EXPERIMENTAL FARMING.
Everything I do, I do in pursuit of knowledge. The Earth is my lab!
One of the greatest joys in life is the joy of gardening.
Gardening is more than a balance between relaxing and hard work. Gardening allows us to experiment with nature to figure out how to get what we need. Over a century ago, John Deere invented the plow. By changing how we manipulate nature to get what we want, the plow changed the course of history as we know it. Before, nearly all people grew some portion of their food. When the plow tore through the prairies and food was able to be grown in huge monocultures, people traded their gardens for grocery stores. This disconnect from nature has caused not only our dependence on grocery stores, but on the companies that make our food. A century later, our fields that once produced plenty of life suffer soil erosion and nutrient depletion. Years of chemical fertilizers leave the soil hard and lifeless with the occasional superweed that quickly evolved to survive herbicidal spraying. Because working with an acre or less of garden allows us a more intimate view at the intricate natural mechanisms at play, we can use our gardens as a testing ground for new ways to grow food.
This helps the environment in more than one way, in addition to producing some portion of your diet on site, you also directly effect the balance of wild insects, bees, birds, microbes, fungi and even small critters. When we try to emulate how conventional farms treat the land, then we quickly run into the same issues. Effecting even just the local environment has profound repercussions. Once I moved to a shaded city lot that had nothing but poorly growing grass everywhere. When I started a small 24 sqft garden on the tiny lot, I had to hand pollinate my tomatoes. I later added a small pond and converted most of the suffering lawn into a wild garden for shade-loving plants and the difference was incredible! So many bees and butterflies descended on the lot, birds came to scavenge seeds from wildflowers and bathe in the pond, hare, racoon, and squirrels came to drink the water. The lot went from mini cornfield to mini woodland and natural systems were allowed to be at play. Though we now cultivate a larger system, the same lessons apply.
When we first planned on starting Earthflower Farm, we did it with the intent to follow our own morals. We'll commit to the same strict quality we abide by when sourcing herbs, The 'farm' will be more of a productive permaculture system by the ditching plowed rows and modeling our farming approach after nature. We hope to develop an organic food forest ecosystem that can both be studied and enjoyed. The ecological footprint of conventional farms is huge and we hope to act as an experimental ground for the future farming.
We love our farmers so much. Without them and without their commitment to organic and ecologically friendly farming methods, we couldn't make Earthflower Herbs' highest quality herbal blends possible! We love the farmers so much, we want to join them in their efforts to honor the earth while producing quality plants for people like you to enjoy.