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This piece of property has been in my family for 42 years. My grandfather has had horses,
all kinds of animals here. Last year I took over the piece of property,
and my ultimate goal is have this be a full running year-round farm.
Well, this year we had cherry tomatoes. We have six different varieties of larger tomatoes.
We have squash--several different kinds of squash. Zucchini.
We have several different kinds of peppers. Bell peppers and hot peppers.
We have chickens, we’ve got eggs here, and then we have a herb garden.
And, rhubarb, horseradish and cucumbers.
If we start with healthy soil--that plant goes into that soil and gets everything that it needs
from that soil. And, it makes our job so much easier because we're not constantly trying
to spray something on the plants, or pick bugs off of the plants, or trim this back.
If it ultimately healthy from the soil from the get go, you can't go wrong.
You just can't go wrong with that.
And, we mix the chicken manure, the soil, the sawdust, the coffee ground, and the pulp
together, and here--that's what you get. you get this awesome,
this great compost that we create here.
I feel like I was really fortunate to come across this program through the NRCS.
Because, as a beginning farmer, I didn't have the financial resources to do something
to this magnitude on my own.
It gives me the capability to be able to grow produce throughout the winter months.
Which is really what I wanted to do--to have this a year-round farm.
We're really fortunate here on Moonlight Farms to have irrigation. We do flood
irrigate our crops that are outside. But, inside the hoop house we will be using drip tape
inside. The NRCS had a fantastic engineer came out and gave us the plans for it.
It was fantastic the way that he set it up. Really simple for us to understand.
We'll be able to use our irrigation water--to run the water into the hoop house.
Which, obviously, anyone that runs a farm knows that water is so expensive.
You know, it's been a pleasure working with Roni, and I'm so glad she came in and took
advantage of our EQIP program--the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.
And what that does is it works with farmers and helps provide them some financial
assistance to implement conservation measures to improve the ground.
And so, here with Roni, she took advantage of our seasonal high tunnel.
What that's going to do for her is she's going to be able to increase her productivity
and extend her growing seasons.
So, fall is upon us. We have our hoop house all ready to go. We have planted our seeds.
We have beets, carrots, arugula, kale, spinach, lettuce.
We're going to plant some wheat grass. And we have our drip system all in.
And, we are so excited to get this going and just see how it goes.
It's been so great up to this point and we're just really, really excited about it.
So, our plans for this next coming season are--we're building a 10x12 starter house
to start all of our own seeds. And, then we are leasing out grow boxes.
They'll be 4 feet by 10 feet, and there will be 30 of them.
And what that will do is it will bring the community in here and each person will
have the opportunity to actually grow whatever it is that they want in their own grow box.
So that they'll be able to really get their hands in here and get dirty. We're really, really
anxious about that. The neighbors are so excited about being able to do that.
And, now with the high tunnel we have the opportunity to extend our growing season.
So now this can be a full-time job for me.
Now, rather than just summer time and tomatoes. Now we have this great
opportunity to show people how things grow in the summer, how they grow in the winter
and what that really is. It's just going to be an amazing opportunity for us.
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The older people that live in our neighborhood have come by and said
how great it makes them feel to see a farm again.
It's almost just like a sense of renewal in the neighborhood.
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