March 1, 2022 • 38 mins
In this episode, we talk with Don McNamara and Donna Rae Faulkner from Oceanside Farms in Homer Alaska. They raise a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, berries, and chickens, ducks and turkeys. They grow all of their produce and nine varieties of Alaska Certified Seed Potatoes without the use of synthetically based chemicals, pesticides, fungicides, or fertilizers. The farm serves their local market.
Don and Donna Rae practice Small Plot Intensive Farming (SPIN) and started out borrowing space in neighbor’s yard and selling their produce on surf boards places on saw horses. They now have land near a road for their farm stand and built 10 high tunnels with drip irrigation. They have an honesty box at the farm stand and also sell to the local market through the Alaska Food Hub.
They have worked in Kodiak Island villages, which typically has expensive imported food available, to set up hydroponics and growing their own food. Donna Rae, “They’ve gone from in many cases no in community veg growing to producing quite a lot of food” some are old airport sites
They are enthusiastic about Korean Natural Farming, creating their own videos for others to learn from. “We want to be soil farmers as much as plant farmers”, says Don.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to season three of fresh growth podcast by
the Western ser program thatsustainable agriculture research
and education.
I'm your host, Steve Elliottalongside co-host Stacy Clary,
just for background Western serpromotes sustainable farming and
ranching the American westthrough research education and
communication efforts.
Like this podcast, it is fundedby the us department of
(00:27):
agriculture's national Instituteof food and agriculture, fresh
growth introduces producers andag professionals from around the
west who are embracing new waysof farming and ranching.
They'll tell us about theirexperiences adopting more
sustainable agriculturalpractice and challenges and
benefits.
They've seen.
Today's guests are Don McNamaraand Donna Ray Faulkner promotion
(00:49):
side farms in Homer, Alaska,Don, and Donna rays, a variety
of vegetables, fruits, berries,chicken ducks, and turkeys.
They grow all of their ownproduce and nine varieties of
Alaska certified seed potatoeswithout the use of ASIN based
chemicals, pesticides,fungicides, or fertilizers, the
farm serves their local market,Don and Donna.
Welcome.
And thanks for sitting down withus.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Thanks for having us.
This is a great honor to get togo with the podcast here with
fresh growth.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
So you're farming in Alaska and I'm not sure that
everyone can picture that.
Um, can you describe your for usand, and draw a picture of what
it's like there in Homer?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Well, let's take a look at where we are.
We're in south central Alaska,which is kind of the center of
the state of, as you canimagine, we're at latitude 59,
where two miles outside theHomer city limits.
And we're a quarter mile as theCrow fries from Kack bay on east
(01:49):
end road.
And we're eight miles from thekilter homestead and 240 road
miles from Anchorage.
That gives you an idea where weare.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
So you're living the, the dream.
What, uh, what prompted you andDonna Ray to, to get into that
dream at and begin farming?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So Donna Ray, a four HR as she was a child, 15 years
of a biology teacher on thewrong coast and myself, a 40
year carpenter here in Alaska,signed its up for the master
gardener class with acooperative extension service,
which entered a us to the NRCSprogram, equip, um, cashier for
(02:34):
high tunnels.
And, um, so with the mastergardener class, we learned that
if you feed the plants, theyreally respond and it's super
fun to grow'em.
So we had an overabundance afterwe took the farm cut and started
growing.
And so then we take the extrafarm crops to our local farmer's
(02:59):
market and we'd set up oursurfboards on some saw horses
and sell our vegetables off ofour surf horse surfboards and
with Wally and Curtis's helpsoon, we were spin farming,
small plot intensive.
And so what that is is youborrow your neighbor's front
yard yard and you put vegetablesin their yard too.
(03:21):
And so by the time we had fouryards tied up, we knew we needed
a larger property.
And so we started lookingaround, we didn't find anything
for sale.
We knew we needed to be on themain road, so we could have a
farm stand.
And Don Ray went to work atthat.
She went to the local boroughparcel lookup and started
(03:43):
mailing out letters to differentfolks to see if they would sell
us their properties.
We needed at least two acres.
We got two responses and thatled us to the east end road
property.
And the owner said she wouldmake our farm dream come true.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
When was that?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
That was in 2014 and we got to buy the place in 2015.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
And how long had you been doing farming in your, your
neighbor's front yards beforethat?
How many seasons?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Uh, 2011 is when we first got our first tunnel.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Okay.
And go ahead.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
It was, uh, pretty good.
It was a two, a, uh, quarter ACparcel on the ocean, hence the
Oceanside farms.
And so the NRCS equip program,the size of the tunnel is 2100
square feet.
So we broke it into threedifferent tunnels and just
filled up the whole yard all theway around the house.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
And, and talk about what Oceanside farms looks like.
Now.
I have been there and I haveseen the bay from, from your
farm.
Um, how many high tunnels and,and what do you have going on?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So I say with like a small scale intensive with 10
high tunnels, we're using dripirrigation in the tunnels.
We're getting a little bit olderas you could tell.
And so we're lots of perennials.
There's just two of us.
We do try and get some help.
First during the summer, we havegreat people that come and
(05:13):
volunteer and then we fix'em upwith some vegetables and that
kind of stuff whatever's needed.
If someone else is looking for afarm dream, we would be glad to
ha get some help in the future.
So you can look us up.
Um, we, in the tunnels, we'redoing one tunnel is all tomatoes
and peppers and Toma Teos.
(05:34):
That's about 2000 square feetand another tunnel.
We're doing 2000 square feet ofcucumbers, peas, beans squash.
We're doing 6,000 square feet ofasparagus and grapes, three
variety of hot in anothertunnel, 600 square feet of herbs
in another tunnel.
We do lots of vegetables insideand out.
(05:56):
Garlic, carrots, lettuce,spinach, all the coal crops,
broccoli, cauliflower, brusselsprouts, and kale.
We do winter and summer squashesinside and out.
And we scatter onions justthroughout the place.
Everybody likes onions.
So six sessions of quick cropswould be turn ups, rub, and
(06:18):
lettuce and spinach and babykale.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
And is this for all just local farmers markets?
Or do you serve the restaurants?
What's who are you selling to?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah.
And so we are selling on theAlaska food hub.
So, um, we tell the food hub,what we have on Friday.
They sell it over the weekend.
They quit selling on Mondaynight at 10 o'clock.
They give us a pick list onTuesday and we deliver on
Wednesday.
So that works out pretty goodfor us.
Everything is pre-sold so youcan't go wrong there.
Yeah.
(06:51):
Uh, a lot less labor.
So we have a farm stand on themain road.
And so most of our produce goesthrough the farm stand it's, uh,
honesty box sitting there and itworked quite well for us, even
through the pandemic it's been,uh, put right along and yeah.
Doing what it does best.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Can you explain to me a little bit more about, uh, the
lack of food hub?
Uh, I mean, I, I understand, um,they're actually the ones that
are distributing the food, butwho are their cuts?
Um, how does that work for asmall, uh, operation like yours
to work with the food hub?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Let's see.
So they charge us$40 to sell onthe food hub.
And so it is over the computer.
And so the people go online andorder up the vegetables that the
farmers post.
And there's probably 10 there,15 farmers that have joined
together to do the food hub.
(07:50):
And so it's quite, it's reallypretty fun because that's the
only time you get to see theother farmers.
We're all working so hard on ourfarms.
We never get to socialize.
So it's a big social event whenwe're bringing our vegetables
in.
We, we deliver between 11 andone o'clock on Wednesday, and
then they hand the produce outbetween three and six o'clock.
