Q & A With The Naked Farmer

Q. So before we get into it, I have to ask… Why The Naked farmer?

TNF: (laughs) Well that would be telling wouldn’t it? But I mean, why not? I’m surprised more gardeners and farmers don’t do it in the buff. Especially in the heat of the dog days of summer.

Q. But aren’t concerned that someone will see you in the fields in the buff?

TNF: Actually that has never happened before. I’m pretty sure that working in the buff makes me somehow invisible. It’s almost like a cloaking device.

Q. So nobody has ever seen you before?!?

TNF: Nope.

Q. Interesting. Ok, Let’s talk about what the idea is behind this little farming project.

TNF: Well… It’s a bit multifaceted really and actually we like to think of it as Hyper Gardening (laughs). We are kind of reluctant farmers, at least in the traditional sense. We really do think of it as gardening on steroids. While we do use our tractor for bulk work we generally do everything by hand. When you do intensive no-till growing like we do it doesn’t lend itself to using machines – not large ones anyway. The only time we would till is when we open new ground. We have hard clay so we turn it once, add a lot of manure with wood chips and that’s it, From then on its no-till. But we’ll talk about that later. So to answer your question I think everybody involved has a bit different idea as to what it is and what it means to them but there are some themes that are commonly shared. Of course growing and eating naturally grown food is probably right at the top of the list. There are other aspect to this as well.

Q. Like What?

TNF: For one proving that there are better and easier ways to garden AND to farm sustainably. It is becoming evident that this is quite doable without serious back breaking work and without battling the elements to try to stay ahead.

Q. How is that?

TNF: it’s actually simpler than what people think. Way simpler! It involves 2 main things. Covering your soil and covering your crops. That’s it!!

Q. OKAY… So how does that work?

TNF: To start off with we use the NO TILL method for managing our soil ( see Growing Tips/Soil Preparation). This pretty much eliminates two of the most back breaking and labourious tasks. Digging and Weeding. Basically the idea is not to leave any soil bare and exposed. This can be done using several different techniques which we talk about in other parts of this site.

Secondly, we cover our crops whenever and wherever appropriate. This is great for two main reasons … one – thermal protection and two – protection against pests.

Q. Wow! That does sound simple. What else motivates you to do this?

TNF: Well… I know that both Beth and Lex firmly believe that we should all be more self sufficient. And I concur. Even though we have some acreage here we are running this little project in a way that can easily be replicated on small urban plots, backyards and frontyards. In fact much of what we have learned is from urban farmers such as Curtis Stone, Will Allan, as well as small-plot intensive farmers such as Jean Martin Fortier, Paul and Elizabeth Kaizer and of course the godfather of them all Elliot Coleman. But nobody better exemplifies this idea better than the Dervaes family in Los Angeles. Sure, they take it to the nth degree but at least they show us what is possible in a basic suburban home.
 

 

Q. Wow! After watching that video I was amazed at what you can actually do on a regular suburban lot. By the way this reminds me of a book I read a while back called Square Foot Gardening. I thought it was pretty cool.

TNF: Oh Yeah! Great book by Mel Bartholomew. I would say the square foot approach and vertical gardening are the two most revolutionary approaches to modern urban gardening. In fact I think that the square foot gardening is somewhat responsible for the intensive farming methods in farming. We use this method all the time… especially in our raised beds. I think every gardener should have a copy of this book at their disposal. Here is the link at Amazon.ca – go get it!

This picture is one of our lettuce beds. Its a 10′ x 4′ bed and I believe that there are over 80 heads of lettuce. It really is the way to go. Raised beds are really easy to work in, you can practically eliminate all weeds and there’s no tilling to be done. You don’t even have to shovel to turn the soil over. Just add an inch or two of compost and you’re good to go. We’ll talk about raised beds in more detail here.

Q. Alright! This is really great stuff and we could go on for hours but unfortunately we are running out of time so we will have to end it here. But before I let you go you have to promise me that we will get to do this again soon.

TNF: Yeah, Absolutely. It was fun. See you soon.