- excerpt from Best of the Barefoot Farmer Vol.II
Bell’s Bend
Section I
Our mission is to grow high quality organic produce, and help others do the same. Many problems inherent in modern agricultural production disappear by farming organically on a smaller scale. Locally grown food uses less energy, and provides more employment. Soils are better cared for, and the farmers and surrounding environment are safer. There is reason to believe our nation’s health crisis is directly related to an unhealthy food production and distribution system, ie. factory farms and fast food. Another advantage of small farms is their beauty. They provide places for recreation, education and inspiration. Communities form around local family farms, enjoying good food and the fellowship that follows the food. Time and again I’ve spoken for the small, organic farm and against urban development, probably because the small farm where I was raised is now a subdivision.
As so often happens, I’ve spoken so much that I’ve put my foot in my mouth. A group of concerned citizens has asked me for my help in starting small organic farms in an effort to grow local food in an area threatened by development. The area, called Bell’s Bend, has about 150 residents on approximately 8000 acres of beautiful farmland. The proposed development would bring in thousands of people in new homes, shopping malls and high rise buildings. Bell’s Bend is just across the Cumberland River from Nashville, in Northern Davidson County. Over the past 15 years, this community has banded together and fought off a proposed landfill, a sewage treatment plant, road widening and other urban development projects. They want to do something positive to show good reasons why their place should remain rural. Having small organic farms for a model of alternative development is their dream.
Although located only 15 minutes from downtown Nashville, Bell’s Bend feels like Macon County countryside. The farms are underutilized with old barns and a few cows. Many of the people I met had land and a vision, but no clue how to farm.
It is all there: manure piles, good soil, big and small tractors, hay for mulch, and close proximity to a million hungry people. Nashville could get good food from Bell’s Bend farms, employing a large workforce to grow and process the produce. The organic food industry is booming, and the economy of local farms is booming. I’ve been under pressure to grow more produce at my place, but I like my size the way it is. While I can’t just up and leave my farm, this project fits in with my overall mission – to grow high quality organic produce and help others do the same.
December 30th, 2008
Section II
I finally got a job, and it’s right up my alley. I’m managing four new biodynamic gardens in the Bell’s Bend neighborhood, near Nashville. A tight-knit group of conscientious folks have banded together in an effort to keep their community rural and clean, and their next step is to feed themselves. We’re going to grow a few acres of vegetables.
The first farm is at George’s, and this is where you can see whooping cranes. Two of less than 400 of the known wild ones make their nest on his farm. The soil is plowed, and we’ve put on horn manure and barrel compost, along with compost tea. 20 tons of biodynamic compost sit next to it, and this will fertilize half of an acre of potatoes and onions. We call it the “Whooping Crane Garden”.
George’s niece, Ellen, lives in the old family farmhouse nearby, and really wants a garden, too. The soil looks great, except for one problem – Johnson grass. I begged off; it would be too much to take on a garden infested by this pesky weed. She protested, implored, and prevailed. I agreed to grow watermelons on black plastic there, along with a berry patch. It will be on a quarter of an acre and is affectionately called “Ellen’s Melons”.
The main community garden is at Tom and Brenda’s Sulfur Creek Farm. It is an acre divided into two sections. We’re planning a garden shed, too. But I have my head buried in the soil.
Glynn brought many dump truck loads of halfway-rotted manure and bedding to the site. Other neighbors donated more finished manure composts. I put biodynamic preparations in it at once. Bill donated a pile of five-year-old chips that were well on the way to becoming humus. I decided to mix it all up.
Tom’s tractor is small, without power steering. I am slowly making the compost piles when neighbor Zach brings a load of old manure from next door, which I had amended with preparations about a month earlier. I get off the tractor to thank him. “That medicine really seemed to help the manure rot,” he said. I offered to put some in the fresh pile he had made. But I couldn’t visit. I had way more work to do than time to do it. While I was back on the tractor, imagine my surprise, and joy, when he comes back, unasked, with a big backhoe. He saved me four hours of work, if not six.
The next morning, after putting preparations in over 100 tons of compost (plus Zach’s new pile), we had a meeting. George is the only farmer in the gang, and we both agreed it was the day to chisel plow the garden. We have to expose the Bermuda grass to some freezing weather. So we talked awhile, and George simply gets up and leaves. When he comes by with the tractor I help him hook it up and he is off. After plowing lengthwise, we decide to hit it crossways, too.