(08:13):
Um, they do drive 90 miles upthe road to Soldotna with during
the summer months and they dofly it to salvia.
And so the Soldo people canorder from Homer also
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Very, you've talked with us a little bit before we
got started, um, different someof the different practices you
use.
Um, that's part of all thatphilosophy.
Can you just start telling us,uh, what that looks like?
What, what, what are you doingon the farm that, uh, makes you
feel good about how you grow thefood and what it does for the
(08:50):
land?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
So we're grown with organic methods using on-farm
compost as our main fertilizer.
We're gathering some of theinputs off the farm, IE beer,
grains, kelp fish, and sawdustand leaves and all, everything
else comes from the farm rightnow, we have about 35 tons of or
(09:15):
yards, I guess.
Why should you say yard?
Because it's so light of compostworking, we grow lots of com
free and add it to our compostand make compost tea with it.
Um, it's high in potassium.
And so it's better than greensand as a implement to your
farming fertilizer, a few morethings on the farm.
(09:40):
We have two more sites off offarm, our apple orchards.
There's 80 trees total there,and we have a hundred apple
trees on the farm with thevarieties of seed potatoes.
We, we do crop rotation.
And so in, in the, in betweenyears, once every three years,
we play at potatoes.
So we have to have two otherhalf acre parcels ready to go.
(10:02):
And so we do a cover cropcocktail on those other half
acres in between potato time.
Um, we do, we're set up for 25lane chickens, 50 to a hundred
meat birds in tractors, and alsofresh Thanksgiving turkeys
pasture raised.
Of course we grow redraspberries, golden raspberries,
(10:25):
purple raspberries, black andred currents, gooseberries, CTCA
, strawberries, seascapes,strawberries, hash cap, and
Arona berries, seven varietiesof blueberries.
And we propagate most of thesefor armed farm sales in the
spring time.
And so on that note, it makes metired just thinking about all
(10:45):
that.
So
Speaker 1 (10:47):
I was just gonna ask, I mean, 40 years a carpenter,
how did you learn to do this?
And how do you still learn withother farmers there in Homer
and, and elsewhere?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, so we do lots of YouTube.
And so we love stone.
Like we talked about earlier and, um, Richard Perkins is over in
Sweden at latitude 59.
Also, we got to bump into TimMeyer.
He's out in Bethel.
He's awesome.
Also at latitude 59.
And so we are doing all this funstuff on the farm and the Cali
(11:22):
folks, which is the co KodiakACO leader Institute were doing
a tour of farms around the Kenaipeninsula.
And so they came to our farm and, um, they stayed longer than
they had planned.
And we've been with them forfive years as a mentor on their
farms.
And you cannot believe freshproduce in the villages of
(11:43):
Kodiak island.
It's 50 cents a pound just toget it from the city of Kodiak
to the village.
If you were buying some foodfrom Safeway, you can imagine
the cost savings and just, theycan use up all their cardboard
boxes in the compost pile.
And yeah, it's nothing but goodthings for the small villages to
(12:05):
get fresh produce.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
That's gotta feel good for, for you guys too, to
have been part of helping thathappen.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah.
To see it happen is just totallyamazing.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Many of those villages don't even have, uh,
their own store.
And, um, now since the beginningof their project here, which was
about five years ago, they'venow gotten two high tunnels in
each of those villages and theyhave some soil farm space and
are, um, doing hydroponics aswell.
(12:38):
And they're, some of them aregonna be expanding into doing a
little bit of kelp farming too.
And we've been along with themsince the beginning.
And so we've taught classes, um,at a central location sort of in
Kodiak city where people willfly in because they only have,
uh, flying or boating abilitiesfrom most of those sites.
(12:58):
Um, they'd fly in for classes orthey'd come to our farm and
butcher chickens learn tobutcher chickens or to grow
things.
Um, and we would go to theirsites and help out Don's skills
as a carpenter and contractorcame in handy as we helped to
survey in some cases where thehigh tunnels were gonna go and
making them level and that sortof thing.
(13:20):
Um, but they've gone from inmany cases, really no, um, in
community vegetable, growing tohave producing quite a lot of
food and even being able to sendit into Kodiak city, as sales at
their farmer's market.
Um, we have an Alaska grown logothat a lot of farmers use up
(13:41):
here.
Well, they've created one,that's gonna be antic grown
logo.
That's coming out, which we'rereally excited about.
Um, but they're doing fantasticthings and spaces that are now
farms for each community wereonce a, um, old airport sites or
, um, forested areas that, wherethey took a little bit of the
(14:02):
forest down to create a farm and, um, have some sunshine to do
that with.
It's amazing.
Um, how fantastic they're alldoing growing over there.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
That sounds like something to see.
I'll have to get out there.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Another thing you've sounded kind of excited about
when we've talked is, uh, theyouth, the Korean natural
farming, is that something youcan describe for us?
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Um, the basic idea of Korean natural farming in my
view is that it's all about theplant getting it's food and it's
nutrients from the soil foodweb.
And so real.
We wanna be soil farmers as muchas we wanna be plant farmers.
If you feed the soil, that'swhat feeds the plants.
(14:51):
So what happens is a lot of theplants will grow.
They will send down food to themicrobes down along their root
zone.
And then you get a lot ofbacteria and Funguses and other
small microbes, um, and insectsand things, um, right near the
roots of the plants and thoseanimals.
(15:12):
When they're down there, thoselittle microbes are gonna be
eating and pooping and doing allof their things, eating each
other and breaking down rocksand minerals and making it into
a plant soluble form.
So if you feed those microbes,they'll feed those plants for
you.
And you can start with microbesthat are in your native
environment by culturing them.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And so with the Korean natural farming with the
YouTube, we were listening toDan Kittridge, he has
Bionutrient food association.
He is the coolest guy.
He, they, a bunch of people gottogether, not just him, but he
pretty cool.
Um, again, so if you can pointsomething at a elephant jury and
(15:59):
know what it's made of, you canmost certainly go in the grocery
store and point it at a carrotand know what it's made of.
And so that's where garden is,is heading.
And, um, farms in general,you're gonna have to grow really
nutrient dense food, or you arenot gonna be able compete in the
market.
So that's how we bumped intoKorean natural farming.
(16:21):
Dan Kitter had said, oh, you canlook at Korean natural farming.
And that's a big rabbit hole togo down, but we did go down that
rabbit hole and it makes perfectsense.
So the latest things on the farm, we did a airlift brewer for a
compost tea maker.
So it kind of air goes in low inthe brewer and picks the water
(16:42):
up and throws it in the top.
And so it's coming out thebottom and making a circulation
kind of like a Creek would do.
So you're getting a lot of airin the compost and good
circulation, no dead spots inthe compost tea.
And then, um, we did a gas pumpsprayer for spreading it out on
all the crops.
You know, the plants can eatthrough the leaves.
(17:04):
So stoma opens up early in themorning and you can feed'em that
way and lay in the evening.
Also you can feed'em throughtheir leaves.
So spraying compost tees on topof the plant is a really good
way to add nutrients and whatdoesn't go on.
The plants drops and feeds thesoil biology.
(17:25):
So as you're feeding the soilbiology, that's feeding the
roots of the plants also.
And by growing all thismicrobiology, you're having
better water retention too.
So people in a dry eye climate,if you can build your soil by
growing bacteria and fungi,you're gonna have a lot less
water usage and a lot morecushion between waterings before
(17:50):
the plants go completely dry.
So in the Korean naturalfarming, they have a bunch of
recipes you can do so you cangrow lactobacillus bacteria and
that, uh, beneficial bacteriathat helps keep the bad guys in
order or the bad bacteria to asmaller scale.
