Expansion:

This is a very exciting time, we are officially moving forward with our plans to expand our grow space in the beginning of 2021. Work is scheduled to start in the beginning of January. We’ve been making lots of calls and doing lots of research over the past few months sourcing contractors and parts for the expansion project.

The expansion project will include:

• Increase production space to 1/2 acre.
• Add (32) 50′ long beds and about 200′ of perennial hedgerows.
• A new irrigation well for the farm
• Solar well pumping to storage tanks to allow gravity fed watering on the whole farm
• New irrigation system to tie in with the existing
• Rainwater management with swales and a catchment area to prevent washouts from heavy rains

The increase in bed space will increase production and allow us to resign from our corporate jobs and be full-time farmers. We will not be expanding annual vegetable production past this size and to be honest don’t have the room to either. We are adding four plots, each with eight permanent beds 50′ long, roughly doubling our production space.

The 4 plots will be arranged 2×2 and have a 8-10ft area between them. This area will be planted with perennials, asparagus to start with and then others will be added later on. This 8-10ft. space will be dual purpose and used as a beneficial hedgerow. The plants will be kept to a maximum height of 4-5 feet to keep shading to a minimum but also provide places for birds and other life to flourish keeping pests managed naturally.

The earth works is the first project to be completed. The flat area that will become the four main plots will be leveled out. Because of challenges with being on a slight hill we will have a ditch running around the area to direct water off the plots and around the side. There is an additional area that is included in the expansion that also needs to be addressed and that is on the up hill side of the production area. Since the plot is on the downside of a hill and a slight valley, runoff will become a problem in heavy rain events. To mitigate this we will have a swale cut in on the up hill side of the productions plots. This swale will direct water to the side into an area that will allow the runoff to pool and an area for overflow into a future swale.

We take sustainability seriously and looked at all of the components of this expansion and sought out ways to improve the resiliency of the farm. While drilling a new well is definitely not ideal, we found that there are ways to adapt a well with appropriate technology. We are limited with flat land to farm on our property, but that can also be an advantage. There are benefits of having a steep hill that cannot be farmed. From the farm to the highest point there is about 30-35 feet change in elevation, enough to give us a gravity fed pressure of 15-17psi! Perfect for our irrigation system. So we changed our plans from a grid tied well pump/pressure tank system to a solar system that pumps water to storage tank(s) high on a hill to gravity feed the irrigation system. In short, a solar specific pump will be powered by a set of solar panels during the day pumping water into the tanks on the hill. The tanks will house a float switch to tell the pump when to refill the tank. The irrigation system will then be fed by the tanks using the pressure built up over the height difference to run the drip line and overhead watering. This will give us more resiliency and less moving parts, taking a step towards a more appropriate system and less dependency on the power grid.

The new irrigation system that will be installed on the new plots will also tie into the existing system. We will be using low flow overhead irrigation and drip lines to irrigate, capable of operating at 15psi or above. Each of the new plots will have overhead irrigation and an option to move drip lines onto each plot or row individually. The whole farm irrigation will be controlled by a centralized timer similar to a lawn irrigation system.

Lastly we will be installing a fence around the area to keep out wildlife and other animals. In the years to come we will continue to develop the hedgerows and the area around the new addition to include more perennial fruits and nuts, to truly change the area and regenerate the land.

We have started clearing trees from the new area ourselves and with the use of a wood chipper have been able to finish up the clearing in about two months. Most of the area was scrubby pine regrowth that was very dense and of no real value. The majority of what we cut down was small enough to be run through the chipper and used to fill in paths and beds around the house and food forest area. All of the trees were intentionally left standing about two feet allowing the grading contractor to easily remove the stumps when work starts.