Growing Healthy Soil (and Keeping it That Way) at Frith Farm

hey nerds farmer Jesse here so in continuation of our summer farm tour series we're hanging out today with one of my favorite Farmers Mr Daniel ma of fith farm in Scarboro Maine discussing how they manage the fertility there on three acres of intensive organic vegetable production uh a lot of it is with cover crops and he discusses a bit about when and how they utilize those and terminate them but there are also some other important tidbits in this video about compost and other organic fertilizers Daniel notably wrote an excellent book about his noil systems called the noil organic vegetable farm that you should absolutely check out I'll put a show notes link a link in the show notes also of course if you're curious about noil in general and want to support our work consider picking up a copy of the living soil handbook from noil g.com where the proceeds go to making more videos like this and other nerdy farm videos that I do here on my own Farm it'd be a good day to do it it's my birthday I turned 3011 today anyway enough for me let's get into the this video with Daniel ma of fith [Music] farm so I'm Daniel Maize uh we're here at fith Farm uh in Scarboro Maine Southern Maine we grow mixed organic vegetables and some small fruit on uh 3 and 1/2 acres um we are a CSA Farm we have 300 members uh 300 families come to the farm each week during the season to pick up produce uh that's maybe about 60% of our Revenue um then we have three natural food stores we sell to it's maybe like 30% and then we have a on Farm Store um and some other miscellaneous sort of sales that do the the last 10% our model is no till uh we're a no till permanent bed sort of never never see the soil Farm um um so constantly mulching and trying to get as much life and diversity into the beds and into the farm as possible um and that includes uh humans we have a lot of humans working on this land um there are I guess 10 of us uh seasonally April through November uh so we do most things by hand and we're sort of very intensive production I think of us as a three season Farm although we do sell a lot of storage crops root crops through the winter um so there are are usually a couple people who stay on part-time through the winter yeah so to grow on 3 and 1 half acres so intensively uh we do a lot of hand labor but that labor mostly um I think of it as proactive it's almost like um we're doing a lot of spreading a mulch before we plant um so bed prep is a lot of our time and then the goal with that is that very little of our time is in the weeding and maintenance of those crops um but then harvesting is is a huge task um I remember s of realizing like if we spend most of our time harvesting then we're doing well right cuz that's the that's the task that brings in the money and and the and the product and the yield so um yeah I'd say bed prep uh you know some trellising and pruning and then harvesting um are our main main jobs that require so many hands yeah so we you know I call us a no till Farm but we do till once um to to break the the Hayfield and form the beds um so I call that yeah one time till just a a final till to to shape the the beds and to mix in any uh soil amendments that might be called for from a from a soil test uh to affect the pH or mineral imbalances um so yeah that's a fair amount of work we use a a rotary plow on the back of a BCS um you know it's s primary tillage and then go up and down each path to form the bed my preferred method I've tried all different ways to to go from sad to to bed um but my preferred method is is to do that kind of early in the summer and then tarp them through the the heat of the summer to to terminate those perennial Roots um especially if you have romaus Roots it's really important to get those fully killed before we start mulching over so we'll do that through the summer and then late summer usually everything's dead under there so we'll pull off the tarp and then spread immediately spread mulch on top of the beds usually in the form of compost uh and then wood chips or leaves or something more enduring in the pads um and then you know that's early fall so uh ideally we'd plant a winterkilled cover crop uh to sort of jump start that biology back up CU we've just kind of gone backwards pretty far by tillage and tarping um so that's that's a preferred method the the downside is that you don't get revenue from it the first year um but once the farm is established hopefully they can plan ahead and do that for as they expand so I've brought in a lot of uh organic matter in various forms over the years um compost especially um we make our own compost but it's you know we have a very small tractor um so it doesn't get turned very often and you know it's it has weed seed in it and it has it's not we don't have a screener so it's it's clumpy so that's a it's a different product than you know purchased compost from a commercial you know production facility so I tend to use our compost for you know around perennials and the fruit trees where th those weed seeds don't matter that clumpiness doesn't matter um but for the bed tops we do purchase in um compost and that's where yeah searching out your local sources and developing a relationship there so you know what's in that compost you know especially with past being a big thing now um just making sure that compost is is pure and what you want it to be and then also knowing the nutrient content CU that factors in to how you know how much other amendments you might apply um to the beds yeah we apply you know a good 2 in of compost on top of the bed um so that adds up you know it's like a yard and a half two yards per bed um and initially so that's uh you know that's a financial investment yeah that investment in compost as much as you know Farmers kind of grit their teeth at it and and the labor to spread that in spring when we're busy um to me it's a it's a no-brainer it's so balanced more than balanced out by uh you know ask any organic farmer like what would you pay to have no Weeds on your farm you know what what put a number to that all the labor cost all the stress all the crop loss