Thousands follow his trail without knowing who carved it

For the past two years, I have roamed northern California and southern Oregon, and have closely followed the activities of small farms in the region. It has been a great adventure for this South Dakota native, transplanted from New England. California is an absolute Eden about 97 percent of the time; the other three percent is utter catastrophe. In my time here, there have been a hearty handful of farms I have known to have been swept up in the actual flames and left in a pile of char and ash. Although, there need not be flames on site for the fires to figuratively burn a business to the ground.

I own and operate Bluma Flower Farm, currently located on a rooftop in downtown Berkeley, California. Going into this year my plan was to try to replicate what I did the year before, one of Bluma’s best years yet. This would have been the first year I didn’t make any big changes. But then the pandemic hit and, of course, like many other businesses, I had to pivot and find ways to survive. 

Farmer to Farmer Profile

Visiting farms around the country is a time-consuming and expensive undertaking! Two important factors make it manageable: High Mowing Seeds underwrites my travel expenses, and I try my best to bundle different activities into one trip. Last August I was heading to California to attend a healthy soil summit sponsored by Acres USA.

And so, what amazing farms could I visit while on the other side of the country? The list is long and deep but remember my original impulse was to see farms that had been featured on Chris Blanchard’s Farmer to Farmer Podcast. So, quickly, Singing Frogs Farm became my first choice.

Farmer to Farmer Profile

Along with the growing interest in regionally adapted seeds, increasing numbers of growers want to add some on-farm breeding and/or seed production to the mix. In this article, read about how both crops support each other on Artisan Seeds breeder Fred Hempel’s farm. In next month’s magazine, we’ll have more about Fred’s approach, and advice for how vegetable growers can make the most of on-farm breeding.

Blue House Farm is a two-location operation with both farms being leased, one from a family trust, and the other from a land trust. The “home” farm is 15 minutes away in Pescadero, which is where Ryan lives, and where the farms’ wash/pack facility stands, and where the market trucks leave from on any given day. It’s warmer there and much less foggy, and Ryan leases a little apple and pear orchard adjacent to the property.

Getting to High Ground Organics means going through the belly of the beast of California’s agricultural sweet spot – the Central Coast. This is where high value crops are grown right to the property line, right next to towns and suburbs, cheek by jowl. The proximity to the Pacific Ocean mitigates the climate of this region so it’s never that hot and never that cold; they can grow and harvest strawberries from March to October.

This is where 99% of the artichokes grown in the United States come from, and almost all the Brussels sprouts. As I make my way toward the farm, I pass by field after field of crops and numerous scenes of vast harvest crews picking lettuce, strawberries, Brussels sprouts, broccoli and more. Only a half mile past the local high school, I see a sign telling me that I am entering the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County. Just up the hill, and next door, lies High Ground Organics.

Fifth Crow Farm lies nestled below some ragged hills – the native grass fully brown, the oaks wide and green. The farm grows 50 acres of certified organic crops on 150 acres of leased land, including vegetables, cut flowers, dry beans and eggs. The farm land is completely flat, tucked in a tiny valley in zone 9B. Believe it or not, just across the street, a mere two miles from the ocean, there are acres and acres of open land with cows grazing. How can land so close to such beauty, and with such a wonderful growing season be devoid of development? The answer is complicated, but mostly it’s because the parcels of land have always been quite large, and much of it is being purchased for conservation purposes.

Predictably, since a new word is easy to co-opt, “regenerative” has quickly become the darling of the large industrial agriculture companies who are now able to mouth ecological platitudes, formerly associated with organic farming principles, but without any intention of following them. We are seeing well-honed, corporate co-opting skills used very effectively by professionals.

The suspicious old organic hippie in me finds the new “re-generative” movement to be a devious attempt to displace organic in the public mind with a more manipulatable word, easily controlled and redefined by the agricultural industry. I can understand many of the large mid-western long-time chemical farmers not liking the word “organic” and thus a new word being useful to communicate with them. All well and good. Use the word “regenerative” to lure them in to being better farmers.

I did not set out forty-some years ago to be a hippie, organic or alternative farmer of any sort. Deeply disillusioned after a few years of striving to reform society’s miscreants in California’s prison and parole system, I ached to produce something of unquestioned value for myself and my community – growing food seemed to fit that bill. Though it’s been a jolly good ride, the journey proved to be not as simple as it looked. Let me share a “thing or two about a thing or two” that I learned along the “way of the dirt farmer.”

Is soil the foundation of organic production? Many organic farmers believe it is, and their position won the support of the National Organic Standards Board in 2010 when it recommended against organic certification for soilless production systems. But the National Organic Program of USDA has not accepted the NOSB recommendation and is allowing certification of so-called “organic” hydroponics in which the nutrient solutions are composed of ingredients allowed in organic production.