How We’re Different

Sunbow Farm has always been farmed without synthetic chemicals and was defined as using organic principles in 1972. This history is important because there are no residues from previous farming practices that can be taken up by our produce. This fact has been confirmed by testing.

From the outset Harry specialized in growing vegetables and fruits with intense flavor. He learned early on that this was achieved by carefully controlling the amounts of nitrogen put into dynamic, biologically resilient soils. Many organic growers use considerably more nitrogen-containing compounds than we do. The flavor difference translates into nutritional differences in minerals, vitamins and amino acids. Our produce is not “pumped up”. But the resulting nutritional characteristics of our produce are.

In 2000 Harry and the other growers at Sunbow began experimenting with mulch growing using leaves. The reasons were many:

Water retention in the face of ever hotter summers and winters that sometimes have less rainfall; carbon available for the micro organisms to integrate readily with silicates which are the basis of all soils, and at an isotope level thereby continually generating usable calcium even in these high magnesium soils; building a forest floor texture on clay soils; providing foods for necessary soil fungi, which are depressed or missing in many farming systems. Coupled with the carbon-based mulches decomposing have been additions of micro organisms in high quality compost teas. These experiments are on-going and have now been moved into our new grain projects.