(18:11):
And they're super hungry.
So they don't live very long.
So you have to add those overand over.
They're doing kind of, um,small.
So the Korean natural farmingsfor like third world countries
where people don't have a lot ofmoney and that's mostly farmers
don't have a lot of money tospend on for, and those kind of
things.
And so they're doing like nosmell pigs with the LTO basils,
(18:36):
they do kind of like a Hoelculture underneath the pig pen
and all that wood and compostand leafy debris sucks up all
the moisture from the pigs andthe microbiology down there just
eats it up.
They did sensors underneath thelogs in the Hoel culture, and no
water was getting through fromthe pig pens.
(18:57):
And once again, once the bigcattle lots and all those figure
out that they can do the samedesign and get rid of all that
water where they don't have tohave those big lakes of sewage
on their property and then worryabout getting rid of it and the
smell, oh man, it's gonna be awhole different story.
It's gonna be like heaven onearth.
(19:18):
Hmm.
So some of the other things thatyou can build with the Korean
natural farming, um, you couldtake like the comfy plant and
tear it into, you know,something like you would eat a
lettuce, a salad, and add it toabout one third of one, half
weight, um, brown sugar.
(19:40):
And then the brown sugar sucks.
The moisture outta the comfy orwhatever plant you're using.
Just wanna use one plant at atime.
And now you have a, the exudatesfrom the comfy that normally
would be going down to feed theroots.
Now you have it in a captured,in a jar and you can feed it to
the plants as you feel fit.
(20:01):
And so it turns the farm from,uh, monoculture into a
permaculture because the plantdoesn't know where that comfy
exudates came from.
It thinks there's a comfy plantright next door.
So that's, that's super coolthat you're feeding all the
microbiology instead of theplant having to feed the
microbiology for itself.
(20:22):
So Elaine Ingham has beenstudying this for her whole
career, how the plants putexudates into the ground and
feed the microbiology.
So I would say if there's anychildren out there in middle
school or in high school startstudying microbiology, and they
(20:44):
only know what 5% of theorganisms are in the soil, a
teaspoon and soil has a fewbillion creatures in it.
And we only know what 5% are,and we don't have a clue how the
all relationship is alltogether.
All we know is there's morecooperation than competition in
(21:04):
the soil.
They're all working together.
They've learned that over themillions and millions of
generations, they don't live solong.
So, you know, two days might be10 or 20, 30 generations of
microorganisms.
Um, so a couple of inputs thatyou can make really easy with
(21:24):
the pre and natural farming, asyou can make calcium out of egg
shells.
So I don't know if we have timeto go into all that, but you can
make, um, phosphate out of cowbones and pig bones as another
fertilizer.
And then with the naturalfarming, they've got kind of a
recipe book and you add, youknow, eight ounces of no eight
(21:49):
millimeters of like calcium andeight millimeters of fermented
plant juice, which would be theexudates that we talked about
from the comfy.
And you could do the same thingwith fruits to make a, a fruit
fermented fruit juice.
So as you're fermenting, thatchanges the property of the
(22:10):
materials and it makes it moreplant soluble, which is super
cool.
And so the guy that we've beenstudying with is Drake, and he
is@purekandf.org.
He's super knowledgeable.
He's been doing this since 2008.
He's made multi old trips toKorea to study with match Cho,
(22:35):
who is the guy who kind of putthe whole thing together.
But if you read master Cho'sbook, uh, it's a little bit hard
to read.
His English is not translated sowell.
And so, uh, it's easier to readwhat Drake is doing on the big
island there on the Hilo side,
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I've heard of really inspiring presentations about
the connection between soil and,and human health.
Have you received feedback fromyour customers either on the
incredible taste of yourproduce, or if they themselves
feel healthier after startingto, to eat what you grow,
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I'm gonna say our customers really do rave about
our vegetables to us, and we getlots of feedback.
We get little notes in thehonesty box there saying what a
wonderful thing that's going onhere at Oceanside farms and
especially our eggs and our duckeggs, that they are really
(23:41):
outstanding.
Just the color of the yolks andthe fluffiness of the whites.
Um, one other thing about theKorean natural farming, one of
their main inputs is indigenousmicroorganisms.
So you go out in the woods byyour house and you put some rice
out in a Cedar box.
And in a few days to two weeks,it turns into a white cotton
(24:05):
candy looking thing.
And you bring that in.
And once again, you mix it withbrown sugar and, um, kind of get
those organisms, the fungi to godormant.
And then you put those in yourcompost pile and it's the
funniest thing ever.
We've been composting ever sincewe took the master gardener
class in 2011 and this compostpile came out furry.
(24:29):
I don't know if you've ever seena furry compost pile, but the
fungi ratio to bacterial ratiohad to be out of this world.
And you composted a couple moretimes to just keep building
those indigenous microorganisms.
And the reason you get into IOUsmicroorganisms rather than going
(24:49):
down to the local growersnursery, um, those Michael Rold
could have come from Washingtonor California somewhere with a
different climate.
And so they might come up hereand say, yeah, I'm going back.
So,
Speaker 1 (25:08):
So I always get to ask this question and I don't
know why she makes me ask it,but what have you done that
didn't work?
And what did you learn from it?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
So we took the master gardener class with the
cooperative extension serviceand we learned how to make
compost.
And so we lived down at thebeach there.
And so I just walk over the edgeof the bluff and haul back some
kelp and whatever I could finddown on the beach for
ingredients, for the compostpile and the master gardener
(25:38):
class just do'em in four inchlips.
So we'd add some seaweed andthen we'd add some cardboard and
then we'd add some leaves andthen some more green matter from
the garden and then somenewspaper up.
So we added four inches ofnewspaper torn up.
Then we had a paper mache,compost pile.
It took, it took about three orfour years for that compost to
(26:01):
get broken back down intosomething that the microbes
could eat.
But that was one thing thatdidn't work.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
So it wasn't fake news.
It was just, you know,non-edible news.
I,
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah.
So I would say, uh, everythingin moderation.
So put your newspaper on, in alittle smaller layers.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Very good.
And then what other, what advicewould you have for young
growers, somebody who wanted toget into this, um, and, and make
it successful other and workridiculous number of hours,
which it sounds like you guysdo.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah.
So I would say start out alittle small with maybe one or
two front yards and just getwell at growing.
And then if you still likegrowing, then you would pursue
some property.
And I would say plant some appletrees, as soon as you have
control of the property and somemore perennials berries and
(27:05):
those kind of things that don'ttake too much work, but you get
a lot of growth from them.
And that generates quite a bitof sales.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
That's good advice.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
I guess, following up on that, you, you are working a
lot of hours.
You have a very, very largediversity of things that you
grow, and that has to be hardwork.
You called it living the dreamand you seem to be enjoying
yourself.
So for someone who's startingout and looking at those hours
and the amount of work is it,what is a passion behind it that
(27:44):
keeps you going, that theyshould see that they have?
Speaker 2 (27:51):
So I think if you're doing intensive small scale
farming, you've got to enjoywhat you're doing and then it's
all play.
And you don't really think of itas work.
The time just flies by, from thetime we're up in the morning, to
the time we pass out at night,we're going like crazy doing
things today were smokingchickens.
And that's just another storythat's out of this world tasty.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
So I, I think one of the things that I would say is
that, uh, one of the good thingsand the downfalls of us as a
married couple is that we bothget excited and curious about
lots of different things withfarming.
And we're both foodies.
