We grow healthy soil.

This is a regenerative farming practice that benefits soil health, the quality of the grass/ hay, and the cattle. We strategically graze our cattle groupings to in smaller subsections of our pasture (called a grazing cell) for a day or two. They eat down the fresh grass and aerate the soil with their cloven hooves, fertilizing with their manure as they go. Once they have finished that grazing cell, they are moved to a new one and the process repeats until they have moved through the whole pasture and return to where they first started. By the time they get back to the beginning, the hay has replenished itself, the soil has started to incorporate all of the incredible nutrients from the cows, and carbon is captured through the grass and stored in their deep root systems.

Our Deep Winter Greenhouse follows technology out of the University of Minnesota. The technology allows for the heat that is produced inside of the greenhouse during the peak summer months to be collected and stored under the Earth in geothermal tubing. The heat and energy can then be released and used to heat the greenhouse in the cold, deep winter months, requiring very little electricity to heat the building. This allows us to grow fresh produce year round as well as get a jump start on our veggie and flower seeds for the summer growing season.

Especially in the winter months, we like to optimize our growing capacity through the use of hydroponic growing systems. Hydroponics allows for the precise control over nutrients, light, and temperature allowing for plants to have higher yields. It also minimizes water waste, evaporation, and run off through recycling and reusing water. Hydroponics allow us to also maximize the growing space within the greenhouse, particularly in the winter months.

While we were restoring the farm, we made the conscious decision to switch over as many of our systems to electric as possible: cars, tractors and power tools included. Solar is Tom’s speciality, so we have designed and are in the process of outfitting our farm with a solar system to meet 100% of our energy needs.

From electric cars to electric tractors, electric appliances to heating/ cooling sources, we believe in utilizing a sustainable energy source for our farm. While we still do have to use some gas/ diesel equipment to get large, tough, rugged jobs done, we make every effort to use our electric options first.

We believe in the symbiotic relationship of all things on our farm. By composting our food scraps, we work to reduce our waste, improve soil health, create our own natural fertilizer, and sequester carbon.

To further improve the quality of the compost, we incorporate biochar. Biochar is carbon-rich material produced from burning organic matter in a low-oxygen environment (pyrolysis). It not only helps speed the compost process, but also supports nutrient retention and microbial habitat within the soil making it highly productive to grow with AND reduces the release of greenhouse gases.

Cover cropping is a regenerative method in which a combination of seeds (i.e. peas and oats) are planted not with the goal of harvesting, but with the aim to ammend soil and create a natural mulch/ compost.

We used cover cropping with a combination of seeds to convert an old, previously leased out and depleted mono-crop field (corn) last summer. Now, the soil is replenished, healthy hay will grow there and we’ve increased our grazeable land.

Cover cropping will also be used in our veggie and cut flower beds come fall to replenish the soil and create a natural compost for the winter months.

One of the quiet heros of regenerative farming is to go No Till.

Whether this is through the use of a handheld broadfork or larger No Till Drill implements for our tractor while doing pasture conversion, our goal is to disturb the soil and it’s healthy, connected, and deeply important mycorrhizal networks as little as possible.

Chickens and pigs are joining our farm as complements to our farm eco-system.

The chickens (both meat birds and layers) will be pasture-raised and graze behind our cattle. They are beneficial because they like to eat all the ticks, mosquitos, and black fly larvae, reducing their impact to us and the cattle. They also like to scratch around, helping aerate and incorporate their and the cattle’s manure into the soil, further improving soil health.

The pigs will help with food scraps and farmstand veggie scraps that either don’t sell or can’t be donated to our food bank partners. They will also help make some super valuable compost-gold that can then be used to help benefit the growing soils for our veggie and cut flower beds. Eventually we will form a silvo-pasture program where the pigs can live in the woods, rooting around and helping remove any invasive understory while simultaneously helping the health of our woodlands.

Both animals will live their healthiest, fullest, most-stress free lives and then return to us as nourishment for our community meat program.

The more diverse planting systems, the better the soil health. We aim to grow a large variety of heirloom veggies, seasonal cut flowers, and native pollinator gardens to bring as much diversity to our soil health as possible.

Utilizing intensive planting methods that follow nature’s guidance, we aim to have as little bare soil as possible. This greatly helps reduce weed growth (which we all like) but also helps bring a diverse amount of nutrients back into the soil.