It's about the land. No matter what a farmer grows their success depends on the land and how it is cared for. The Creekside Meadows Farmers look at our land differently than just about every other farmer in our area. The land is where the food we eat comes from no matter if it's the potatoes, lettuce, peas or grass to feed our cows. If that land is not cared for the nutrients in the food is compromised.
We have always been a diversifed nurturing land healing grass based farm.
Diversified: Because we have never and will never produce only 1 thing. Our land is diversified and as such areas of the farm produce different things. The wooded areas produce timber for us to make lumber to build items or buildings, the flatter grounds are mostly pasture for the grazing cows, the smaller flat areas are utilized for vegetable production, the border areas of brush and uneven ground is perfect for pigs as is some of our wooded areas and so on.
Nurturing: We aren't here to just harvest, take away and force the land into submission to our what we want it to do. We look at it to see what it can be utilized for or if it needs to be left alone, how long does it need for rest periods before we utilize it again.
Land healing: Some areas of the farm were worked hard previous to us so we have been careful nurture it, heal it and regenerate it. Some areas were dumping grounds that we have cleaned up. Some areas were severely eroded due to poor crop and land management. Creeks and ditches were diverted to move water fast away from the fields. We have worked to correct that and let the water slow down, soak in and effective halt the erosion. Grass is key to this.
Grass based. Grass holds dirt in place and then dirt/soil isn't eroding away and going into a creek moving north and forever gone from the farm. We rely on grass and other soil coverage techniques to hold our soil here and regenerate the land.
We aren't importing fertilizers for our pastures and meadows. We have used our livestock carefully to bring back nutrients naturally to the land and using rest periods to let mother nature, the microbes, the worms, the bacteria, the fungi all that and more to bring back balance in our soils.
Have you gone by a farm that has fence and under the wire the grass is brown/burned? That's an herbicide at use. You will never see that here on this farm ever. We more our fences but usually our cows graze so well they keep it clear as they should.
An educated farmer who thinks outside of conventional agriculture, a farmer who can study their land, study their plants, spend time in the outdoors understanding their animals is the one that relies not on chemicals to change things. That farmer takes what they learned and applies it to the root of the problem. If in an invasive weed is a problem on the land, a good farmer will take the time to understand why that plant is there, where it came from, how it grows and is it really such a bad thing?
I know farms inundated with a particular nasty thistle plant and they chop it at it with hoes, plow it up spray the heck out of it and still it comes back. They have never figured out why it's there or how to "attack" that plant so it doesn't want to grow there anymore.
These are things I look for in successful farmers that I look up to. There are very few of them.
We do our best here to be examples of smart caring farmers and this often means we aren't seen much nor recognized in the community as much. It's because we are on our land and nurturing it. We don't always have time to socialize and nurture some relationships that probably we should but we just can't always manage it.
This is why we have our farmstore open all winter this year so YOU can come see us at our place and soak up some of our farm's positive energy and we can take you out to see the land through our eyes. Come on out and let us show you a little bit of our process and you can take home the bounty from the farm to nurture and feed your family.
It really matters to connect to your food and connect with your farmers on their turf- Us farmers need it just as much as you do!
No comments:
Post a Comment