Besides 100 tons of compost, I also needed a fence to keep the deer out. We took the property line fence down between Tom and George, and built the deer fence around both fields, with the line going right through the garden. Many neighbors donated posts and helped build the fence, and a sign at the garden entrance reads, “Good neighbors make good fences.”
Joe is disappointed we aren’t growing on his land. Glynn offers manure, so we’ll plow and plant a corn patch there. We stir more horn manure and put it out with more compost tea. I want our vegetables to grow in a live soil humus, so there is a lot of focus on compost and tea right now.
What a community spirit! These folks all know each other and help each other out. Before their project, Tom, George, Zach and many of the neighbors didn’t know each other very well. I spent time visiting folks and shooting the breeze at the local diner. Long lasting friendships were kindled, and the community building is extremely rewarding for everyone involved, although nobody thinks I’ll be able to grow anything in those fields of Bermuda grass. Jim’s taking pictures to document the garden, Kathleen is taking notes and organizing, and Eric and Louisa are ready to help hoe and harvest.
With daylight slipping fast, I get ready to drive the tractor to a different farm. I don’t really have time, but I need to make compost over there. Devinder pulls up, and I’m too busy to visit. Next thing you know we are in his truck, getting a trailer, pulling the tractor to the other farm, and I finish the piles by 6:30. Everyone wants to help. We’ll see who’s out there when the rows of cucumbers, beans, and tomatoes need picking.
February 17th, 2009
Section III
In between the flurry of farm activities here, I slip into Davidson County and continue the fun. Twice we’ve taken our manure spreader there, and have about 100 tons of biodynamic compost spread over a little less than two acres on four different farms. One field is potatoes, one is sweet corn, one is melons and fruit, and the largest one is for the vegetable garden.
This is new land for me, new tractors, and new people, so I am definitely on a learning curve. On the day I arrived to plant potatoes, George informed me that there was a wet-weather spring in the back third of the field. But they already had the seed potatoes cut up, so we planted the whole patch. With the extra wet weather, that part of the field did not come up. So our potato crop, which is flowering and hilled, will be less than we planned. But I planned on too much anyway, so we are about on target.
Ellen’s melons and fruit farm is full of Johnson grass. So it is covered with a woven ground cloth and has blackberries planted. On the lower side, we made hills with compost, and planted watermelons and cantaloupes. This was covered with black plastic, and holes a foot in diameter were cut over the hills. Lots of rocks and wood were laid on to help keep the plastic from flying away.
Three rows of tomatoes start out the Sulfur Creek garden, followed by alternating rows of vining plants and quick maturing crops. We’ll harvest the latter about the time the vines take over. Two rows of pole beans will add visual flavor, along with a row each of zinnias and cosmos.
Part of what we’re doing in this project is helping younger folks experience gardening. It drives me nuts. On a freshly plowed patch, five “apprentices” were tromping around pulling up crabgrass roots. They were in the wrong place, and I called them a herd of elephants, because each footprint sank down four inches in the fluffy soil. I wish I was nicer, but packed garden soil makes me cringe.
As I watched them transplant lettuce, I knew I should teach them how to do it efficiently. They were going slow, planting too deep, and still tromping too much. So I get off the tractor and demonstrate, in my abrupt, egotistical manner. Smooth the soil evenly, someone hands me six plants, I set them and then shift myself forward and plant six more. I am so fast and good, I plant a hundred row feet in the time they could plant ten.
That’s when I realized I’d planted the wrong furrow, and had to dig them all up and replant. How do people put up with me? Three 400-foot rows of summer squash, three of beans and two of cucumbers will require help during harvest, so I hope I didn’t scare anyone away. We finished the day planting the sweet corn patch, and it was a blessing to have eight extra hands. The biodynamic humus-forming preparations were applied at sunset. Altogether, we have used 32 sets of the compost preparations, and put horn manure and barrel compost on the fields 18 times.
Horn silica was sprinkled on in the morning along with fermented horsetail tea, and then more gardens were planted. We have ulterior motives in Bell’s Bend. Developers want to build a bridge across the Cumberland River and bring in another downtown there, and these folks don’t want it. To “keep Bell’s Bend country,” they are fighting for their rural lifestyle in the planning commissioner’s meetings. A visible presence of organic food production is my role.
A few thousand acres are at stake. It could be the breadbasket of Nashville, supplying fresh produce, creating local jobs, and preserving the environment. Or, 50,000 people could move in, high rise apartments and shopping centers could go up, and the area becomes “developed.” We hope to “develop” it into organic farms and gardens instead.