um so that alone I feel like pays for it and then there's all the soil health benefits um you know moisture retention organic matter accumulation which holds the water it feeds the insects um and then you know that feeds the health of the plant so you have fewer pests and disease it's like you really can't even put a number on the value of you know soil Health um so to me it's it's really a no-brainer and and like I was saying it's it's kind of a proactive approach it's you know we're investing up front in the future instead of you know killing weeds is kind of a reactive approach we're just constantly like fighting these weeds it's a very different mentality and sort of demoralizing State for the farm crew to be sort of always trying to play catch up yeah I feel like uh you know sometimes I call it long-term Vision or future thinking um I think really is a driver of uh what has made this Farm successful um it's always trying to pay it forward and even if it take a small hit in the present to invest in in the next season or Beyond like I've always been excited to do that um and I think that's really paid off in the long term I mean cover crops are a perfect example of that proactive approach taking a small hit in the present to feed the future right cuz you're you're giving up that cash crop in order to plant the cover crop and that's I see it as a beautiful like active reciprocity with this land that that gives us so much um but also very pragmatic you know even economic decision to invest in the future rather than sort of cash in on the present um so yeah for for I I kind of think seasonally for cover crops is there spring winter or spring summer and and fall and overwintered um sort of those four seasonal categories the most common combinations um I've seen and that we use are are you know peas and oats in the spring um peas notes also in the fall are a great fall crop that will winter kill um sometimes we'll at we'll we'll play with uh you know barley and crimson clover that those until recently have reliably winterkilled here now the climate is kind of you know up in the air but um uh yeah those are the mixes and then summer it's you know the heat loving crops Orum Sudan cow peas uh maybe sun hemp um and I try to get some kind of uh low growing Clover under there too and then for over wintered cover crops uh Rye is really the the Workhorse uh winter Rye cereal Rye um and to combine it with a legum either either hary vet or Austrian winter peas that will also over winter um yeah those are kind of the four combinations in terms of terminating them um you know spring cover crop peas and oats pretty easy to terminate um we we tend to try to knock them down uh we have sort of our human scale toost steep on ston crimper uh for that um and they die pretty reliably we do pull a tarp over for usually just a few days in the sun is enough to like really make sure those are dead uh the summer cover crop terminating that is easy cuz the cold just kills them um and then the snow knocks it down so uh that that's it for that um and then if there's some stubbles kind of still sticking up a little bit in the spring we might flail moow over it just to get it to sit flat before we plant the next crop and I'm sure we'll talk about that later too for fall cover crop winter kill cover crop same thing you know fall planted it'll it'll die in Winter get knocked down by the snow uh and then over wintered you know grows back gangbusters in the spring um that's when it gets all you know the real benefit to soil health is sort of in May and then at the end of May or early June we'll toost crimp that knock that down by foot and um tarp it for about a week um and then pull it off and it's kind of yeah a straw grown in place straw mulch we're at about a third of the farm gets cover cropped each year but it's you know that's at some point during the season it has a cover crop um so it's not full season cover crops necessarily um and that's a number again I'm I'm always trying to push that up um and it is this tradeoff with uh you know Revenue in the present versus soil Health in the future and finding that balance um given all the other constraint economic constraints of of the farm yeah fertility after terminated Rye is like a great question um and it depends on the crop that's going after it um and the timing you have within the crop plan so we've actually experimented we we've done direct seated carrots after Rye um and that worked great but we had to wait longer um we kept it tarped for a few weeks and then when we pulled the tarp off we flail mode it to chop it up and then we spread a little bit of compost as m on top of that and then direct seated right into that um and and that's where yeah if you're spreading fertility spreading it under your compost or under your mulch is a great way to incorporate it you know they always say like till in well it's like well yeah just put it under whatever mulch you spreading rake it out and there it is incorporated so that's how we get fertility under you know into a bed if we're mulching um if we're not mulching um if we're not adding new mulch then we're stuck sort of putting it in the holes of the transplant so if we're that you know if if we're transplanting after Rye um we typically will do a a more widely spaced transplant like um you know squash or or we've done Peppers eggplants we've done uh you know fall cabbages brussel sprouts um and we'll just as we make the hole usually with a shovel cuz the Rye root mass is so intense um we'll just put a little you know teaspoon tablespoon of fertilizer in there um and how much depends on you know the soil test from the previous fall plus you know compensating for a little bit of nitrogen tie up from the Rye unless the legumes were especially good in the mix and then maybe that's balanced out so there's a little bit of like you know intuitive feeling it out um but yeah getting it in the transplant hole so that it's down in the soil um has worked really well for us yeah concentrating it right at where the plant is planted works because I feel like that rye has so much nitrogen tied up in it that it's then going to be releasing as it as