Flatwoods Farm

Introduction

nospam@example.com (Tim Heil) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:21:43 -0400

Our guiding premise at Flatwoods Farm is that the Earth is our number one resource. We must grow our planet, not exploit it anymore. The time for sustainability is upon us but is yet being delayed by those fundamentally interested in exploiting the Earth, leaving it a used-up rock somewhere in space. Those intent on exploiting and depleting our natural resources are millennialists: either religious zealots who use the excuse of someday in heaven to rationalize destroying their birthright now; or technologists who have introduced an endless series of innovations, some more destructive than the previous, in the belief that they will be able to clean up the catastrophes of their latest so-called solutions someday; someday.... The joke is, in both cases, we are their children left behind to deal with the ashes and desolation of their greed and ignorance - greed and ignorance that still dominate our species globally.

It has long been an open question: What is the Earth's ultimate end? Astronomers have given the most definitive answer - Earth will be toasted by the Sun's atmosphere as it enters the red giant phase. Short of that, we can also ask: Will man screw it up before this 5 billion year expiration date? Based on 40 years of work in theoretical physics and my understanding of history, the answer is an unequivocal "Yes - well before the Sun's time is up," maybe even before our grandchildren's time is up. Man's history can be described as a series of failures, a series of blows increasingly close to the Earth's ability to absorb them. Where are we now?

Now is a critical time, as two prevalent alternative world-views collide: 1) that humans are of ultimate importance, more so than the Earth itself; or 2) that Earth is of the ultimate importance on our level of existence and humans are but another inhabitant. Clearly, the second is correct but the history of humanity since earliest times has been one large and - to this day - still unsuccessful leap to heavens past the bounds of Earth or, at the very least, an idilic paradise here on Earth. As of now, man has neither achieved utopia nor has he slipped through the eye of heaven's needle in any reliably empirical and reproducible way. Gods pop up here and there, then and now, but in such a completely unpredictable way that large groups of interlopers have sprung up claiming to bridge the gap with prophecy, spiritual magic, strident testimonials and the like. Modern day interlopers and their followers still cling to the empirically unfounded belief that these bridges are real. In virtually ever case, their ultimate refrain is always "Keep waiting; keep the faith." Someday - it's just beyond you now.

As we have been waiting in many cases a minimum of thousands of years now, a technological approach has increasingly taken the forefront based on the claim that it can fix things now, someday - this in spite of the consequences of many of their previous fixes. The problem here is that huge capital interests now control this approach and have chosen to mold technology toward their own enrichment, rather then the global needs of our population. Theirs is pyramid technology, consciously developed toward self-fulfillment of the plutocrats who control the top position with their technologists, profiting off all transactions below. Plutocracy and oligarchy are the natural consequences of this state of affairs. Under such conditions, equality and justice for all of humanity is simply impossible, an unstable saddle point or singularity. The violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics involved in concentrating order at the top of our species must lead to increased chaos throughout the rest of society. Yet there remains the persistence of the technological siren song, "..., someday...," long after Malthus showed us what's behind the curtain. Top feeders mean we have to have bottom feeders. Since top feeders eat more than those underneath, some or all down there will have to go hungry. It's resource polygamy. If those at the top marry most of the resources, some of us below must go without. We at the bottom are at best relegated to serving the needs of the hierarchy, with always the one-in-a-million chance of being the next first draft pick being enough to keep us in the game. Meritocracy or lottery?

Let's take a break now and summarize what this means on our farm. If I take the bucket of my tractor and dig up a hill of soil, the rain will eventually wash it down but - in the meantime - certain particles of soil, bits of organic matter, and various critters will be on top of the world for us to eat. That's not what we do. We seek to restore and sustain our farm environment to allow the sustainable harvest of the finest USDA Certified Organic produce and, in so doing, to nurture our small piece of Earth. So how do we nourish the Earth? We at Flatwoods Farm are growing a mat of organic matter on top of and increasingly within the underlying native soils of northeast Georgia. The simplest term for this mat is topsoil. Soil scientists and their followers recognize the importance of this mat when they attempt to measure the organic percentage in a soil. Here, we watch how deep the all-purpose plow digs - the deeper the better. That is our topsoil, almost a toupee on the hard GA clay. That is what our equipment can reach to grow vegetables. Over six years we have been growing topsoil, not just dirt but a community of stuff that lives within it and keeps it arable. We could now get into counting worms, nematodes, roots, fungi, mycorrhiza, and, oh who gives a shit? Good soil is good soil; you can just see it. We believe here that organic farming is as much art as science and that sound macroscopic practice is all that's necessary for good organic produce.

