But before we go any further, we’re the first to admit that there’s always room for improvement as it can be a struggle to strike a reasonable yet meaningful balance between living and working in a modern world and minimizing one’s impact on the environment while also considering cost and time.
As an agriculture-based farm, we view sustainability in both a family lifestyle and agricultural light, where “lifestyle” includes personal things like housing, comfort, transportation, hydration, nutrition, entertainment, etc. and “agricultural” includes things like cultivation, irrigation, pest management, fertilization, harvesting, product packaging, etc. Guided by the time-tested environment-saving principles of “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle” (in that order), we strive to take measures in both areas, so here are just a few examples (more will be added over time):
Lifestyle
- No-Brainers: Instead of environment-damaging bottled water and disposable shopping bags, we choose to reuse. And if we dine-out, we always have our reusable dining kit (reusable silverware, plates, and napkins) with us in case the vendor sadly reaches for disposable serving-ware.
- Solar Power: We not only harvest crops, we harvest the sun’s energy as we invested in a substantial solar photovoltaic (PV) array that powers both the residence and farm operations. While we are still tied to the grid, once the array came online, the only electric utility bill has pretty-much been the $7.51 grid connection fee.
- Geothermal HVAC: While installing the solar PV array, we also upgraded the traditional hybrid heat pump and propane furnace with a geothermal ground loop system, where over 800 feet of buried tubing provides super-efficient heating and cooling by taking advantage of the Earth’s mass. As a bonus, since this type of system does not have an outside unit (i.e. condenser) like an air-source heat pump, the sturdy plastic platforms were repurposed into useful farm dollies once casters and handles were retrofitted.
- High-performance Insulation: While installing the solar PV array and the geothermal HVAC, we also replaced the standard fiberglass insulation in strategic places with open-cell spray foam insulation. Just like the geothermal HVAC, what a world of difference and well worth the investment along with the solar PV array, which has now paid dividends both environmentally and financially, especially with ever-increasing utility costs. But don’t worry, in staying true to our “try to reuse/repurpose everything” lifestyle, we’re putting the old insulation back to work in the barn and other locations and keeping it all out of the landfill.
Agricultural
- No Chemicals: It’s too expensive at this time to pursue becoming Certified Organic, but that said, we follow organic growing practices where we do not use synthetic chemicals and non-OMRI listed products for crop treatments or soil amendments. For example, when dealing with Japanese Beetles during the summer that will eat the foliage on our fruit trees and blueberries, we rely on traps and a product called “Surround WP”, which is an OMRI listed crop protectant. By the way, using traps over several years has definitely broken the Japanese Beetle reproductive cycle as we couldn’t empty the bags quick enough when first used, but now, the bags are never half full.
- Rainwater: Even before moving to this property, we harvested rainwater for various suburban watering tasks, but now, we’re collecting thousands of gallons of rainwater throughout the year that would otherwise become damaging runoff, even in the an severe drought conditions of 2023. We also put to work “gray” water, like from the bird bath, to water ornamental plants.
- Home-grown Mulch: In addition to prime farmland, we’re blessed with forested areas where pine needles and dead trees can be harvested for effective crop mulch.
- Compost: With plenty of pulled weeds, leaves, and other yard/farm debris and fruit/vegetable scraps on-hand, we turn all of this into rich compost to feed our crops in our compost bins made from discarded pallets.
- Repair-Repair-Repair: With the stress of farm work, things are always breaking, but instead of tossing, we try to fix things. Of course, this requires time, skill, tools, and a lot of patience, but it’s very rewarding to put something back into service instead of recycling or adding to the landfill mountain.
We’ll post more examples over time, so stay-tuned.
