Orchard Hill - Horse-powered Organic Farm Part 1 - Rotational Grazing, Potatoes, No-Til Vegetables

Joe visits Ken and Martha Laing on their organic farm in St Thomas, Ontario. This 93 acre farm has been in Martha's family since the 1820's and they took over in 1979. They operated a pick-your-own fruit farm for 17 years. Once they decided to go organic they were not able to make it profitable. In 1997 they converted to a CSA, headed up by Martha and their daughter Ellen. It turned out to be the most profitable business they have. It is particularly well suited to the use of draft horse power. They eventually offered education in CSA farming and draft horse power in exchange for labor during the growing season.

In the first of our three-part series on the Laings, Ken explains his rotational cattle grazing system, some of his vegetable crops and some cover cropping experiments he has under way.

First Ken takes us to his 22 acres of grazing land and explains his system of intensive rotational grazing. He has the entire plot surrounded by permanent electric fencing. He rotates the cattle to a different 2-acre section each day. He explains how he uses poly tape electric fence for the temporary sections and some special home made tools that help him do this alone. He moves the mineral feeder and recycled nylon water barrel each day. He demonstrates how easy this system is.

Next we visit his potato fields as he explains his involvement in a potato breeding research project. He grew many varieties and is no narrowed it down to just a few. One in particular has great promise as an organic potato as it has been bred to be resistant to leaf hoppers.

He was also involved in a trial for the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario. They were developing no-til for spring cereal grains. He is demonstrating these four different cover crop combinations in adjacent rows with a
Sorghum-sudan grass
Oat/barley/pea
oat/barley/fava bean
diakon radish

the diakon rows are turning out to be the least weedy and most vigorous plants.

Lastly Ken takes us to his vegetable fields and discusses his no-til and cover crop methods on his rhubarb, garlic, sweet corn, radish and asparagus.

Coming Soon:
Orchard Hill - Horse-powered Organic Farm Part 2 - Horse Drawn Farming Implements
Orchard Hill - Horse-powered Organic Farm Part 3