The path we follow connects directly to that of the old-timey, pre-WWII farmers. With the end of WWII, weapons production was channeled into fertilizer production and chemical weapons production and research were focussed on pesticide production. This was the birth of modern agriculture, ostensibly to feed and nurture a hungry and growing population of humans, but really to make a lot of money off the deal for the benefit of existing large capital investments. This second alternative has clearly been the case as our population is still far from health, both physically and spiritually. The continuing misdirection of corporate hucksters has successfully maintained the food pyramid of top feeders and bottom feeders, now to the point of seriously damaging the nutritional health of the bottom feeders.

With this in mind, we at Flatwoods Farm seek to connect with pre-WWII sustainable organic farming traditions. Interestingly enough, the history of our land is not one of sustainable farming. We are located on the grounds of the pre-Civil War Baker/Wyche plantation where cotton was king to the extent that the land was neglected and farmed into hard pan rock and clay suitable in recent times for paper company plantation pine. Our story to this date is one of growing the soil on our farm to the point where it can support the ongoing, sustainable production of USDA Certified Organic produce. In following articles we will flesh out what we have done since 2004 toward this goal. It is a story of doing more things wrong than right but learning in the process and always striving to make our procedures more reliable, reproducible and efficient.

Progress on the farm front, …

nospam@example.com (Tim Heil) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:39:08 -0400

Late season vegetables are a hard grow. We started 2880 tomato cells: 5 288 trays of Crnkovic Yugoslavian; and 5 288 trays of Dr. Wyche’s Yellow; both on June 6.

We cover these trays with newspapers to provide a sheltered but not cloistered germination surface. Tomatoes are almost surface germinators and care must certainly be taken at this step to cover with enough germination mix to preserve surface moisture but not so much as to retard germination.

The trays showed signs of germinating soon thereafter (June 10-12, 4-6 day germination in a HOT greenhouse) but we missed watering on Monday the 14th and a significant number of seedlings died. Lucy had mentioned putting up the shade cloth but I did not follow through. In hindsight-mine, (Lucy’s foresight), a shade cloth is required for starting late season crops in a greenhouse. Remember, for hostile mid-summer growing conditions, it is imperative not to seed directly into the ground. Anyway, we are now working on the diminished plan of one plot of 1000 red/yellow mixed heirloom tomatoes from the first batch of seed we started.

Tomorrow we plan to finish starting seeds: 1000 more Crnkovic Yugoslavian; 1000 more Dr. Wyche’s Yellow; 1000 Black from Tula (a black tomato, just like it sounds), 1000 zucchini (Hopefully we will have several plantings of these, …); 2000 Athena cantaloupe; and maybe 100 Atlantic Giant pumpkins. They make Halloween fun again. Don’t carve a McPumpkin! Carve an Atlantic Giant!

Then we move the plants in the starter cells to peat transplant cells and, finally, into the field with mechanical transplanting equipment. Watering/fertilization is accomplished with drip tape under black plastic, already laid with mechanical bed preparation.

We always have extra plants available which we can sell but only when we are certified by the Department of Agriculture as a live plant dealer. Our license is currently inactive until a live plant market develops. Certified Organic transplants are one product we provide on contract, or as available.

To continue our program, we then “weed” with string trimmers down the dirt paths between the covered beds. Sometimes weeds must be removed from transplant holes before they threaten the transplant. The idea is to give the transplant a head start on any weeds that might develop. They will.

We try to harvest without any chemical controls, ever. This does not mean that we don’t use OMRI-listed pesticides; we do, but rarely. Otherwise, we squash bugs, gather eggs for disposal, root out diseased plants, and mechanically weed the patches up to and through harvest - whenever we are in the fields this is a constant task – until disease and pests begin to take over, contribute to, and participate in the inevitable decline in the crop. Check constantly for worms attacking tomatoes. They can overwhelm and kill a patch beyond any commercial value within days, if unnoticed and untreated. We use variations of Pyganic, BT, and spinosad. (Note the small “s” there. Do NOT buy Dow patented “S” Spinosad.™ We must not let the constraints of patented agriculture infest and entangle the organic movement!)