We love good food and that wereally worry about the United
States, uh, nutrition and foodprograms and the food that's
(28:40):
being produced here in all sortsof ways.
So we believe in local, nonpesticide foods and things like
that.
So some basic nutrition things,um, but we both get excited and
we keep upping the ante all thetime.
And so that's not necessarily agood quality about the two of
us.
We thought it was, but each ofus gets excited about something
(29:01):
new and thens boosts up whatwe're doing.
So instead of cutting back onthings at times, um, we have
constantly been building up indifferent directions.
And I think I'm hoping thatwe're gonna be kind of honing in
on what we really wanna do andmaybe cutting back on some of
the different crops or, um,activities that we do and
focusing more on other ones thatmight be easier for us as we get
(29:24):
a little bit older.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And so I would just add to that, that do lots of
perennials and they don't takeas much to time and effort as
like say lettuce and carrots andquick crops.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Yeah.
We use a lot of typa on theground cut out or burned out
holes and things so that we canavoid some of the weeding.
And then hopefully with theKorean natural farming ferments,
we can still build the soilbiology very well in those areas
too, when we aren't, um,rotating or cover cropping.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
One thing that we've learned is bacteria like acidic
soil and fun guy likes
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Little
Speaker 4 (30:06):
More alkaline.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yeah.
A little bit more
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Basic soils.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Neutral.
Yes.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
And so
Speaker 2 (30:12):
By building your biology and your soil, you're
really making it, so it's ahostile place for weeds to grow.
And so you're really gonna takecare of your weed problem with
your soil building.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Do you have, do you have insect pest problems in
your high tunnels and how do youdeal with those?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So I would say our worst culprit is a spider mite.
And so we rinse'em with, uh,soap and water.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
And then we can't forget our friends, the ducks.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Oh yeah.
We do have a slug problem, butour friends, our friends, the
ducks have a slug problem too.
They can't get enough of'em
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Sounds like more of a slug problem than a, uh, the
slugs have a duck problem.
Not the other way around.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Our ducks are on quack.
We should talk about one morething.
If you have time still, I'm sureyou'll edit through all this
stuff and make something that'scoherent.
But, um, the Johnson, Suebioreactor, another another
thing we got off of YouTube andit seemed to be pretty
spectacular from thedocumentation that Dr.
(31:25):
Johnson has.
So he made one bioreactor, hegot a grant to take care of Kapu
.
And so he, he was trying tocompost Kapu and he was
shoveling it.
And he would come home withdirty clothes and said, his wife
got tired of doing dirty clothesin the laundry.
And so she kind of drew up ashe's an engineer.
Also, she, she drew up avertical, a compost pile that
(31:49):
nowhere in the pile is furtherthan one foot from outside air.
So you have pipe holes in thecenter of the compost.
It's about 42 inch diameter.
It fits on a pallet.
So you can pick it up with thetractor and move it around so
you can build it in one spot andthen move it somewhere for
storage.
It takes a year to make, but thefungal growth in, in there is
just about perfect for yourgarden scenario.
(32:12):
Um, it's about five or six feettall, however tall you can get
to, uh, still load it.
It, you need to load it in liketwo days, because it goes
through the thermal process inabout a week.
So it goes right up to 150degrees and then tools write
down and then just sits therefor a whole year, turning into
fungus.
(32:33):
Um, it's two pounds per acre ina fo spray.
And you're probably making 400pounds in the bioreactor.
If you can picture that, look itup on the internet and you'll
see it.
And you'll say, oh wow, that isgonna change the future.
So that dense of fungal mass ina compost pile is pretty darn
(32:54):
good.
That's where the Korean naturalfarming is going to building
fungal compost.
I just check, check the compostpile.
Like I told you, the snow stuckon the ground, the compost pile
is a hundred degrees sittingoutside.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
What's he, what's he load that reactor with, I mean,
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Um, so he was doing Kapu and I'm not sure what else
he did.
So then the, after 10 years hedid it again.
And then he compared thefinished product and they were
almost identical.
And the second time he was usingleaves out of his yard.
Okay.
And garden debris, so leaves andgarden debris, you kind of get
it all wet to the moisturecontent that you like when you
(33:35):
load it into the reactor.
And then you have pipes in themiddle and you pull out after a
couple days, and then it juststays as a whole shaped all the
way through.
And the pallet underneath givesit air from the bottom.
And so it really works prettydarn good.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Send Stacy link sends Stacylinks to these things and she
can put'em, you know, on thesites where, where the pot is.
If, if they've got a littledescription, we can include
links so people can see andvisualize and, and learn more
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Sure I'm with you, Steve.
I was just thinking the samething, uh, with COVID being, as
it's been over the last coupleyears here now, um, we were
unable to do in person classesin Kodi for some of this time
for the farmers over there.
So we ended up creating a littleYouTube channel, not really to
be YouTubers, but to shareinformation easily that they
(34:32):
could access on the internet.
And so Don did a really nice, uh, video on building our Johnson.
So bio reactor and all theinputs to that.
So that's a really good link.
It's um, a semi-professionalYouTube, uh, video, but, uh,
that might be a good link forpeople.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Right.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
As you can tell by now, she's the smart one.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Oh, now
Speaker 1 (34:58):
One, one thing I found interesting is, is as you
kept mentioning people you'relearning from on YouTube,
they're all same latitude.
You know, that it, it'sinteresting to think of farming,
you know, that banded, but inAlaska you would be,
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, it's good for, uh, our micro climate kind of a
thing too.
They're a little bit warmer inSweden, but we're all doing the
same thing.
The small scale, super intenseof farms, trying to earn a
living off a couple acres.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
Yeah.
Alaska, you know, you're farapart from everybody when you're
in Alaska, from different peopleor farmers, even around the
world.
And so to find people at yourlatitude, they may have some
similar, um, issues and havesome different ideas and be able
to kind of bounce some ideas offof them or at least listen to
their YouTubes or whatnot isreally pretty helpful.
(35:49):
And even across the state ofAlaska,
Speaker 1 (35:53):
I can, yeah.
I can see that.
I just it's, it's interesting tothink of if farming a farming
community, you know, that, thatcircles the world all at one
latitude
Speaker 4 (36:02):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah.
That way we know it grows here.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
Yeah.
We've learned quite a lot fromRichard Perkins in Sweden and he
has some good he's.
He does regenerative farming aswell.
And so it's really greatresource if you haven't looked
to him up before.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Oh, we have another good story.
We're wondering about whatfailed
Speaker 1 (36:24):
In your
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Farming practices.
We planted 500 strawberries, 450of them died.
The 50 that live.
We have propagated them.
And now we have strawberrieseverywhere that grow in our
climate.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
So you just had to, you just had to weed out the
weak ones, you
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Know, weed just had to weed out the ones that didn't
wanna be here.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
That's right.
The non Alaska strawberries.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah.
When you were going through yourlist of berries, it was like,
okay, I'm hungry.
I'm hungry.
I'm hungry.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Yeah.
I haven't had lunch yet.
And you kept talking about foodand like smoke chickens and
berries and
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Baby carrot,
Speaker 3 (37:05):
All that baby carrots and duck eggs.
Yeah.
I gotta go get lunch.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Farmers, farmers eat well.
That's for sure.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Well, you, you have what sounds like an amazing
place.
I would love to come back up toHomer and if I I'm in the area,
I would love to stop by becauseeverything that you've talked
about and just the picture I'mgetting in my head of, of your
operation and your land and theducks and then the chickens, it
just, it sounds wonderful.
You've you've built somethingpretty special up there.
(37:36):
Thanks for sharing with us.