it you know is breaking down so getting it that getting the transplant that nitrogen right where it's needed at first will get it through that sort of dry period before the Rye is breaking down and releasing all sorts of life in the soil and talking about fertility uh one thing to note is if if you're using manure-based compost like I did early on pretty quickly the phosphorus is going to go you know above recommended levels so then switching to some kind of plantable mulch that's low in phosphorus uh for us that's compost made only out of leaves um it's very low in PK um but also switching your fertilizer um to not be adding phosphorus that's that was a goal of mine so we we have a custom blend for our nitrogen mix uh it ends up being 10 000 which makes the math really simple for you know application um and it's a mix of blood meal feather meal and alfalfa meal um and those you know you know just in my mind there's slightly different release rates so blood meal is available a little faster with feather meal in the middle and then falfa is pretty slow so gives a more like slow long-term release um and we get that mixed uh you know in Vermont uh North Country Organics mixes that for us yeah looking at fertility over the sort of 13 years I've been here doing no till it's it's interesting to see like I talked about the phosphorus shot up real fast with the you know so much manure-based compost um but once I address that it's been slowly coming down kind of at the rate that we're removing crops from the field um other Trends yeah same with organic matter he sort of shot up and is is kind of steadied out um we're in the I don't know 10 to 14% organic matter um and I feel like the the more active the soil life is the the hungrier it is too so it's it's kind of even though we're generating a lot you know adding a lot it's uh it's getting digested quickly too um other nutrients um yeah it's fascinating CU you know after a cover crop a luminous cover crop we we might not fertilize at all um that that provides sometimes even more than enough um so when but when if we haven't cover cropped for you know a season or two that's when we basically we're adding the nutrients that we remove with the crop um and I think about that a lot of like we're asking a lot to grow annual crops and just remove them each year and not add back any of the you know there's no cycling there really until uh until people are going to like you know bring back their their poop in the bucket and get their CSA share at the same time you know there's there's no cycle there so we are adding um either with cover crops and fixing the nitrogen from the air ideally but also yeah with fertilizer we're adding what we're removing and I do see that kind of being steady state at this point uh so it's more incentive to cover crop more cuz you can kind of like not be buying in at that point yeah our scale is toward the bigger of what I've seen you know intensive Market gardening NOA um for me that growth was kind of dictated by the people like I just wanted to have offer this uh this life to more people um so I think we are kind of at the limits logistically you know once a crew gets above 10 somewhere in there there's like middle management starts setting in um so I that's why we haven't really grown more also our land base is is limited um but yeah I think it scales down pretty well um I don't think our cover cropping is dependent on being this big um I think there's really sort of that humans to acre ratio for me it's about three humans per acre that allows us to grow intensively and I think that scales down you know I've seen one person growing on a third of an acre and and and doing all right so um yeah I would like to think that it's still possible to cover crop even even on a smaller scale I think it's not only possible but maybe like necessary to to really keep that soil life wheel spinning yeah yeah soil tests are interesting I I just go with the basic you know comprehensive test from the University of Maine it's like 18 bucks and um you know pretty old school like chemical analysis Plus organic matter um I've toyed with some of the biological tests but really like for me the the the test is in the interaction with the land and the this the observation of the crops and the the eating of the crops and the you know feeling through the soil like what's going on there that um you know I can I can see the respiration test I can see that on the land and and that's not to like downplay the importance of those tests and to be able to track progress and um make decisions based on that but for me I'm I guess I'm naturally a little like resistant to laboratory like results I'm like these are the results all around us um so so yeah that's just my personal take I do like the the basic like are there huge mineral imbalances is the pH off um and we track organic matter over time um but but yeah I mean data data is just data it can you know it should only be helpful um unless we get lost and obsessed in it um so so yeah I'm definitely not against those other tests yeah I could maybe help um with the some of the cover crop just cuz we've already knocked down all the Rye so I could like show it I think it's still under a tarp in one place all right let's peel this [Applause] back yeah so this is a overwintered rye with Austrian peas those are the peas there you see um and we knocked this down gosh maybe it was about a week ago um and it's been tarped so yeah this is this is pretty well terminated uh it can be hard to know exactly when it's terminated but you kind of get a feel for it um yeah and you pull this off this will turn like the color of straw by the end you know in a few hours in the sun uh so this is an overwinter dry I think we're doing a a second succession of uh summer squash into here so we'll just you know take a Trel cut through that root mass of the Rye every 2 feet and put a little fertilizer in the Hole uh since squash is a heavy feeder and there's a little bit of nitrogen tie up from the Rye um so we'll put a little bit of nitrogen in there maybe maybe just a touch of potassium um and and yeah plant right through right through the Rye yeah