for you; i'm traveling, i'm here in Warren Vermont; I think. Almost standing in the middle

of nowhere and I have no idea of where I am, I followed my GPS to get here and where i'm

at is the Kingsbury Market Garden and they sell their produce through CSA, the muddy

boots CSA and Some other CSA's as well as the local outlets. The reason i'm here today

is to show you guys a different kinda farm or garden that I usually visit because this

is a commercial operation driven by profits to make money, because if the owner Aaron

doesn't make a living, he can't pay us more, you know all this kinda stuff. So, I want

to show you guys some of his growing practices that allow him to be successful; whether you

want to have your own farm, be successful or whether you're just a home gardener, you

can gain knowledge from this information to adjust what you're doing, so that you can

be as successful as Aaron.

One of the first things I want to talk about is the fertility that he brings to the land

here: its next to a river, with silty and sandy soil, that's definitely not optimal

but he has being bringing and adding fertility through local and inexpensive resources, to

build fertility at the lowest cost so he can keep his profit's up. So that's what I want

to show you guys first, what he uses to fertilize and add nutrients to his garden. So let's

go ahead and check it out, I think we've got some piles right over here. So, this is the

fertility that he uses primarily, right? He wants to get local resources and use them

on the farm here, so that there's minimal cost for his imports. One number one is actually

the Wood Chips, the wood chips gets dumped here by abreast, that need to get rid of them

and normally would dump them. In the olden days, there is an area actually over near

the farm where people just dump the chips and they'll just build up and build up overtime,

and they'll actually just harvest the well decomposed Wood Chips for a good fungal rich

compost. So he continues to add Wood Chips for this fungal activity, but also for the

cabin that the wood chips contain. Now more of them are just the Wood Chips, another thing

that he uses; that actually, we don’t have any piles of is actually the chicken manure's.

That stuff would stink and he said its composted chicken manure, so we don't have any raw stuff

to show you, that's two; and so the you've got the cabin sauce, you've got the nitrogen

sauce and the manure, then you've got this sauce right here, and this is the stuff that

he's banking on and really he believes, made a difference in his garden. This stuff is

known as the Bricks Brand (Rock Dust), by Rock Dust local which he gets delivered here

by under $70 a ton.

So he gets a lot of this stuff and he's being adding this to his soil for the last four

years, he's being farming on this property for like five years or something like that.

So he's being using it almost from the beginning, and he has seen a difference in his growth,

because the soil is not so fertile and he believes by making fertile soil, and from

what he's seeing , he's getting higher yields and less disease on his land so that it can

be more productive and more importantly, more profitable. So once he's got this three imports,

what he does is he actually combines them over here and there's a parking sign; but

obviously, he combines the Rock Dust here on top, with the Wood Chips, with the manure,

so it’s all mixed and harmadronized together in a compost and then he spreads it out on

he's fields, maybe using the fall or something like that. This adds to the fertility, plus

he also uses some foliar sprays of *4:02* and some other minerals as needed. Epsom salts

to add further trace minerals into he's plants, so that they could grow healthy because he's

formally a believer in the power of trace minerals. He believes unlike standard organic

farming and garden that "compost is the answer", keep throwing on compost, everything will

work itself out. Well I have seen challenges where just adding compost and compost, especially

if it’s good quality compost, can cause challenges and you're not going to get the

best growth. He believes that by adding the minerals, the plants are going to be healthy

because after walking through some of his garden, I could definitely vouch for that

because of all the farms and gardens I have visited in my time in Vermont, this one truly

looks like the healthiest by far. So what I'm going to do next is to actually walk through

and show you guys some of the field's, some of the crops he's growing, how good they look

and the production he's able to achieve here in Vermont.

So here you guys are seeing a nice couple of rows of carrots and he really parks this

guys in; really tight, tighter than you'll normally plant carrot's and actually this

are some hybrid carrots that's growing really well and he's not quite ready to harvest this

guy’s yet, but you can still harvest them and pick them. Check this guy out; we could

pull this guy out of the ground, look at that, that's one nice beautiful carrot. Now, he's

growing hybrid style carrot and you know although he is certified organic, you know there is

an organic standard that says "to be organic certified, you have to grow minimum: 51% of

crops grown with organic seeds, but the other 49% or smaller percentage can be from conventional

seed stock, if they are not available organic; so that's what he does. I want to encourage

you guys, whether you're a market grower like Aaron here or whether you're a home gardener,

you would want to pick the right varieties because growing the right variety of crops

can make you or brake you and as much as I like the heirloom's for certain treats; which

are part of our home gardeners, On a commercial scale after talking with Aaron, it has become

evidence to me that heirlooms are not always the best crops to grow for him, from the trials

that he's done. This carrot here are more resistant to certain diseases that he would

be prone to getting, plus with the rich soil, he doesn't have any diseases on this carrot's,

this carrots looks absolutely beautiful. I could vouch, that one sweet, delicious carrot;

I think, it’s the best one I have ever had in Vermont; hey! I think it’s the only carrot

I've ever had in Vermont. So what we are looking at now is actually some of the Beet's planted

next to the carrots, and actually one of the core thing is; you know, when Aaron moved

onto this farm and started farming on this land, he actually couldn't grow beats because

they'd get a lot of disease and problems and I'm sure some of you guys out there have problems

growing some crops, it just never seems to work. Once he started adding the Rock Dust

and building his soil, he didn't have a problem and this beet's look fabulous.