Well, thanks Don.
And Don Ray.
It was wonderful talking withyou and learning about
everything and appreciate yourtime.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Thank you too.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Thank you
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Very much.
Thank you.
This is great.
It was fun.
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Glad you're spreading the news.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah.
Thanks for working with us.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
Thank
Speaker 2 (37:55):
You.
Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Thanks guys.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
Thank you.
Bye
Speaker 5 (38:03):
You for listening to fresh growth.
We hope you enjoy this episodefor more information on
westerner grounds and ourlearning resources visit
westerner.org.
Welcome to season three of fresh growth podcast by
the Western ser program thatsustainable agriculture research
and education.
I'm your host, Steve Elliottalongside co-host Stacy Clary,
just for background Western serpromotes sustainable farming and
ranching the American westthrough research education and
communication efforts.
Like this podcast, it is fundedby the us department of
(00:27):
agriculture's national Instituteof food and agriculture, fresh
growth introduces producers andag professionals from around the
west who are embracing new waysof farming and ranching.
They'll tell us about theirexperiences adopting more
sustainable agriculturalpractice and challenges and
benefits.
They've seen.
Today's guests are Don McNamaraand Donna Ray Faulkner promotion
(00:49):
side farms in Homer, Alaska,Don, and Donna rays, a variety
of vegetables, fruits, berries,chicken ducks, and turkeys.
They grow all of their ownproduce and nine varieties of
Alaska certified seed potatoeswithout the use of ASIN based
chemicals, pesticides,fungicides, or fertilizers, the
farm serves their local market,Don and Donna.
Welcome.
And thanks for sitting down withus.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Thanks for having us.
This is a great honor to get togo with the podcast here with
fresh growth.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
So you're farming in Alaska and I'm not sure that
everyone can picture that.
Um, can you describe your for usand, and draw a picture of what
it's like there in Homer?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Well, let's take a look at where we are.
We're in south central Alaska,which is kind of the center of
the state of, as you canimagine, we're at latitude 59,
where two miles outside theHomer city limits.
And we're a quarter mile as theCrow fries from Kack bay on east
(01:49):
end road.
And we're eight miles from thekilter homestead and 240 road
miles from Anchorage.
That gives you an idea where weare.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
So you're living the, the dream.
What, uh, what prompted you andDonna Ray to, to get into that
dream at and begin farming?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So Donna Ray, a four HR as she was a child, 15 years
of a biology teacher on thewrong coast and myself, a 40
year carpenter here in Alaska,signed its up for the master
gardener class with acooperative extension service,
which entered a us to the NRCSprogram, equip, um, cashier for
(02:34):
high tunnels.
And, um, so with the mastergardener class, we learned that
if you feed the plants, theyreally respond and it's super
fun to grow'em.
So we had an overabundance afterwe took the farm cut and started
growing.
And so then we take the extrafarm crops to our local farmer's
(02:59):
market and we'd set up oursurfboards on some saw horses
and sell our vegetables off ofour surf horse surfboards and
with Wally and Curtis's helpsoon, we were spin farming,
small plot intensive.
And so what that is is youborrow your neighbor's front
yard yard and you put vegetablesin their yard too.
(03:21):
And so by the time we had fouryards tied up, we knew we needed
a larger property.
And so we started lookingaround, we didn't find anything
for sale.
We knew we needed to be on themain road, so we could have a
farm stand.
And Don Ray went to work atthat.
She went to the local boroughparcel lookup and started
(03:43):
mailing out letters to differentfolks to see if they would sell
us their properties.
We needed at least two acres.
We got two responses and thatled us to the east end road
property.
And the owner said she wouldmake our farm dream come true.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
When was that?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
That was in 2014 and we got to buy the place in 2015.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
And how long had you been doing farming in your, your
neighbor's front yards beforethat?
How many seasons?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Uh, 2011 is when we first got our first tunnel.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Okay.
And go ahead.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
It was, uh, pretty good.
It was a two, a, uh, quarter ACparcel on the ocean, hence the
Oceanside farms.
And so the NRCS equip program,the size of the tunnel is 2100
square feet.
So we broke it into threedifferent tunnels and just
filled up the whole yard all theway around the house.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
And, and talk about what Oceanside farms looks like.
Now.
I have been there and I haveseen the bay from, from your
farm.
Um, how many high tunnels and,and what do you have going on?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So I say with like a small scale intensive with 10
high tunnels, we're using dripirrigation in the tunnels.
We're getting a little bit olderas you could tell.
And so we're lots of perennials.
There's just two of us.
We do try and get some help.
First during the summer, we havegreat people that come and
(05:13):
volunteer and then we fix'em upwith some vegetables and that
kind of stuff whatever's needed.
If someone else is looking for afarm dream, we would be glad to
ha get some help in the future.
So you can look us up.
Um, we, in the tunnels, we'redoing one tunnel is all tomatoes
and peppers and Toma Teos.
(05:34):
That's about 2000 square feetand another tunnel.
We're doing 2000 square feet ofcucumbers, peas, beans squash.
We're doing 6,000 square feet ofasparagus and grapes, three
variety of hot in anothertunnel, 600 square feet of herbs
in another tunnel.
We do lots of vegetables insideand out.
(05:56):
Garlic, carrots, lettuce,spinach, all the coal crops,
broccoli, cauliflower, brusselsprouts, and kale.
We do winter and summer squashesinside and out.
And we scatter onions justthroughout the place.
Everybody likes onions.
So six sessions of quick cropswould be turn ups, rub, and
(06:18):
lettuce and spinach and babykale.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
And is this for all just local farmers markets?
Or do you serve the restaurants?
What's who are you selling to?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah.
And so we are selling on theAlaska food hub.
So, um, we tell the food hub,what we have on Friday.
They sell it over the weekend.
They quit selling on Mondaynight at 10 o'clock.
They give us a pick list onTuesday and we deliver on
Wednesday.
So that works out pretty goodfor us.
Everything is pre-sold so youcan't go wrong there.
Yeah.
(06:51):
Uh, a lot less labor.
So we have a farm stand on themain road.
And so most of our produce goesthrough the farm stand it's, uh,
honesty box sitting there and itworked quite well for us, even
through the pandemic it's been,uh, put right along and yeah.
Doing what it does best.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Can you explain to me a little bit more about, uh, the
lack of food hub?
Uh, I mean, I, I understand, um,they're actually the ones that
are distributing the food, butwho are their cuts?
Um, how does that work for asmall, uh, operation like yours
to work with the food hub?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Let's see.
So they charge us$40 to sell onthe food hub.
And so it is over the computer.
And so the people go online andorder up the vegetables that the
farmers post.
And there's probably 10 there,15 farmers that have joined
together to do the food hub.
(07:50):
And so it's quite, it's reallypretty fun because that's the
only time you get to see theother farmers.
We're all working so hard on ourfarms.
We never get to socialize.
So it's a big social event whenwe're bringing our vegetables
in.
We, we deliver between 11 andone o'clock on Wednesday, and
then they hand the produce outbetween three and six o'clock.
(08:13):
Um, they do drive 90 miles upthe road to Soldotna with during
the summer months and they dofly it to salvia.
And so the Soldo people canorder from Homer also
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Very, you've talked with us a little bit before we
got started, um, different someof the different practices you
use.
Um, that's part of all thatphilosophy.
Can you just start telling us,uh, what that looks like?
What, what, what are you doingon the farm that, uh, makes you
feel good about how you grow thefood and what it does for the
(08:50):
land?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
So we're grown with organic methods using on-farm
compost as our main fertilizer.
