Friends, this has been a very good season for us. We have grown a lot of food despite the drought, pest issues, and some plant disease. The beauty of growing at a small scale and a wide variety of crops lies in adaptability and resilience. This growing season we were pleased to always have something coming out of the gardens when other crops we had high expectations failed. That is precisely one of the big problems with industrial monoculture agriculture, including industrial organic agriculture. When all the eggs go in a single basket one problem is always a big problem. And big problems require big solutions, which in agricultural terms often involve the use of chemicals (herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, synthetic fertilizers, and more). This year we had lots of problems. For example, our eggplant crop got hit really badly by pest (very common, incidentally). Our strategy in the past has been planting the crop on a superhealthy soil and cover the plants until they start flowering. The principle behind this is that with a healthy soil and external protection when the plants are most vulnerable they build up a strong immune system to fight bug pressure and still produce good fruit. Well, that was not enough this year. Perhaps the soil was not as healthy as we thought or we had more insect pressure than we have had in the past. We had the choice of spraying the plants with an organically-approved pesticide or letting the bugs have it. We chose the latter. We could afford to lose the eggplant crop because we had other crops to make up for the loss. And that is what I mean adaptability and resilience. Some crops will do well when others fail but CSA boxes are not affected and your health is not compromised by the use of chemicals. And that is another reason why you should buy food from the small farmer in your community. Thanks for your support and blessings from the homestead.
Back to Farm Happenings at Saint Isidore Homestead and Permaculture
Adaptability and Resilience
About the farm
We are a small family farm located in Grottoes, Virginia, serving the city of Harrisonburg and the counties of Rockingham, Augusta, and Greene. We produce high-quality food using sustainable practices and ethical principles of care for the common good. Having witnessed the healing power of good food in dealing with family health issues, we started farming in 2015 in an effort to sharing with others the benefits of fresh, nutritionally-dense food, grown in a clean environment, using integrative agricultural methods. We believe that in order for food to be healthful, the environment in which it grows has to be healthy. To that end, we integrate animal and plant systems in ways that, in their natural interactions, they create an ecological balance leading to abundance and quality.
We grow over 50 different vegetable crops, perennial vegetables and fruits, and raise pastured pork, as well as ducks and chickens, for meat and eggs.
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We grow over 50 different vegetable crops, perennial vegetables and fruits, and raise pastured pork, as well as ducks and chickens, for meat and eggs.