As a farm and family, we are dedicated to heathy living for us, our community, our species and our planet. We try to eat and provide heathy food, and we do what we can to keep our impact on this beautiful plant as small as possible.

We do things big and small; from remembering to turn off lights when they are not in use, and opening the windows at night to cool off our house so that we do not have to use as much air conditioning during the day, to having solar a array that provides most of the electricity we need, replacing all of our natural gas and propane appliances with electric ones, and driving hybrids and electric cars.

We reduce, reuse and recycle waste. Since our farm is in Southern California, it is especially important for us to minimize the waste of water. To do this we use drip irrigation that puts the water directly into the soil so there is less runoff and evaporation. For farm sales, we minimize packaging, package tender produce in compostable bags made from corn, and reuse plastic fruit boxes and grocery bags. All weeds and scraps are fed to our animals or composted, completing a cycle from plant to animal and back to compost that we use to fertilize our plants.

One of sustainable farming’s greatest impacts is storing carbon. We have over 40 trees on our farm in addition to our gardens. Every plant takes carbon from the atmosphere and puts it into the ground, reducing the amount of CO2 that is in the atmosphere. We compared the amount of carbon in the improved soil in our gardens versus the native soil. The native soil averages 0.5% carbon, while the soil we have been gardening for ten plus years has ten times that, with an average of 5% carbon.

One of our most recent projects is a barn where we store produce and prepare it for sales (Right photo). We decided to build with SIPs (Structurally Insulated Panels). SIPs are steel framed, pre-built panels (http://mnmmod.com/) with six-inch thick polystyrene insulation (Left photo). This makes a building that is fire, rot, termite, and earthquake proof. The barn is highly efficient, with an R rating of 30 for the walls and 45 for the roof. The SIPs are made locally from recycled materials.

We have accomplished many things that we are very proud of over the years, but there are still many more we wish to accomplish. We plan to install a rain water collection system on our new barn and/or on our ground-mounted solar panels. Our farm and home rely on well water, pumped from the ground with an electric pump. We therefore want to install a battery pack that could power our home and farm in case of a fire or power outage. We also plan on getting a long range electric vehicle, setting up rotational grazing for our small flock of sheep and putting more solar onto our new barn.

We are always looking for new ways to decrease our impact on the planet and we encourage you to do the same. Whether it is replacing burned out incandescent or compact fluorescent light bulbs with LEDs, buying recycled or minimal waste products, or putting in solar panels that can power your house, every effort made now, whether big or small, helps preserve a livable planet for future generations.

I Need You

By Darwin Melchiorre

I need you
You need the tree
The tree needs the ground 
The ground needs the sea 

It’s all interwoven
We’re all interconnected 
Break even one tie 
And it’s all affected

Poison the river 
You poison the sea
Poison the rain 
You poison the tree

And all the trees left 
You decided to doze
One thing leads to another 
On and on it goes 

Once you go down that road
That’s the path you chose
There’s no turning back 
‘Cause that’s the way it flows

The whole world is interwoven 
Like threads in an old rag 
Pull one out 
You gave it a tag 

You’ve pulled too many times 
It’s coming undone 
Unraveling, unweaving 
This is no fun

You’ve poisoned the trees
Now we have no air 
We are all doomed
Because you do not care

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