We're gathering some of theinputs off the farm, IE beer,
grains, kelp fish, and sawdustand leaves and all, everything
else comes from the farm rightnow, we have about 35 tons of or
(09:15):
yards, I guess.
Why should you say yard?
Because it's so light of compostworking, we grow lots of com
free and add it to our compostand make compost tea with it.
Um, it's high in potassium.
And so it's better than greensand as a implement to your
farming fertilizer, a few morethings on the farm.
(09:40):
We have two more sites off offarm, our apple orchards.
There's 80 trees total there,and we have a hundred apple
trees on the farm with thevarieties of seed potatoes.
We, we do crop rotation.
And so in, in the, in betweenyears, once every three years,
we play at potatoes.
So we have to have two otherhalf acre parcels ready to go.
(10:02):
And so we do a cover cropcocktail on those other half
acres in between potato time.
Um, we do, we're set up for 25lane chickens, 50 to a hundred
meat birds in tractors, and alsofresh Thanksgiving turkeys
pasture raised.
Of course we grow redraspberries, golden raspberries,
(10:25):
purple raspberries, black andred currents, gooseberries, CTCA
, strawberries, seascapes,strawberries, hash cap, and
Arona berries, seven varietiesof blueberries.
And we propagate most of thesefor armed farm sales in the
spring time.
And so on that note, it makes metired just thinking about all
(10:45):
that.
So
Speaker 1 (10:47):
I was just gonna ask, I mean, 40 years a carpenter,
how did you learn to do this?
And how do you still learn withother farmers there in Homer
and, and elsewhere?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, so we do lots of YouTube.
And so we love stone.
Like we talked about earlier and, um, Richard Perkins is over in
Sweden at latitude 59.
Also, we got to bump into TimMeyer.
He's out in Bethel.
He's awesome.
Also at latitude 59.
And so we are doing all this funstuff on the farm and the Cali
(11:22):
folks, which is the co KodiakACO leader Institute were doing
a tour of farms around the Kenaipeninsula.
And so they came to our farm and, um, they stayed longer than
they had planned.
And we've been with them forfive years as a mentor on their
farms.
And you cannot believe freshproduce in the villages of
(11:43):
Kodiak island.
It's 50 cents a pound just toget it from the city of Kodiak
to the village.
If you were buying some foodfrom Safeway, you can imagine
the cost savings and just, theycan use up all their cardboard
boxes in the compost pile.
And yeah, it's nothing but goodthings for the small villages to
(12:05):
get fresh produce.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
That's gotta feel good for, for you guys too, to
have been part of helping thathappen.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah.
To see it happen is just totallyamazing.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Many of those villages don't even have, uh,
their own store.
And, um, now since the beginningof their project here, which was
about five years ago, they'venow gotten two high tunnels in
each of those villages and theyhave some soil farm space and
are, um, doing hydroponics aswell.
(12:38):
And they're, some of them aregonna be expanding into doing a
little bit of kelp farming too.
And we've been along with themsince the beginning.
And so we've taught classes, um,at a central location sort of in
Kodiak city where people willfly in because they only have,
uh, flying or boating abilitiesfrom most of those sites.
(12:58):
Um, they'd fly in for classes orthey'd come to our farm and
butcher chickens learn tobutcher chickens or to grow
things.
Um, and we would go to theirsites and help out Don's skills
as a carpenter and contractorcame in handy as we helped to
survey in some cases where thehigh tunnels were gonna go and
making them level and that sortof thing.
(13:20):
Um, but they've gone from inmany cases, really no, um, in
community vegetable, growing tohave producing quite a lot of
food and even being able to sendit into Kodiak city, as sales at
their farmer's market.
Um, we have an Alaska grown logothat a lot of farmers use up
(13:41):
here.
Well, they've created one,that's gonna be antic grown
logo.
That's coming out, which we'rereally excited about.
Um, but they're doing fantasticthings and spaces that are now
farms for each community wereonce a, um, old airport sites or
, um, forested areas that, wherethey took a little bit of the
(14:02):
forest down to create a farm and, um, have some sunshine to do
that with.
It's amazing.
Um, how fantastic they're alldoing growing over there.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
That sounds like something to see.
I'll have to get out there.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Another thing you've sounded kind of excited about
when we've talked is, uh, theyouth, the Korean natural
farming, is that something youcan describe for us?
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Um, the basic idea of Korean natural farming in my
view is that it's all about theplant getting it's food and it's
nutrients from the soil foodweb.
And so real.
We wanna be soil farmers as muchas we wanna be plant farmers.
If you feed the soil, that'swhat feeds the plants.
(14:51):
So what happens is a lot of theplants will grow.
They will send down food to themicrobes down along their root
zone.
And then you get a lot ofbacteria and Funguses and other
small microbes, um, and insectsand things, um, right near the
roots of the plants and thoseanimals.
(15:12):
When they're down there, thoselittle microbes are gonna be
eating and pooping and doing allof their things, eating each
other and breaking down rocksand minerals and making it into
a plant soluble form.
So if you feed those microbes,they'll feed those plants for
you.
And you can start with microbesthat are in your native
environment by culturing them.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And so with the Korean natural farming with the
YouTube, we were listening toDan Kittridge, he has
Bionutrient food association.
He is the coolest guy.
He, they, a bunch of people gottogether, not just him, but he
pretty cool.
Um, again, so if you can pointsomething at a elephant jury and
(15:59):
know what it's made of, you canmost certainly go in the grocery
store and point it at a carrotand know what it's made of.
And so that's where garden is,is heading.
And, um, farms in general,you're gonna have to grow really
nutrient dense food, or you arenot gonna be able compete in the
market.
So that's how we bumped intoKorean natural farming.
(16:21):
Dan Kitter had said, oh, you canlook at Korean natural farming.
And that's a big rabbit hole togo down, but we did go down that
rabbit hole and it makes perfectsense.
So the latest things on the farm, we did a airlift brewer for a
compost tea maker.
So it kind of air goes in low inthe brewer and picks the water
(16:42):
up and throws it in the top.
And so it's coming out thebottom and making a circulation
kind of like a Creek would do.
So you're getting a lot of airin the compost and good
circulation, no dead spots inthe compost tea.
And then, um, we did a gas pumpsprayer for spreading it out on
all the crops.
You know, the plants can eatthrough the leaves.
(17:04):
So stoma opens up early in themorning and you can feed'em that
way and lay in the evening.
Also you can feed'em throughtheir leaves.
So spraying compost tees on topof the plant is a really good
way to add nutrients and whatdoesn't go on.
The plants drops and feeds thesoil biology.
(17:25):
So as you're feeding the soilbiology, that's feeding the
roots of the plants also.
And by growing all thismicrobiology, you're having
better water retention too.
So people in a dry eye climate,if you can build your soil by
growing bacteria and fungi,you're gonna have a lot less
water usage and a lot morecushion between waterings before
(17:50):
the plants go completely dry.
So in the Korean naturalfarming, they have a bunch of
recipes you can do so you cangrow lactobacillus bacteria and
that, uh, beneficial bacteriathat helps keep the bad guys in
order or the bad bacteria to asmaller scale.
(18:11):
And they're super hungry.
So they don't live very long.
So you have to add those overand over.
They're doing kind of, um,small.
So the Korean natural farmingsfor like third world countries
where people don't have a lot ofmoney and that's mostly farmers
don't have a lot of money tospend on for, and those kind of
things.
And so they're doing like nosmell pigs with the LTO basils,
(18:36):
they do kind of like a Hoelculture underneath the pig pen
and all that wood and compostand leafy debris sucks up all
the moisture from the pigs andthe microbiology down there just
eats it up.