So the pattern here is plant and maintain organically, with no even-OMRI-certified organic killing substances applied, as long as commercially viable; then you take out all plant residues and mulch. This makes for a superior quality product which deserves a superior quality price. You want a good tomato in the late summer/fall/even early winter in Georgia. Your choice: Diseased and gnawed on survivors of the spring/summer crop; or succulent produce from plants just coming into peak production?

It’s a no-brainer to me. But there is the distribution problem - and, even more, a marketing problem. Looking over our sales in past years with various markets, they could be modeled but a “step-jump.” We would sell a bit of produce and, after some time lag, demand would rise and spur our sales. The problem here is the time lag. The best produce comes right out of a maturing patch. If you insist on a taste and then come back for more, the peak of the quality production run for the patch will have passed and been lost to lesser markets. Our idea is to provide our finest crops at their peak, at your market. We hope to work closely with local produce managers to ensure the prompt delivery of our vegetables and melons to organic markets near you.

That’s enough for today. We won’t get into more of the details needed for top quality production until next time – post-harvest handling.

So this is my life…,

nospam@example.com (Tim Heil) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 18:13:13 -0400

A great academic forest went tumbling today. As I rode the Toyota to the barn to pick up some tools to fix the sink (I should have walked but I had to pull the Toyota into the garage and, once started – why not?), so this is my life popped up. I’ve met simple farmers nearby, both professional and retired, and I’ve always admired their I need a Phillips screwdriver and the hex wrenches from the barn and that’s what I’m going to get life in the moment. Their real brilliance has two factors: i) that they are crack-ass smart; and b) they don’t know it. The central problem of all my life is just the reverse: a) I know I’m smart; but ii) I’m not as crack-ass smart as I think I am. To this end I awakened further to life as a farmer, as I drove to get Allen wrenches and a Phillips screw driver from the barn.

Perhaps this is a lead-in to answering the question, “It’s been a month since you updated the fool website, why the hell have no seeds even made it out of the packaging?” And well might you ask. There is this side to farming called commerce. And that’s where the money meets the road. We have spent years out here developing the highest quality crops from varieties that maintain that quality year-to-year. For example, we went through roughly 25 varieties of heirloom and commercial tomatoes before settling on Crnkovic Yugoslavian and Dr. Wyche’s Yellow tomatoes. The black division is still open with Black from Tula, Cherokee and Black Krim in the running.

Tomatoes are a mostly settled issue. Snap beans are a completely settled issue: We don’t grow them. Two years ago we bush hogged two snap bean patches, a field of green and a field of purple after turning them over for harvest to friends and family. Upon our first sales, especially with the cost of labor, we quickly realized that the more we sold the more money we lost. Even with the certified organic label and locally fresh, the wholesale price would not cover the costs. That this was apparent to me even at this early stage was a miracle of sorts because I have only just begun to understand the commercial side.

I come from a background of fundamental theoretical physics, which is a bit like pure mathematics in that no one cares about ever applying such nonsense to the real world. String Theory is an excellent example of both but we must remember here that this is supposed to be quite an ordinary farm blog. Which brings us to technology, where knowledge is applied toward some goal. In my case it is fundamental theoretical atomic and molecular physics - with a brief application in theoretical astrophysics - that I am applying to organic farming. You can see, then, that I am amazingly screwed up at this point.

Enter QuickBooks, an accounting program enabling one to hold every penny flowing in and out of the farm up to every other penny flowing in and out of the farm in order to make sense of it all, that being making money as opposed to losing it. “And I must bend to its will.” Students would constantly claim that the computer made this mistake or that. Very few understood that computers are garbage-in/garbage-out machines; very complicated translators of what you intend to do, sort of – as long as none of your input is outside the language of the strictly delineated computer compiler. It takes a while to think in those precise terms. Our website (HTML, CSS, MySql, PHP, …) is another example of applying computing to our farm project with the extent of my knowledge therein visible in two ways: i) you are looking at the website right now; and ii) if you roll down the Current crops menu you will read “Not yet planted” time and time again. It is taking a while to bend my will to QuickBooks’ instruction set. I sincerely – and I think Lucy will join me here – do not want to lose money on the farm. Farming is not a charity function. And so I must learn to hold every penny up to every other penny as they flow into the farm and out.

