How we grow

At Geezer Farm our first priority is growing and protecting our soil. This is done by making yearly additions of compost, and using organic fertilizers and mineral applications as needed. We also use minimal tillage methods to avoid damaging the soil structure. In the spring each bed gets broad forked to loosen the soil, allowing air and water to pass through encouraging the soil food web to flourish. Then the surface is either raked flat or tilled an inch or so deep with a walk-behind tractor to get ready for direct seeding or transplanting of the crops.

This year we’ve switched to a more intensive 30″ raised bed system that allows our new BCS walk-behind tractor to flail mow all cover crops and crop residue with one pass. This will save hours of work, and has the bonus of opening up about 10% more growing area. In the fall, all beds are either planted with cover crop or thickly mulched with hay to protect the soil from erosion and to add nutrients and organic matter over the winter.

A large volume of our vegetables are transplanted to the garden. All the plant starts are grown in our small home-made greenhouse. I use organic potting mix, and cover the plants at night when it’s cold to cut down how much we need to run the electric heaters.

Starting in March, either in the hoophouse or out in the garden the first arugula, spinach, lettuce mix, greens and root crops get planted. It’s always a bit of a guessing game as to when to plant. I like to have a week with no super cold weather in the forecast, and the soil needs to have dried out a bit in order for the beds to be prepped and the plants sown. Most crops this time of year get covered in a woven fabric known as row cover, that provides a warm, bug free environment for plants to get off to a strong start. Later in the season the row cover is used to protect the tender plants from pests.

As soon as a crop is finished, we turnover that bed and get ready to plant another crop, in order to keep a continual supply of vegetables for the CSA and our other clients. In July we start cool weather crops for planting in August to have vegetables for the fall season.

I do my best to avoid any pesticides, but when needed I will use organic pesticides that break down rapidly. I also time the applications to avoid harming any beneficial pollinators.

All the vegetables are quickly harvested and brought to the pack-out station, to be cleaned and rinsed in cold water. Then they’re either bagged to go into a walk-in cooler, or greens are placed into cool buckets of water to stay fresh.