They did sensors underneath thelogs in the Hoel culture, and no
water was getting through fromthe pig pens.
(18:57):
And once again, once the bigcattle lots and all those figure
out that they can do the samedesign and get rid of all that
water where they don't have tohave those big lakes of sewage
on their property and then worryabout getting rid of it and the
smell, oh man, it's gonna be awhole different story.
It's gonna be like heaven onearth.
(19:18):
Hmm.
So some of the other things thatyou can build with the Korean
natural farming, um, you couldtake like the comfy plant and
tear it into, you know,something like you would eat a
lettuce, a salad, and add it toabout one third of one, half
weight, um, brown sugar.
(19:40):
And then the brown sugar sucks.
The moisture outta the comfy orwhatever plant you're using.
Just wanna use one plant at atime.
And now you have a, the exudatesfrom the comfy that normally
would be going down to feed theroots.
Now you have it in a captured,in a jar and you can feed it to
the plants as you feel fit.
(20:01):
And so it turns the farm from,uh, monoculture into a
permaculture because the plantdoesn't know where that comfy
exudates came from.
It thinks there's a comfy plantright next door.
So that's, that's super coolthat you're feeding all the
microbiology instead of theplant having to feed the
microbiology for itself.
(20:22):
So Elaine Ingham has beenstudying this for her whole
career, how the plants putexudates into the ground and
feed the microbiology.
So I would say if there's anychildren out there in middle
school or in high school startstudying microbiology, and they
(20:44):
only know what 5% of theorganisms are in the soil, a
teaspoon and soil has a fewbillion creatures in it.
And we only know what 5% are,and we don't have a clue how the
all relationship is alltogether.
All we know is there's morecooperation than competition in
(21:04):
the soil.
They're all working together.
They've learned that over themillions and millions of
generations, they don't live solong.
So, you know, two days might be10 or 20, 30 generations of
microorganisms.
Um, so a couple of inputs thatyou can make really easy with
(21:24):
the pre and natural farming, asyou can make calcium out of egg
shells.
So I don't know if we have timeto go into all that, but you can
make, um, phosphate out of cowbones and pig bones as another
fertilizer.
And then with the naturalfarming, they've got kind of a
recipe book and you add, youknow, eight ounces of no eight
(21:49):
millimeters of like calcium andeight millimeters of fermented
plant juice, which would be theexudates that we talked about
from the comfy.
And you could do the same thingwith fruits to make a, a fruit
fermented fruit juice.
So as you're fermenting, thatchanges the property of the
(22:10):
materials and it makes it moreplant soluble, which is super
cool.
And so the guy that we've beenstudying with is Drake, and he
is@purekandf.org.
He's super knowledgeable.
He's been doing this since 2008.
He's made multi old trips toKorea to study with match Cho,
(22:35):
who is the guy who kind of putthe whole thing together.
But if you read master Cho'sbook, uh, it's a little bit hard
to read.
His English is not translated sowell.
And so, uh, it's easier to readwhat Drake is doing on the big
island there on the Hilo side,
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I've heard of really inspiring presentations about
the connection between soil and,and human health.
Have you received feedback fromyour customers either on the
incredible taste of yourproduce, or if they themselves
feel healthier after startingto, to eat what you grow,
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I'm gonna say our customers really do rave about
our vegetables to us, and we getlots of feedback.
We get little notes in thehonesty box there saying what a
wonderful thing that's going onhere at Oceanside farms and
especially our eggs and our duckeggs, that they are really
(23:41):
outstanding.
Just the color of the yolks andthe fluffiness of the whites.
Um, one other thing about theKorean natural farming, one of
their main inputs is indigenousmicroorganisms.
So you go out in the woods byyour house and you put some rice
out in a Cedar box.
And in a few days to two weeks,it turns into a white cotton
(24:05):
candy looking thing.
And you bring that in.
And once again, you mix it withbrown sugar and, um, kind of get
those organisms, the fungi to godormant.
And then you put those in yourcompost pile and it's the
funniest thing ever.
We've been composting ever sincewe took the master gardener
class in 2011 and this compostpile came out furry.
(24:29):
I don't know if you've ever seena furry compost pile, but the
fungi ratio to bacterial ratiohad to be out of this world.
And you composted a couple moretimes to just keep building
those indigenous microorganisms.
And the reason you get into IOUsmicroorganisms rather than going
(24:49):
down to the local growersnursery, um, those Michael Rold
could have come from Washingtonor California somewhere with a
different climate.
And so they might come up hereand say, yeah, I'm going back.
So,
Speaker 1 (25:08):
So I always get to ask this question and I don't
know why she makes me ask it,but what have you done that
didn't work?
And what did you learn from it?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
So we took the master gardener class with the
cooperative extension serviceand we learned how to make
compost.
And so we lived down at thebeach there.
And so I just walk over the edgeof the bluff and haul back some
kelp and whatever I could finddown on the beach for
ingredients, for the compostpile and the master gardener
(25:38):
class just do'em in four inchlips.
So we'd add some seaweed andthen we'd add some cardboard and
then we'd add some leaves andthen some more green matter from
the garden and then somenewspaper up.
So we added four inches ofnewspaper torn up.
Then we had a paper mache,compost pile.
It took, it took about three orfour years for that compost to
(26:01):
get broken back down intosomething that the microbes
could eat.
But that was one thing thatdidn't work.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
So it wasn't fake news.
It was just, you know,non-edible news.
I,
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah.
So I would say, uh, everythingin moderation.
So put your newspaper on, in alittle smaller layers.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Very good.
And then what other, what advicewould you have for young
growers, somebody who wanted toget into this, um, and, and make
it successful other and workridiculous number of hours,
which it sounds like you guysdo.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah.
So I would say start out alittle small with maybe one or
two front yards and just getwell at growing.
And then if you still likegrowing, then you would pursue
some property.
And I would say plant some appletrees, as soon as you have
control of the property and somemore perennials berries and
(27:05):
those kind of things that don'ttake too much work, but you get
a lot of growth from them.
And that generates quite a bitof sales.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
That's good advice.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
I guess, following up on that, you, you are working a
lot of hours.
You have a very, very largediversity of things that you
grow, and that has to be hardwork.
You called it living the dreamand you seem to be enjoying
yourself.
So for someone who's startingout and looking at those hours
and the amount of work is it,what is a passion behind it that
(27:44):
keeps you going, that theyshould see that they have?
Speaker 2 (27:51):
So I think if you're doing intensive small scale
farming, you've got to enjoywhat you're doing and then it's
all play.
And you don't really think of itas work.
The time just flies by, from thetime we're up in the morning, to
the time we pass out at night,we're going like crazy doing
things today were smokingchickens.
And that's just another storythat's out of this world tasty.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
So I, I think one of the things that I would say is
that, uh, one of the good thingsand the downfalls of us as a
married couple is that we bothget excited and curious about
lots of different things withfarming.
And we're both foodies.
We love good food and that wereally worry about the United
States, uh, nutrition and foodprograms and the food that's
(28:40):
being produced here in all sortsof ways.
So we believe in local, nonpesticide foods and things like
that.
So some basic nutrition things,um, but we both get excited and
we keep upping the ante all thetime.
And so that's not necessarily agood quality about the two of
us.
We thought it was, but each ofus gets excited about something
(29:01):
new and thens boosts up whatwe're doing.
So instead of cutting back onthings at times, um, we have
constantly been building up indifferent directions.