While it was a small step, riding back from the barn with tools next to me was a symbol of the application side of life, as opposed to theory. But both must be in harmony, to overuse that yet again. It fits. We have learned how to produce superior organic produce and we now must understand the business end. The farming calendar tells me that if I start bell pepper plants even tomorrow, there may not be time before frost to harvest many. We don’t need that sort of gamble. QuickBooks will tell me the price I must receive from customers in the late summer and fall as our crops come on and we begin to market them. I have been quantitatively unaware of that side until now. Most theoretical physicists would probably look down on accounting, at least in terms of dollars and cents as opposed to energy, momentum and angular momentum. But the total reality of farm technology, the computerized – in this case – application of the knowledge of farming as it relates to the various inputs and outputs has been a large part of our program lately. We do not want to lose money on the farm while still supplying our customers with absolutely the highest quality organic produce.

The gift of good organic produce

nospam@example.com (Tim Heil) — Fri, 28 May 2010 09:10:01 -0400

I just ate a morning grapefruit, as is my usual custom. The recent history of this traces from Florida grapefruit to Texas grapefruit after this winter’s cold spell in Florida to this morning’s organic grapefruit from California. I normally rail against California produce in favor of locally grown fruits and vegetables but I cut this grapefruit some slack because we don’t grow grapefruit around here and, especially, it was organic. And it was good!

While much of California’s organic produce can also be labeled industrial, I couldn’t help but appreciate the care that went into sending along that special grapefruit to me. Growing organically requires a unique level of care and attention to detail, a process that I respect more as we continue to expand our efforts here at Flatwoods Farm. Eating this morning’s grapefruit was like opening a gift, carefully packaged and wrapped a continent away by farmers unknown, but farmers who subscribe to the USDA Certified Organic code.

While we are still a fledgling operation, I have experienced the gratitude from people in Athens who have purchased our produce at the local Earth Fare store and at the Daily Grocery Co-op. Speaking with Tony, the Earth Fare produce manager, a couple of weeks ago I reported that I had retired and farm operations were beginning – now that the constant interruptions of my day job at the university had ceased. (Reality check: We still don’t have a single seed started but we plan to do so this weekend. The business of organic farming requires a great deal of planning before planting, and we have in past years wasted a great deal of time, effort and money by doing such things as starting 1000 tomato seedlings with nowhere to go from there. But that is the subject of another entry….) Tony mentioned that customers come in to Earth Fare and ask about our produce, and when it will again be available. He told me in particular about one older gentleman who is eagerly awaiting our cantaloupes.

Thinking this over, I realize even more that I need to get my ass in gear and get some seeds in the ground. We have a duty to our customers to provide the finest organic produce that we can grow. We harvest and wash and sort and package all our produce by hand, using the “Would I buy this?” criterion as we pass judgment on each item. And so it is that we, indeed, send gifts along to our customers – those people who recognize the difference between industrial and organically grown food, people who recognize that eating can and should be one of life’s pleasures rather than just another job.

Pulling back the covers

nospam@example.com (Tim Heil) — Thu, 27 May 2010 18:20:49 -0400

I retired on May 11, 2010. I don’t know if that was when my contract, working as an Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Georgia, ended but that is when the grade submission deadline passed and all my direct responsibilities with the university ended. My parking permit (What a farce to be charged for parking at your own place of work!) expired on May 8; maybe that was the end. But since then I have spent my time fighting off the last few disgruntled students (Grade Grubbing Scum!) and getting the business end of Flatwoods Farm solidified.

