The 2023 season humbled us. The weather was unpredictable and extreme. We managed to get crops harvested and marketed, but we’ve never had losses like this before. There were weeks with no greens, no eggplant, no peppers, no leeks, no onions. We’ve never seen so many pests and diseases! We thought we were good stewards of the soil, but 2023 shook her finger at us and showed us we can do better.

We took a close look at our production system to identify how we could improve. We’ve been talking with other farmers, reading books, and considering our options. We’ve concluded that we need to focus more on beneficial organisms (like good bacteria, good fungi, and parasitic insects that kill pests), and on healthy soil life.

The soil is full of living organisms, like bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, earthworms, and more. Our job as farmers is to help provide the conditions for beneficial organisms to thrive and do their various jobs. Then we hope the beneficials can outcompete or control the diseases and pest organisms. The beneficials need oxygen and enough water, so we have to prevent compaction. We need to make sure the soil gets regular additions of organic matter to feed soil organisms. We can do this by adding mulch, or growing cover crops that feed the soil. The roots of growing plants, especially perennial plants like clover, grasses, and herbs, provide root exudates to attract and feed the beneficial bacteria and fungi that in turn feed the plants. There are many examples of these symbiotic relationships where one organism is helping another, and they both benefit. It reminds me of when neighbours help each other, and everyone is better off.

Practically speaking, we can take several steps to improve what we are doing on the farm. Let’s start with the greenhouse space. When we pulled out our summer crops, we dug trenches between the beds and added woodchips to encourage beneficial soil fungal organisms. On the beds, we added alfalfa meal mixed with sheep manure, and calcitic lime. Then we planted our winter crops. I noticed earthworms and other critters as we harvested the first winter crops. Earthworms help aerate the soil and they even eat disease organisms! When the summer crops, like cucumbers and tomatoes are established, we plan to mulch them. We’ll mow an adjacent pasture before it flowers, pick up the plant matter with a buck rake, and use it for mulch. This provides good habitat and food for lots of soil organisms, as well as nutrients for the crops.

For crops growing outside, we will integrate perennial ‘biostrips’ between crop beds. David has seen this work effectively on Ruckytuck Farm and Blue Heron Farm in New York State. Helen Atthowe has also been experimenting with this technique on her farms on the west coast. The concept behind the biostrips is that there is a perennial space with roots that feed beneficial bacterial and fungal organisms that in turn feed the roots of the crops in neighbouring crop beds. Since the biostrips are not tilled every year, the fungal network is undisturbed and can grow laterally, under the crop beds, providing benefits like nutrient and water transport. Above ground, the biostrips can be mown, and the cut plant matter can be blown on to the crop beds to mulch them. Again, the mulch provides a regular and constant source of organic matter to cover the soil and feed the crop. When biostrips are strategically left unmown, the flowering plants can provide habitat for beneficial predator insects, right next to the crop plants. (They don’t like to commute to work, lol). This will eventually help to reduce pests. The biostrips also provide habitat for ground beetles and other beneficial insects that eat weed seeds! There are so many benefits of integrating these perennial strips between crop beds, we may not even recognize them all right away.

We want to invite anyone who is experienced with beneficials to share and comment. Let’s get a discussion going.