And I think I'm hoping thatwe're gonna be kind of honing in
on what we really wanna do andmaybe cutting back on some of
the different crops or, um,activities that we do and
focusing more on other ones thatmight be easier for us as we get
(29:24):
a little bit older.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And so I would just add to that, that do lots of
perennials and they don't takeas much to time and effort as
like say lettuce and carrots andquick crops.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Yeah.
We use a lot of typa on theground cut out or burned out
holes and things so that we canavoid some of the weeding.
And then hopefully with theKorean natural farming ferments,
we can still build the soilbiology very well in those areas
too, when we aren't, um,rotating or cover cropping.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
One thing that we've learned is bacteria like acidic
soil and fun guy likes
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Little
Speaker 4 (30:06):
More alkaline.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yeah.
A little bit more
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Basic soils.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Neutral.
Yes.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
And so
Speaker 2 (30:12):
By building your biology and your soil, you're
really making it, so it's ahostile place for weeds to grow.
And so you're really gonna takecare of your weed problem with
your soil building.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Do you have, do you have insect pest problems in
your high tunnels and how do youdeal with those?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So I would say our worst culprit is a spider mite.
And so we rinse'em with, uh,soap and water.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
And then we can't forget our friends, the ducks.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Oh yeah.
We do have a slug problem, butour friends, our friends, the
ducks have a slug problem too.
They can't get enough of'em
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Sounds like more of a slug problem than a, uh, the
slugs have a duck problem.
Not the other way around.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Our ducks are on quack.
We should talk about one morething.
If you have time still, I'm sureyou'll edit through all this
stuff and make something that'scoherent.
But, um, the Johnson, Suebioreactor, another another
thing we got off of YouTube andit seemed to be pretty
spectacular from thedocumentation that Dr.
(31:25):
Johnson has.
So he made one bioreactor, hegot a grant to take care of Kapu
.
And so he, he was trying tocompost Kapu and he was
shoveling it.
And he would come home withdirty clothes and said, his wife
got tired of doing dirty clothesin the laundry.
And so she kind of drew up ashe's an engineer.
Also, she, she drew up avertical, a compost pile that
(31:49):
nowhere in the pile is furtherthan one foot from outside air.
So you have pipe holes in thecenter of the compost.
It's about 42 inch diameter.
It fits on a pallet.
So you can pick it up with thetractor and move it around so
you can build it in one spot andthen move it somewhere for
storage.
It takes a year to make, but thefungal growth in, in there is
just about perfect for yourgarden scenario.
(32:12):
Um, it's about five or six feettall, however tall you can get
to, uh, still load it.
It, you need to load it in liketwo days, because it goes
through the thermal process inabout a week.
So it goes right up to 150degrees and then tools write
down and then just sits therefor a whole year, turning into
fungus.
(32:33):
Um, it's two pounds per acre ina fo spray.
And you're probably making 400pounds in the bioreactor.
If you can picture that, look itup on the internet and you'll
see it.
And you'll say, oh wow, that isgonna change the future.
So that dense of fungal mass ina compost pile is pretty darn
(32:54):
good.
That's where the Korean naturalfarming is going to building
fungal compost.
I just check, check the compostpile.
Like I told you, the snow stuckon the ground, the compost pile
is a hundred degrees sittingoutside.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
What's he, what's he load that reactor with, I mean,
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Um, so he was doing Kapu and I'm not sure what else
he did.
So then the, after 10 years hedid it again.
And then he compared thefinished product and they were
almost identical.
And the second time he was usingleaves out of his yard.
Okay.
And garden debris, so leaves andgarden debris, you kind of get
it all wet to the moisturecontent that you like when you
(33:35):
load it into the reactor.
And then you have pipes in themiddle and you pull out after a
couple days, and then it juststays as a whole shaped all the
way through.
And the pallet underneath givesit air from the bottom.
And so it really works prettydarn good.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Send Stacy link sends Stacylinks to these things and she
can put'em, you know, on thesites where, where the pot is.
If, if they've got a littledescription, we can include
links so people can see andvisualize and, and learn more
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Sure I'm with you, Steve.
I was just thinking the samething, uh, with COVID being, as
it's been over the last coupleyears here now, um, we were
unable to do in person classesin Kodi for some of this time
for the farmers over there.
So we ended up creating a littleYouTube channel, not really to
be YouTubers, but to shareinformation easily that they
(34:32):
could access on the internet.
And so Don did a really nice, uh, video on building our Johnson.
So bio reactor and all theinputs to that.
So that's a really good link.
It's um, a semi-professionalYouTube, uh, video, but, uh,
that might be a good link forpeople.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Right.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
As you can tell by now, she's the smart one.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Oh, now
Speaker 1 (34:58):
One, one thing I found interesting is, is as you
kept mentioning people you'relearning from on YouTube,
they're all same latitude.
You know, that it, it'sinteresting to think of farming,
you know, that banded, but inAlaska you would be,
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, it's good for, uh, our micro climate kind of a
thing too.
They're a little bit warmer inSweden, but we're all doing the
same thing.
The small scale, super intenseof farms, trying to earn a
living off a couple acres.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
Yeah.
Alaska, you know, you're farapart from everybody when you're
in Alaska, from different peopleor farmers, even around the
world.
And so to find people at yourlatitude, they may have some
similar, um, issues and havesome different ideas and be able
to kind of bounce some ideas offof them or at least listen to
their YouTubes or whatnot isreally pretty helpful.
(35:49):
And even across the state ofAlaska,
Speaker 1 (35:53):
I can, yeah.
I can see that.
I just it's, it's interesting tothink of if farming a farming
community, you know, that, thatcircles the world all at one
latitude
Speaker 4 (36:02):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah.
That way we know it grows here.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
Yeah.
We've learned quite a lot fromRichard Perkins in Sweden and he
has some good he's.
He does regenerative farming aswell.
And so it's really greatresource if you haven't looked
to him up before.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Oh, we have another good story.
We're wondering about whatfailed
Speaker 1 (36:24):
In your
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Farming practices.
We planted 500 strawberries, 450of them died.
The 50 that live.
We have propagated them.
And now we have strawberrieseverywhere that grow in our
climate.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
So you just had to, you just had to weed out the
weak ones, you
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Know, weed just had to weed out the ones that didn't
wanna be here.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
That's right.
The non Alaska strawberries.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah.
When you were going through yourlist of berries, it was like,
okay, I'm hungry.
I'm hungry.
I'm hungry.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Yeah.
I haven't had lunch yet.
And you kept talking about foodand like smoke chickens and
berries and
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Baby carrot,
Speaker 3 (37:05):
All that baby carrots and duck eggs.
Yeah.
I gotta go get lunch.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Farmers, farmers eat well.
That's for sure.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Well, you, you have what sounds like an amazing
place.
I would love to come back up toHomer and if I I'm in the area,
I would love to stop by becauseeverything that you've talked
about and just the picture I'mgetting in my head of, of your
operation and your land and theducks and then the chickens, it
just, it sounds wonderful.
You've you've built somethingpretty special up there.
(37:36):
Thanks for sharing with us.
Well, thanks Don.
And Don Ray.
It was wonderful talking withyou and learning about
everything and appreciate yourtime.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Thank you too.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Thank you
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Very much.
Thank you.
This is great.
It was fun.
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Glad you're spreading the news.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah.
Thanks for working with us.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
Thank
Speaker 2 (37:55):
You.
Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Thanks guys.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
Thank you.
Bye
Speaker 5 (38:03):
You for listening to fresh growth.
We hope you enjoy this episodefor more information on
westerner grounds and ourlearning resources visit
westerner.org.
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