Field Notes: Farming by the Numbers
It’s crop planning season!
Now is the time when we dig back into last year to review how we did: how much were we able to donate or sell? Which crops did well, and which ones were busts? How many bunches of flowers did we sell? How much were we harvesting every month? What did the most recent soil test tell us?
All of this information is incredibly important as Jamie, our farm manager, plots out the crop plans for 2024. Every foot of row space is precious, and it’s a giant jigsaw puzzle to balance what goes where. We’re not just thinking about crops for harvesting, though; we’re also picking crops that benefit pollinators, contribute to our soil health, and have an educational value.
Would it be more straightforward to focus on just one crop at great scale? Maybe - and plenty of farmers do (it’s called monoculture farming), but volume isn’t our only goal. We want to maximize our yields within our space while balancing several other important contexts.
Here are a few other areas of measurement.
Cover crops growing at Burkett Farm
Ecological Impact:
Soil health: Every year, we test our soil to determine if we’re on the right track for building healthy soil. We pay attention to the mineral and pH levels to help guide what we should plant, and we also watch the long-term trends of things like the percentage of organic matter that’s present. (This metric is used as one measure soil health by regenerative farming practitioners.) Since we started testing, we’ve increased the organic matter in our soil by 66%. We’re hoping to see this number continue to increase.
Cover cropping and crop rotation: These are two techniques used to protect and build soil health.
A cover crop is a plant grown with the primary goal of helping the soil - not generally for harvest. The crops prevent erosion, attract pollinators, and can put nutrients back into the soil that other crops may have removed. Often they are mowed or crimped, and their matter becomes mulch for future crops. Last year we planted pearl millet, crimson clover, and rye throughout the beds at different points in the year.
Crop rotation is the practice of moving the location of where you grow certain plants each year to better balance the nutrients in the soil.
Biodiversity: Nature hates a monoculture. Monocultures interrupt natural cycles, and have impacts on not just the soil, but also the water and the wildlife. In addition to planting a wide variety of plants for harvest (see below), we also manage a large number of perennials, including trees, shrubs, and grasses, all of which help to create a balanced system.
Community Impact:
Donation quantity: We want to provide as much fresh produce to our community partners as we can, and we grow year-round in order to keep a steady supply going out our farm gates. Last year, we donated just shy of 7,500 pounds of produce to Inter-Faith Food Shuttle.
Diversity of donations: Would you want to eat only one thing for every meal? Definitely not! We focus on growing a wide variety of crops, not only for the ecological benefits, but because a varied diet is a well-balanced diet. Last year, we donated 35 different types of produce (with multiple varieties within each type). We also donated or sold 52 different varieties of flowers and herbs.
Fundraising: In addition to growing for donation, we use our farm’s production as a fundraising tool for other organizations. Our flower farming is particularly important here because we can harvest intensively off of a relatively small area, and flowers sell for higher prices than food (we’ll save our feelings about how backwards this is for another time). Last year, we raised $6,500 for Passage Home through our wholesale flower sales. We raised an additional $2,000 through wholesale produce sales, for a combined total of $8,500.
Educational Impact:
We use our farm as a teaching tool, so we plant crops that have an educational benefit - for staff and visitors. This includes incorporating crops we’ve never tried before, and experimenting to learn more about this land and the climate. One metric we’re starting to track: how many new-to-us plants did we grow, and how did they do?
We are hosting workshops and events at our farm with more regularity, so a new metric we’re tracking for this year: how much produce (and what kind?) are we using for programming?
Site Specificity:
This may seem obvious, but it’s probably the most significant. Every single crop decision Jamie makes starts and ends with one question: “will that grow successfully here.” We know, for example, that blueberry plants really struggle in our soil. We know which beds are more prone to hold water, and which have been recently hit with a disease. We know which crops will be hearty enough to survive the temperature fluctuations of winter in our climate. And of course, space. Our farm, by conventional standards, is tiny. We currently cultivate cut flowers and vegetables on about 1 acre. So we’re weary of crops that require a great deal of space to produce a minimal harvest.
All of this goes into the final decision-making for Jamie’s crop plan. It’s the ultimate game of Tetris, and every year produces different results. Some years, our total weight donated is higher; some years, our dollar amount for fundraising is higher. Some years, both of those metrics are lower, but we score better in biodiversity, or see gains in our soil health tests.
It can be frustrating to farm like this if you’re focused on seeing linear progress. There’s no arrival point in farming sustainably; the goal posts are constantly moving and changing, and there are so many data inputs to consider (and they frequently contradict each other). For us, the data is useful in planning, but also confirms what we already know through experience. The true indicators are in the presence of bees sleeping in every flower when we walk through the flower beds in the morning; in the flavor and bright color of the butternut squash; in the sheer volume of lettuce that we harvest each spring; and in the joy elicited from a bouquet of flowers.
So here’s to another year of finding a successful balance on our farm, and here’s to the year to come!