A few folks have asked how it is to retire, be retired. It’s been over two weeks since the event and it finally started to soak in today. I became more aware of our new life. My insight was that I am getting closer to real time, this moment, than I have ever been. In the past my actions were covered in a whole history of supposed consequences, which I perceived as a great burden – bowing frozen and bewildered to Grandpa’s Old Testament harassment, loves gone astray, school (“This is going in your permanent record!”), work and various other mishaps and tragedies. Suddenly this morning I experienced a great clarity as I realized that I was looking directly out my window. By directly I mean being open and in tune with all six senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell – and cognition. Imagine my window being covered on the outside by a blue film: I can look at the dirty surface of the glass; I can look at the blue film; I can look at the screen; and I can look at the surroundings beyond. Or I can experience them all at once.

But there is more to this seemingly trivial experience. Giving a lecture at the increasingly Puritanical university, I eventually came to tense up as the f-word joined the tale but hadn’t yet burst forth. Would I end up speaking with legal affairs because I offended a student from this foreign Southern culture? I don’t care one way or the other about using the f-word, which Lucy and I encode as “fluff.” What is very strange in my experience is that the noise “Fluff you!” could stir such upset in another human being. One the main points I always discussed at the beginning of all my later classes was that words are not reality. They merely symbolize reality. Only a very few students caught on while most went their merry way eating the menu instead of the meal. My point here is that my actions while working at the university were governed by various statutory illusions reflecting that fundamentalist-of-sorts culture - the culture that employed me.

While this might sound like a criticism, it is actually a reflection of my own limited perception of what I was doing there. Speaking one day with another colleague about my academic illusions, he replied, “That world doesn’t exist anymore.” It was a great insight but I still insisted on grasping my imaginary academic world as a defense against the insanity of the real academic world, for the real academic world has little or nothing to do with reality.

Which brings us back to the reality of retirement. My life now can be like pulling back the covers on our bed and snuggling in. While the past can still arise and cloud my mind, I am free at this moment to act in, well, the moment and intuitively perceive the reality surrounding me without fear of consequences. There will be consequences, in the funny way of looking at the present as having arisen from the past. I prefer Alan Watts’ view that present actions become the past, which he refers to as time running backwards because it is at odds with the Western European view that past actions create the present. All this adds up to no knots in my stomach from clouds of fear covering up awareness of my actions, my current actions, my only actions.

I may stub my toe on the corner of the dresser as I walk by but I will get over it; the pain and toe will heal. In the distant present the corner of the dresser is there, along with memories - current traces - of past encounters with other pieces of furniture, waiting for me to walk by or run into it. Either path is OK by me; and that is retirement.

Our organic farming niche

nospam@example.com (Tim Heil) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 14:46:56 -0400

With my academic background in theoretical physics and astronomy, it has – to be honest – taken me several years to develop a plan for our farm in our location. Lucy, with her background in management and marketing, has been a great help in focusing my thoughts on the realities of organic farming as a business. We have explored farmers markets, CSA’s and restaurant sales among other approaches but for us we have settled on the old timey model of wholesale truck farming. By this I mean that we concentrate on growing larger quantities of fewer items to sell wholesale, with some retail sales on site. We have also focused on approaches that allow the two of us to do as much of the labor as possible since labor is a huge cost in organic farming. As we grow we plan eventually to hire interns and even full time workers but at the moment we want to be sure that our methodology can produce a steady and reliable revenue stream before we commit to supporting others.

Under our current system all our crops are started as transplants that we set in the fields with two machines: one lays drip irrigation tape under black plastic, forming the beds; and the other sets out the plants as it is pulled behind our tractor. This system enables just the two of us to raise very large numbers of plants through the harvest stage when our labor requirements greatly increase.

To better provide top-quality packaged produce, we last summer built a barn with a washing/hydrocooling station and two walk-in coolers, one set at 55° for tomatoes and the other at 35° for less cold sensitive produce. With the addition of a good supply of produce boxes (A good topic for another day – purchasing less than an 18-wheeler load is almost impossible!) and a good commercial scale, our goal now is to maximize year-round output beginning at my retirement in early May.

We are truly excited at finally reaching the point where we are both full-time farmers! We will continue to share our experience and thoughts on organic farming here and we welcome your input and opinions. In particular, I plan to discuss why we chose wholesale over farmers markets, restaurant sales and CSA models, and my thoughts on further developments in the organic, local food movements. In particular, I am interested in filling a niche below national and regional wholesale distributors. Let’s take our supermarkets back from California, Florida and other large, corporate, long distance suppliers.