The Fruit Growers News - January 2002


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Grower Succeeds with Organic Methods

By Jeffrey Carter Ontario Correspondent

If organic growers were to be categorized, Ken McMullen might find himself at one end of the spectrum. That’s not a bad thing, though. McMullen is succeeding. “Making $15,000 a year with this style of farming is equivalent to making $45,000 or $50,000 from most conventional jobs,” McMullen says. McMullen figures he and his wife’s food bill is a third of what most nose-to-the-grindstone working couples in North America spend. There’s also the tax deductions to consider, everything from gas for food deliveries to the cost of the mortgage for the land. It’s not the economics, however, that puts McMullen’s Spring Arbour Farm operation at the edge. It might be said that McMullen is as much an environmentalist as a farmer, perhaps even more so. There’s a place for all living things on his farm. McMullen’s approach to weeds goes a long way in explaining this. He does remove them - depending on the time and the circumstances - but he also sees that they have a place, even though that place may not always be convenient to him. McMullen’s potato strategy is a good example. He plants them in rows six inches apart with the tubers dropped every six inches within the rows. With that high density, the potatoes keep ahead of the weeds throughout the spring and into the summer. The green part of the potato plants have already put enough energy into the tubers and all those weeds can be turned back into the soil as green manure.
The Colorado potato beetle, McMullen notes, is present in his potato patch but it’s not a problem. McMullen isn’t sure, but he feels its failure to become a pest is related to his overall approach to farming. Our human understanding of the intricacy of the natural world is far from complete, he says. Often a plant or insect that’s considered to be a pest, may be having a beneficial impact. McMullen jokes that his penchant for allowing weeds to flourish used to get him into trouble when he was growing vegetables for his own consumption in a community garden.
“Half of the people who see the garden get irate with me; they say it doesn’t look like a garden, that it doesn’t look right at all but that’s where their socialization with weeds comes into play... Acre per acre, I probably have more yield than most conventional farmers.” McMullen does feed many families through his CSA (community supported agriculture). From his four acres of garden, he makes deliveries to 70 different families and individuals in Missisauga and Toronto every two weeks from spring to early December. Along with fresh produce, McMullen also delivers preserved foods such as his “maple mustard” which is prepared from a combination of the maple syrup he produces and mustard, vinegar, olive oil and herb salt. For this service, each customer pays an up-front fee of $250. Final invoices are issued after the last delivery. These typically range from $200 to $600, depending on the customer. Expenditures include the money spent on seed, hydro, fuel for the greenhouse, transportation and equipment, and mortgage payments. Some of the costs are offset by sales other than those made through the CSA. For example, the cost of the turkey manure is covered through compost sales and the greenhouse expenses are covered through the sale of potted plants. McMullen leans toward heirloom varieties, especially those developed prior to the 20th century. He says they tend to perform well without the use of artificial inputs or conventional management. When it comes to variety selection, flavor and nutrition are the top considerations, he says. “If organic food hasn’t got a flavor that’s different then there’s no sense in trying to market it as an organic product... Part of what I’m avoiding is the market pressure to standardize.” The diversity in the garden is impressive. For example, McMullen grows cherry, regular-sized and beef-steak tomatoes. For each of the sizes there are at least three different colors -yellow, red, and green-red. There are also some fairly unusual crops, including tomatillos, a tomato-like plant that produces a small green fruit. The crop diversity has a lot to do with place. Southwestern Ontario, he notes, has elements of both the northern boreal forest and the Carolinian forest. “There are species here that are also located at the Arctic Circle and the Gulf of Mexico,” he says. McMullen’s growing techniques are geared to accommodate the soil type on the farm - blow sand. Irrigation is required. Water from a spring-fed creek is used for this purpose. “We took five years to find a farm and the main characteristic we were looking for was cold, clear water,” he says. In 1990, when the farm was purchased, soil organic levels were extremely low so McMullen has relied heavily on the use of compost - a combination of turkey manure and sawdust. Just a small percentage of his garden is direct seeded. Most plants are started in the greenhouse. Trenches about a food deep are dug, lined with about four inches of compost, and the seedlings, usually around a foot in height, are laid deep in the soil on top of the compost. McMullen’s success has been based to a large degree on trial and error since he began investigating organic techniques many years ago. He’s also learned about organic techniques through his involvement with Canada’s organic movement, in which he played a leading role in the past. McMullen plans to combine his knowledge of agriculture with his career as an industry consultant to educate others about organics and CSAs.