Goodies Growing Methods
Well, here we are with our first blog post to add to the interweb. We often get asked what are we doing that is different and we thought we would give a longer explanation here. Hopefully, it will be of interest to those following along with what we are doing at Goodies Farm.
Since our move to Kendenup, WA we have embraced biological regenerative farming with an emphasis on soil health. We now take a few more steps than we use to, to create nutrient-dense, chemical residue-free produce.
Our seeding/sowing season starts in April (Djeran Noongar Season). We use a minimal till seeding rig to reduce ground disturbance and decrease the impact on soil fungi. Fungi is the all important factor in keeping carbon in the soil & creating a good soil crumb structure. This allows for water infiltration and gas exchange from the air and soil.
As yet there is no perfect solution to growing our cereal crops and we still use a pre-emergent herbicide knockdown spray, (at a third of the rate we use to) to remove any plants/weeds we don’t want in our crops throughout the growing season. If we didn’t do this pre-emergent spray we would have rye grass and wild radish in the crops we want to harvest. To help mitigate the impact of the herbicide spray we add citric acid & fulvic acid into the mix. This makes the herbicide more efficient and helps break down the chemical compounds once they have done their job; it also rehabilitates the soil before the seeds get sown. We are working towards phasing this step out of our crop production. Hopefully, once our soil is completely in balance (biologically & trace minerals available) we should find it easier to grow our cereal crops. Alternative ways we are looking at removing chemicals from our farm system is by growing multi species crops, rollercrimping cover crops, planting crops closer together and rotational grazing with animals. We will also invest in a no-till disk seeding set up when we can.
There is no herbicide spray thereafter and we no longer use fungicide or pesticides and we haven’t for 5 years. We then innoculate our seeds to be sown with our own on-farm created vermicast (worm castings), humic acid, fish hydrolysate & some Fish Force. We use organic fertiliser in the form of guano from Planted Passion and pelletised minerals from Grow Safe. To ensure that we are providing our customers with a chemical residue-free product we have our grains tested and you can find the results here.
Throughout the growing season, we regularly test the brix with a refractometer to check the plant health. We have also recently started working with Mark of Productive Ecology, who sends off plant sap analysis tests and helps to advise what trace minerals are deficient. We are basically asking the plant what it needs. We recently foliar sprayed manganese, copper and zinc with some liquid gypsum and we are really happy with the results.
2021 has been a very wet winter and some crops have struggled with water logging but we are seeing the above methods are helping to create a more resiliant plant.