tarping uh can be a real pain um but doesn't need to be uh my my advice would be first off start with uh a reasonably sized tarp so ours are 24 by 100 I wouldn't go much bigger than that once you go to you know 50 by 100 that's that's a massive amount of weight to be moving around um with just a couple people um so yeah 24 by 100 feels about right you could probably do 30 by 100 um but but really uh might even go down to you know 15 or 20 by 100 um and then we use concrete blocks these are the you know 8 in cubes of uh hollowed out concrete and they're about 16 lbs each and they work great as weights and uh I like them because you can carry them around easy they kind of have the handles of the holes in them um and they go they fit 30 on a standard pallet and 30 is the right number for us to weigh down our 24x 100t tarps so you know we we fold up the tarp and put it on top of that layer of blocks on the pallet I call that a tarp kit um the the blocks keep the plastic up away from the tractor forks which can then move around the the pallet anywhere on the farm uh to get the tarps folded up uh first step is to get the water off of it don't try to fold it up with water in it um even if it just looks like a little bit you know walk the whole tarp upside down and then walk it back up so it's right side up um so that but without the water and then we just keep folding it in half until it's the right width for the pallet and then fold it sideways until it's the right length and and two people can then lift it easily onto a onto a p uh little thing I try to fold it towards the pallet so you don't have to carry it as far um once it's folded up um so yeah this is a plot uh that was overwinter dry that we knocked down and tarped and pulled a tarp off and then broadcasted a summer cover crop of sorghum Sudan grass cow peas uh Sun hemp and some crimson clover or maybe it wasn't Crimson some kind of Summer heat loving Clover I forget but there's some clover in there and broadcast that with a chest mounted broadcast spreader um and it can be hard to get those seeds to germinate broadcasted onto like terminated Ry so we went over it once with the Flail Mower to kind of jostle those seeds to get down drop down through the Rye um so yeah if you zoom in here should be able to see some some seeds germinating there's there's some Clover there's some sorghum Sudan there's a there's a cow PE I think I see another cowp more sprouted out right there so yeah they're they're coming up through um and we tried to time the broadcast before some rain but we also have the sprinklers and we'll probably hit this with the sprinklers today you know sunny day we want to keep keep this moist until those seeds find their find their way down through uh or find their Roots find their way down through you know a seed on the surface will still germinate fine if it stays wet it's just uh takes it a couple days to send out that tap route and send it down in um and if it dries out in that time then it's it's toast so my goal for this plot was to do a summer cover crop um you know to to take that you know hit in the present to not have a cash crop but to generate you know soil health for the future um and I figure you know we can't plant our summer cover crop till June late May or June anyway so why not get an overwintered cover crop before it as well so that's why we have the Rye leading into the the summer cover crop it does make the germination a little trickier but uh yeah with the broadcast and Flo and irrigation in place uh I think we'll get a pretty good germination stand this year so yeah it's like a mega do of of life you know it's like this Rye was 7 ft tall and now we're going to have 8ft tall sorghum Sudan cow peas um and some of the Clover you know keeps growing and filling out right right until hard Frost um then it all winter kills and next spring early we can uh you know get in here and and plant whatever we need to uh if it's a transplant we can just go right into the stubble if we need a direct seed we can flail mow the stubble put a thin layer of of mulch on top and direct seed right into that anything to jostle those seeds down through you could uh you could just tie a rope to a pallet and walk it back and forth over you know or a rake upside down and just kind of beat it beat beat that seed down in cuz some of the seed just gets stuck in the the Ry Mulch and it's not going to germinate there so it needs to have soil contact so yeah I don't think you need a flail mower for that yeah so everything I talk about I go into much greater detail and am more thoughtful about in in my book uh the no till organic vegetable farm uh that's available anywhere you buy books we also offer intensive workshops on our systems and and no till practices in general uh you can find those on our website farm.net it's f r i t um or also we'll announce it on I think we just announced it on our Instagram uh at Farm okay enormous thank you to Daniel and to Jackson who filmed and edited this video uh real quick before you go don't forget to check out the show notes for some places you can find me this winter of 23 2024 including the Acres Eco a conference uh the 2024 Dallas inner city Growers Symposium in Texas uh the Utah food and farming conference at the Red Acre Center the organic Association of Kentucky conference just right here in Kentucky and the organic grower School outside of Asheville North Carolina Pick up a hat or a book or some merch to support our work or just go to patreon.com Growers and sign up you can also just hit that super thanks button that works too it is because people do those things that we can keep making all this content and we appreciate that otherwise like this video If you like this video If you're not subscribed to the channel make sure to hit the Subscribe button and if you are subscribed you're awesome thank you for watching we'll see you later bye

Channel: No-Till Growers

Views: 119,730

Keywords: no till, fertility, cover crops, incoorperating amendment, vegetable, professional, frith, soil, health, farm, ag, maine

Id: pokTxiIUMTI

Length: 26min 40sec (1600 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 15 2023