Mother Earth and Us

It’s sometimes hard to reconcile that Earth Day is reserved for just one day. For us, we love to celebrate Mother Earth each time we traipse through the fields, while we harvest and plant, rotate our livestock and even during our weekly trips to the farmers market. But being an organic farm, this holiday tends to bring special attention to our practices and the ways in which we consider our environment in our agricultural “ethos.” 

With so many new folks becoming a part of our food and farm family we figured this would be a good opportunity to share again about our principles of regenerative agriculture.

With regenerative agriculture, its core component is in its name; we practice farming that regenerates, restores and improves soil health and prioritizes healthy ecosystems. In other words, we work with the land and not against it.

But what does regenerative agriculture actually look like? Unfortunately there’s no set “blueprint” but over the years we’ve honed in on what works for us and we are constantly modifying and improving upon our methods.

For starters, our organic vegetables and fruits are grown without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides. We also use netting and other natural deterrents to protect against birds, raccoons and deer. In addition, planting and harvesting is done by hand whenever possible to avoid excess soil disruption.

As for our livestock, they’re regeneratively raised on pasture through what’s called rotational grazing. The overall goal of rotational grazing is to avoid sequestering animals to one pasture to graze which leads to more exposure to parasites and a greater increase in soil disturbance. For example, our cattle are rotated across hundreds of acres of pastures for more than 850 days, as opposed to remaining in just one section. As they graze on grass they also keep the weeds in check, while the nutrients in the soil that are being depleted get replenished in the form of manure, which helps more grass to grow. Each pasture is also given time to rest after the cattle are rotated to the next paddock we set with portable electric fence every 40 days or so as needed to allow local ecosystems to continue to flourish.

Regenerative agriculture is about doing things the right way, not the fast way. But growing and raising food for the greater good makes it all worth it and we are proud to practice regenerative agriculture for as long as we are able to make sure that Mother Earth is protected for many years to come.