This is a soil right here, we could pick this up, look at that; I mean this is like sand,

not very nutritious but he's adding the right minerals to allow him to do this. Now the

other thing about Aaron is if you look at this field next door, you would see his nice

huge, big tractor tracks. Now as much as I would like to know a few gardening styles,

I want to always let you guys know that they are pros and cons to every garden method,

he uses the tilling method and he has a couple of three maybe four tractors now, and he really

cuts he's labor cost to a minimum because he's fully automated. He also is very efficient

in how he works, So he has minimal labor working at this farm with him, and just with a man

and a tractor; I just saw him drive off right now, almost into the sunset. He's able to

manage he's farm with little labor cost. As compared to farmers I've spoken to, they do

the no till and actually their labor cost is sky high but because they do no till and

their labor cost is sky high, they are also more productive than this maybe; they still

make good money. Aaron had to keep it simple, he does the tractor, the tillage and continues

to add organic matter and the trace melts in the soil and gets amazing result. So no

matter where you guys are at, you guys have got to figure out what's right for you. Now

for Environmental reasons and for nutrient reasons, I believe still, no tilling is the

best but yes, it’s going to be more labor and this comes into play in a big business.

When you're trying to run a business and if you're at home just gardening, I believe you

guys should be doing notes to a garden at home on definitely smaller scales, because

it’s a lot easier. Anyways, I want to go in now, into one of the hoop-houses here that's

right behind me, and show you guys what he's got growing. Now, he uses this hoop-houses

because I want to remind you guys that we are in Vermont, it does rain a lot and some

of the peppers and the tomatoes, they don't like too much water so they kip the water

off of it; plus, they can control the environment better. So it’s warmer inside the hoop-house

than outside the hoop-house, the base looks a bit warmer, they also got some tomatoes

growing.

In addition, this also allows them to start the season earlier and end a little bit later,

due to the covering overhead. Once again, I've visited a hand full of farms this trip

to Vermont, and Aaron's stuff looks like the healthiest, most bountiful; due to his practices

so, they must be working. But if we walk down this row here, you guys just see a lot of

greeny there but I want to get down a little. If you get a little bit lower, if you look

a little closely, you guys see all the peppers in there? I mean this thing is loaded up with

peppers, i’m scared to say that this pepper plants are more loaded up than my pepper plants.

So he's actually growing better peppers than I. I mean this is really impressive, how much

yield his able to harvest off each plant, when you give the plant the right nutrition

they need. So yea, this whole thing has a lot of peppers in these two rows, basil, tomatoes,

and let’s goes ahead to the other greenhouse to shear with you guys, the tomatoes. Now

we’re in the hoop-house with the tomatoes and this plant look like they are super healthy,

super vibrant and once again just come down a little bit. Look at this, look at how much

yield you get on one tomato plant, growing the right variety and actually have good nutrition

in the soil. I mean, those this look better than your tomatoes? That's why Aaron's in

business and he's doing this day in day out and he's being doing this since his first

job. He's first job as a kid was working at a farm, he's growing all this years and he's

improving his skills over the years so now he could grow healthy plants like this.

Now, Ill let you guys know one of his secrets besides having good soil, he has this red

mulch down here, at the bottom of his tomatoes. I've not seen that anywhere else in the farm,

he uses some black plastic mulch on some other plants, but the other thing is that he's using

grafted tomatoes. So this tomatoes, they have being grafted, they're on our wild work stock

with tomato plants up top and he says they are more productive, and more resistant than

standard ones. You guys might want to look into that and you know, I've experimented

with the grafted tomato before, they are kind of a little bit expensive and I didn't notice

too much of a difference when i grew them at home; but, he totally vouch his performance,

he says "he wouldn't really go any other way" because as you guys can see, this is tomato

heaven right here. So now I'm going to go ahead and enter another pepper hoop house

here, and Aaron really features and focuses on growing peppers for few reasons: number

one, you guys could see, there's a lot of pepper on here and he appreciates peppers,

he actually grows less tomatoes than peppers, he grows more peppers than tomatoes and I

want to encourage you guys to grow more pepper than tomatoes. So he sells this fresh, which

command's greater dollar than the tomatoes but, the secret on why he grows too many peppers

is that he also roast's them and then freeze's them. So, this allows him to maximize his

income during the winter months you know, so he could harvest this guys, process them

throughout the winter to still have income, when other farmers that are growing fresh

vegetables and try to sell fresh stuff, are long gone. So that's one of the reasons why

he grows all this peppers and this plants, they just simply look amazing, I wish I had

all this peppers, I could grow more on less space, if I use his techniques.

So, now one of the things I'm going to show you guys really quick is how Aaron is staking

up his peppers, he doesn't stake every plant so this is kind of cool. What he does, he

just puts this stakes in about every couple of (3"4") feet and he basically just ties

some strings, to make like a little fence on the edges because the middle plants support

itself, but the edge plants are held up by the string, they stay out of the walk ways.

So, looks like he has only actually per bed which is about 2ft wide, he has about two

plants. So the strings help hold the plant, keep them in growing towards the center, so

that he could easily get in there and harvest all the delicious peppers. So he always encourage

you guys to grow vertically and use some kind of support system that works for you, so that

your plants don't fall over and they don't get crashed or stems broken; when you're walking

by because that will cut your yields. So another way Aaron improves his soil and brings and

adds fertility is by planting some cover crops. So we've got some legume crops here, behind

me he also likes to plant the buckwheat which is also a good beneficial plant for insects

and he builds fertility in this soil by planting the cover crops and turning them under, to

add more fertility to his soil. Now on a big farm I think this is an excellent idea, especially

when you have so much land, you have fallow land and you know that's not always planted.

He has like six acres under cultivation in this space, plus he has another off-site space

that he's growing food but in a home space like for me personally, I live in a standard