Natural Excellence Farm and Gardens

Holy Mackerel the sweet corn is a jungle!

Our focus this year has been plant health, and you can plainly see this is healthy corn!

I took these pictures yesterday, June 27, 2013, and notice that they are at mid thigh.

This corn is taller and more vigorous than the genetically modified field corn that the poor, ignorant, conventional farmer down the street is growing. He just spent thousands, maybe, to inject three massive tanks full of anhydrous ammonia into his soil.

I believe he planted his field two weeks earlier than ours as well. 

Of course he just killed his soil biology so he has no reason to expect that dead biology to beneficially affect his plant health. Go figure!

Focus on foliar feeding to positively affect plant health! 

Here is an example of Cover Cropping in Walk Paths. This is a mix of hairy vetch, field peas, winter rye, and alice clover. This mix suppresses weeds nicely.

 And a little bit of a close-up.

Cover cropping in walk paths does more than suppress weeds, it adds to the soil quality by biology in the root mass, legume root mass, in particular, fixes nitrogen in the soil, and prevents soil loss due to erosion.

 And - It looks good!

Our High Tunnel looks like the way to grow vegetables. These look great and are at the peak of health.

Check out a few examples:

Very Healthy Tomatoes!

Monster Zuchinni !

Cucumbers Already Needing to be Trellised !

And a Whole Row of Hoophouse Special Tomatoes, Planted Two Months Earlier than Outside! We only had one plant lost to cold., though they were covered with row cover. Blame one poor seed. It happens !

 So far the High Tunnel has been a significant modifier of our severely unpredictable weather allowing us to extend our growing season on the front end. Plant stress has also been kept to a minimum; we hope this will allow these plants to realize more of their genetic potential !

See you soon! 

Hello Everyone,

 Boy, we sure have been busy in the gardens lately!

Our High Tunnel's almost full up!

 Some very healthy Rhubarb plants!

 Lots of Thornless Blackberry brambles and their support wires!

 Some yummy Lettuce next to the High Tunnel!

 Many rows of hilled Potatoes!

And there is so much more to see, stay tuned! Yes we have been very busy! 

Hi Everybody,

 Well we are again growing a lot of celery. Last year we planted 700 and sold only half. Problem being our customer bailed out on us for the major portion of the crop.

This year we'll be growing a large crop with the lion's share of it going to a Youngstown, Ohio CSA. They are paying part up front and are unlikely to refuse a good, nutrient-dense produce offering.

 Don't worry, though, as there'll be enough to go around, Lord willing. We seem to be especially blessed with ability to grow good, healthy produce.

Check out this bread tray chocked full of seedlings.

 These trays are loaded with many other seedlings of various plants, all doing well and ready for planting. We're praying now for some warm, dry days so I can continue preparing beds for these tiny seedlings.

See you soon !!

John  :) 

Hi Everyone,

 Today I've been out in the High Tunnel rototilling with our BCS 853. It's just a light tillage, 1" to 2" deep is all I do. I don't want to upset the root mass and the soil biology that lives below this 2" depth. It is snowing outside the hoop off and on and is cold. But when the sun comes out it is warm and I feel like peeling off my coat. 

 The soil is drying out nicely with the large end doors open. It's been a bit windy outside and we're trying to keep the door from flapping in the breeze.

Rosemary has many trays of seedlings started in our house and has move a couple of these trays out to our older tunnel to get them used to cooler temperatures in preparation for planting in the new High Tunnel.

It is important to prevent stressing the new seedlings at this critical time in their development. Stressing limits the genetic potential of the plants. Our focus this year is to support the plants' photosynthesis to grow the healthiest plant possible so they can achieve their genetic potential.

Until next time,

John  :) 

Hi Everyone,

We've had an exciting week here on the farm. As I look outside and walk outside I see the snow falling and feel the cold of, hopefully, the last of Winter's influence on early 2013. Just over two weeks of Winter left according to the calendar. But we're looking for sunshine and warmer temperatures.

 Thursday, last week, we traveled to Yoder's Restaurant and Catering in Sugarcreek, Ohio to hear John Kempf, founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture speak. His class was entitled "Answers for the Challenges in Farming Today" and was very informative and useful. His company blends natural rock powders, minerals, and beneficial organisms into amendments and foliar sprays to help support plant photosynthesis and soil micro biology. He advocates "regenerative agriculture" as do we.

 Regenerative Agriculture postulates that: given the lifeless and abused condition of our nation's soils and the soils of the world sustainability won't work. Our soils, by and large are in a vicious downward cycle of diminishing returns due to pesticide, herbicide, and soluble chemical use. They need to be regenerated.

 The implementation of this regeneration, begun last year on our farm, has produced extraordinary and wonderful result. We intend to continue and our focus this year will be to boost plant photosynthesis. This will allow the plant/soil biology engine to heal our soil.

I am including this link to the first video in our series "Our High Tunnel Set Up" . Check it out!! More to follow.

Good Growing!!

John  :) 

 Today was a beautiful, sunny, February day. It was cold but can't complain for the days getting longer.

We opened the man doors on our high tunnel to let out some of the moisture. With all the bright sunshine it was like a rain forest inside, steamed up my sunglasses straight away.

It is important to let the wet out of the tunnel so we can start to prepare the ground for growing. Our soil test results came back recently and the results are very encouraging. All our macro minerals were within acceptable ranges. These were addressed last winter/early spring with rock powder amendments.

Trace elements are a little bit deficient, but that is to be expected since our land, before we became its stewards, was abused by generations of "take only" land owners. We will be replacing trace elements over a period of a couple of years. Over application of these may cause toxic effects to the crops we are going to be growing.

A day like today makes me long for Spring, how 'bout you?

John :) 

Hi all,

This is our first entry in our new Farm Blog on Local Harvest,org. We're happy to be launching this blog to inform our "best of the food chain" partners of things happening on the farm.

Our new high tunnel was completed this last week and is about ready for us to start our plants.  I'm trying to paste in a picture of our tunnel but it' not working, sorry. When I figure this out I'll post it on the blog.  Ok I've got it now !!!

The tunnel is 21' x 96' so a nice size with lots of real estate for season extension on both ends. It was constructed by CVS Supply out of Holmes County, Ohio. 

I'll be posting videos of its constuction and other topics of interest, perhaps, on my YouTube Channel 'jwtaipale1' also listed as 'Mix-It Fix-It Master-It' a rural living how-to and music production educational channel.

One more picture, lol.

 Stay tuned for more blog entries.

Rosemary :)