3-5% of the gross farm income. Some are used as a "drawing card" to get potential customers to the farm, where they can purchase plants, or try the farm's beef.

Says Paul, "Raising animals is a whole other dimension of organic farming. It adds diversity, helps close the nutrient circle, and is profit dense, but also adds a layer of management and more labor." Over the years, their cropping has evolved so that they concentrate on the cops that are the most profitable (for the area and labor required) and marketable, with mesclun and other salad-related items becoming predominant. As they back off from organic certification, mostly because the recordkeeping on their greenhouse crops would be so burdensome, they are developing their own branding slogan of "All natural food from Au Naturel Farm."