We are but custodians of this land.
Being potato farmers, our farmland has had its fair share of high tillage and synthetic inputs. As the years have gone by, Andrew has seen the decline in soil health, productivity, quality of produce and the rise in need for synthetic inputs. Andrew began wondering about other practices he could do to help the land, as traditional ways were beginning to fail and it was becoming harder to grow quality and profitable crops. He knew with every part of him, change had to come from the soil up and that the future of farm land could only survive if we changed the paradigm we were in.
​
And so, the regenerative farming journey begun. It is a complex journey with many pieces to the puzzle. When produce such as potatoes require such high tillage. it adds another dimension of difficulty. Tillage is destructive to all the biology that lives in the soil. It is this biology that we need for our plants to be healthy. In high tillage farmland this biology is out of balance and it is our responsibility to learn how to nurture and understand it to help it function better on its own. When we improve our soil health, the soil organic matter will increase, along with the soils ability to retain water and nutrients. This in turn leads to reduced synthetic inputs.
We use ‘ Mindful Tillage’ trying as little as possible to disturb the soil at times it is necessary for our crops. We use a range of mixed species grazing crops. These are designed to control erosion, reduce soil compaction, increase moisture and nutrient content of the soil, provide habitat for beneficial insects, control weeds and provide feed for cattle. We have trialled planting caliente mustard and incorporated it into the soil as a natural bio fumigation, we plant companion species with our potatoes so we don’t just have a monoculture and for the companion species to help improve the nutritional value of the soil, in particular we love peas! We use our Johnson & Su composting bio reactors to make fungal dominant microbial inoculant. For use on our mixed species crops and potato seeds at planting. This extract interacts symbiotically with plants to sequester carbon in soils, increase water filtration and retention, fix nitrogen and increase plant growth. We use different crops depending if it is post potato harvest, pre potato planting or in the resting years. We are more focussed on building our soil health through the use of plant diversity and rest as much as we can in between our potato crops. Over time, we will see positive changes to our land and be able to grow more nutrient rich food with less input. We look forward to sharing our journey with you.