You may wonder how we grow food on our farm and what we use for pest control and how "organic" or "natural" we are. We are not certified organic, we tell people we buy organic produce for our family and we grow our food the way we hope others grow it. Here is a summary, but please email us if you have any questions.

• For fertilizers we use products that are approved for organic production. Primarily aged compost. We also regularly foliar feed with seaweed and fish emulsion.
• For weed control we use bio-degradable plastic mulches on things we start (tomatoes and peppers...) We use manual cultivation by tractor, with a hoe, or by hand as needed. We also occasionally use flame weeding for stale beds. All of these are approved for organic production.
• For disease control we rely largely on cultural practices to reduce pressure, but there comes a time in every season where powdery or downy mildew are a problem. In those cases we use first food grade hydrogen peroxide followed by certified organic products as needed. These include products like Serenade, which is primarily biological in it's action. For pests we use IPM for 75% of our pest control. This includes heavy rotation, interplanting with lure crops, trapping, promoting beneficial insects, and using row covers. We do hand picking for pests (and pest levels) where that is appropriate. For example tomato horn worms or Colorado potato beetles. If that does not work we will usually apply a product like Surround (which is a food grade clay) as a barrier, occasionally mixed with bT. After that we will look to stronger solutions like neem oil or in severe outbreaks Pyganic (which is a certified organic pesticide botanical pesticide derived from chrysanthemums).
• We are not a no spray farm, but typically use pesticides (certified organic always) just a handful of times a year and only on the crops showing high levels of pest pressure. We also use cover cropping and heavy rotation to help us.
• What we do not do is (generally) buy certified organic seeds (although we do not buy any GMO seed.)
• We also do not keep all the required paperwork for organic certification which is very extensive and time consuming for small scale growers like us, although we are doing more of that as we are seriously considering moving into an transitional organic status.

That might be a long explanation and more then you wanted to know. The one thing I would point out is that many people think that organic is no-spray and that is not true. The sad truth is once you reach a certain scale you will have problems and failure to address them in a timely manner can cause a significant loss. 

We try to touch the earth as lightly as we can and still produce a high quality product in a sustainable way.