Category: Technical

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Farming Software – Organic Farmer 4.0

Maintaining organic certification requires keeping complete, extensive and detailed records about all aspects of farm work, and requires keeping copies of receipts for all purchases of seeds, fertilizers, etc. Even market gardeners that do not seek organic certification must maintain extensive records to be compliant with food safety laws as codified in the FSMA. As I am an intrinsically disorganized person, I have created a relational database to facilitate keeping and maintaining the required records. The database is now on its third iteration of improvement. The beauty of the database is that it runs in the cloud on Airtable, which allows access by smartphone from the field, as well as via web browser from a laptop or desktop computer.

Annual recertification of an organic farm requires an inspection that typically takes two to three hours, with most of this time devoted to auditing farm records. During High & Dry Farm’s most recent certification inspection, Airtable allowed me to power through the audit, which was completed within one hour, with no significant issues reported.

We am now making this database system, Organic Farmer 4.0, available to farmers completely without charge. Sign up for a free Airtable account here. Once you have signed up, download a copy of the Organic Farmer 4.0 database to your Airtable account here. Detailed instructions for use of Organic Farmer 4.0 can be found here.

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Infrastructure

Making progress. The site has been leveled and forms put into place to pour a concrete foundation. Our trusty farm truck has hauled big loads of construction materials. The base and 4 walls for the walk-in cooler have been constructed and await assembling on the concrete foundation when it is complete.

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Farming Software – Organic Farmer 2.0

Maintaining organic certification requires keeping complete, extensive and detailed records about all aspects of farm work, and requires keeping copies of receipts for all purchases of seeds, fertilizers, etc. Even market gardeners that do not seek organic certification must maintain extensive records to be compliant with food safety laws as codified in the FSMA. As I am an intrinsically disorganized person, I have created a relational database to facilitate keeping and maintaining the required records. The beauty of the database is that it runs in the cloud on Airtable, which allows access by smartphone from the field, as well as via web browser from a laptop or desktop computer.

When High and Dry Farm recently received its initial inspection for organic certification, the inspector was blown away by the power of this system. A standard part of such inspections is for the inspector to point to a recent sale of a farm product, and demand that the farmer show records demonstrating that the product in question was indeed grown on the farm and was grown using organic methods. The inspector pointed to a sale of 10 lbs of fennel. Using the data base, within 60 seconds, I was able to show that the fennel in question was planted in the greenhouse, on a specific date, using seeds purchased on a specific date from Johnny’s Seeds, and the database provided an image of the seed package and of the purchase receipt. I showed records indicating that the plants were transplanted into Bed D of plot #2 on a specific date and harvested on a specific date, and I showed records indicating that the bed in question had been amended on a specific date with organic fertilizers, showing images of the receipts for the fertilizer purchases.

We am now making this database system, Organic Farmer 2.0, available to farmers completely without charge. Sign up for a free Airtable account here. Once you have signed up, download a copy of the Organic Farmer 2.0 database to your Airtable account here. Detailed instructions for use of Organic Farmer 2.0 can be found here.

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Our potting soil

For the third consecutive year, I have compared commercial potting soils with our homemade potting soil for growth of tomato starts. Once again, our homemade potting soil is hugely better than midprice potting soils sold at Lowes and Home Depot and slightly better than premium expensive brands such as Miracle-Gro.

Here are two sister tomato seedlings, one month after they were transplanted on the same day into our homemade potting soil on the left, and the commercial ‘Brand X’ potting soil on the right.

So without further fanfare, here is our recipe –

  • 5 gallons composted horse manure
  • 4 gallons peat moss
  • 1 gallon sand
  • 2 quarts perlite
  • 1 cup dolomite lime
  • 1 cup bone meal

All ingredients are passed through a 1/2″ steel mesh screen and thoroughly mixed.

The final product is completely free of objectionable odor.

The key here is the quality of the composed horse manure, which we make ourselves. Our horses stalls are bedded with a 50/50 mix of fir sawdust and fir shaving. Good barn management with frequent stall cleaning means that the manure and urine-soaked shavings are collected without too much mixing with fresh shavings. The collected manure is turned multiple times during the first 3 months of composting and then is stored for an additional 2 years before use.  The heat generated by composting, combined with the lengthy “aging” guarantees that the compost is virtually free of viable weed seeds (not to mention bacterial pathogens).

Some technical notes: composted manure is mildly acidic and peat moss is highly acidic, hence the addition of lime. The recipe yields a final pH of roughly 6. Various sources list the N/P/K content of composted horse manure at  values ranging from 0.3/0.2/0.5 to .7/.2/.7. The usual ratios recommended for growth of most plants range from 1/1/1 to 1/2/1 so achieving a suitable balance in the potting soil requires supplementation with phosphate, hence the addition of bone meal.  The recipe I use achieves a final NPK content of roughly .2/.15/.3.  For comparison, Miracle-Gro potting soil is 0.21/.011/0.16 so arguably my potting soil is substantially richer in phosphorous. On the other hand, all of the Miracle-Gro phosphorous is likely in the form of super-phosphate, which is fully available to plants, while only a small fraction of the phosphorous in bone meal is immediately available to plants as phosphate.