How We Grow

Why Huarache? We decided to call oursevles Huarache Farms (Espanol for sandals) because we share a love of minimalist running and plant-based eating. Inspired by the Tarahumara runners of Mexico, who grow their own mustard greens, beans, chia seeds, and corn, we strive to have a light environmental footprint and to keep on running. Our mission is to create community through gardening, cooking, and running for mental health. Come run with us!

A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH To Food Production:

At Huarache Farms, we utilize hydroponics, water gardens, wicking soil beds, mist irrigation, and food forestry to grow food on a backyard scale.

Our farms emphasize a thoughtful approach to growing fruits and vegetables.  This means taking a hard look at both conventional and organic growing methods, selecting ideas that work and are safe, and avoiding other practices that harm the environment, people, pets, and beneficial organisms. If we are too conventional, we risk destroying the life of the soil; if we are too organic, we risk not being productive enough to make a farm economically sustainable.

HOW WE GROW WITH BOTH SOIL AND WATER:

Soil is the most important part of gardening, and it is our belief that soils must not be excessively disturbed, such as through tilling, applying toxic materials, and baked in full sun. The hardest part to growing food in Southern-California is the fact that for most of the year, it is inhospitably hot.

HERE’S HOW WE BEAT THE HEAT:

1. We build shadehouses, not greenhouses. Shadecloth, and the metal pipe structures we bungee them to can reduce summer air temperatures by 15 degrees F, allowing tender leafy veggies to grow without too much stress.  

2. We use multiple water-saving techniques to reduce water usage, which includes shade-cloth, sub-irrigated wicking beds, hydroponics, and applying generous amounts of mulch and organic matter to our gardens.  With these growing methods, we use less water than with traditional farming techniques, such as flood and sprinkler irrigation.
   

HOW WE FERTILIZE OUR PLANTS:

1. We fertilize our veggies primarily with a salt based hydroponic fertilizer called Jack’s Hydro FeEd (containing 12 essential minerals for plant growth), Sea-90 solar dehydrated ocean water (containing 90 trace minerals), Maxicrop Kelp Extract (containing soluble seaweed, trace minerals, and plant growth regulators), AgSil16H potassium silicates (for increasing plant resistance to heat, cold, salt, pests, and disease), copious amounts of straw and alfalfa from local horse feed stores, and worm castings which we cultivate from crop residues.  We are always experimenting with ways to reduce our need for salt fertilizer, though currently it is an essential part of growing enough vegetables for a market. Ultimately, plant nutrients need to come from somewhere, and salt-based fertility provides a foundation with which to start saving crop residues to make more soil.

2. Each time we harvest, we’re left with trimmings of leaves, stems, root material, spent mushroom substrate, and rooting media. With the help of red worms, native microorganisms, and mist irrigation, all of this is quickly turned into a useable soil. We view composting/mulching as a long-term way to get nutrient-rich soil and hydroponics as a short-term tool which can be used to generate biomass and build soil.

3. When it comes to growing sprouts and microgreens, we just use mist irrigation and coconut coir as a soil substrate. Because sprouts and microgreens typically only need 1-3 weeks to grow, they only need the resources contained in their seeds and because they’re harvested on a tight schedule, they never get big enough to need additional fertilization.

4. Why Don’t we use Animal Manure? While composted animal manure, such as chicken, horse, and cow manure can be great for fertilizing a garden, we choose to opt out of this for a variety of reasons.

   4a. The biggest reason is that most animal manure comes from CAFO’s (confined animal feeding operations) where conditions are inhumane, infectious diseases can spread, and it contributes to the overreach of agriculture. Excessive amounts of corn, soybeans, wheat, and other livestock feeds are fertilized with low-quality salt fertilizers to feed excessive amounts of livestock, which create excessive amounts of animal manure (which contains the very salts that were used to grow their feed). Precious natural resources like soil, water, fossil-fuel, and salt mineral fertilizers are being squandered to produce more animal protein than the world actually needs.

   For example, companies have routinely reached out to us to see if we were interested in trying organic fertilizers made of “liquid animal product.”

   4b. Raising animals for their manure and for a market is expensive, time consuming, and not a great fit for urban areas. While we have raised chickens for their eggs in the past, predators like coyotes, raccoons, bears, and hawks were a constant threat to them. Rats would persistently try to eat the chicken’s feed at night, and in some cases attacking the chickens at night. Although we would clean up the chicken coop and use the chicken’s manure, it still attracted lots of flies. The chickens needed to be constantly confined to not get preyed upon, making their quality of life diminished, since they would prefer hillsides of space covered by trees and shrubs to explore and forage. Having a few chickens for personal use can be a great fit and can produce just enough eggs for that family, but this won’t produce enough manure to grow very many vegetables, especially for a market garden business.

   4c. Why we use Worm Castings instead? Earthworms and red wigglers are very inexpensive to cultivate and breed readily in diverse environments. They can be raised in containers and given the trimmings of mushrooms and vegetable scraps that accumulate from a week’s harvest. They can live permanently in garden soil, where alfalfa pellets, soybean meal, and straw are routinely added as worm feed. As gardens are routinely cultivated, they help to maintain soil health and are a sign of good soil health if they remain. If earthworms are lacking in certain garden beds, that’s a sign to work on the soil by adding more crop residues like straw, alfalfa, soybean meal, or mealworm frass.
   

HOW WE DEAL WITH WEEDS/PESTS/DISEASE

1. All weeds/plants out of place in our gardens we pull by hand.  In many of our hydroponic growing areas, weeding is not needed b/c it is growing in water. We use weed fabric and repurposed carpets as weed barriers, especially when soil is resting for a period of time. We also cultivate certain plants that many consider to be weeds (stinging nettle, watercress, dandelions, duckweed).

2. The three main pests we get in our gardens throughout the year are the cabbage looper (green caterpillars), aphids, spider mites, and slugs.  We encourage beneficial predators to help reduce the population of these pests by having plants that provide nectar to predatory insects.  We will occasionally get pest damage on our veggies, which is something we tolerate, and the veggies can grow out of this if they are healthy. We may use an OMRI certified insecticide called Pyganic (derived from chrysanthemum flowers) if no beneficial predators are observed and an insect infestation is brewing. To reduce fungal pathogens we’ll use ground cinnamon and biofumigants like chopped watercress stems.

3. We have learned that the main reason plants typically get diseases and pests is because of too much/too little sunlight, water, and nutrition, which is why we focus on growing healthy plants that are able to grow in spite of these problems when they do arise. Certain plants are more susceptible to diseases:

   -Dandelion, chard, and red veined sorrel is prone to getting powdery mildew, and we’ve learned to use mist irrigation to regularly rinse the leaves and remove the fungus.

   -Sweet basil is prone to getting Downey mildew, so we plant disease resistant varieties that have been crossed with wild ancestors to basil

   -Tomatoes are prone to getting early and late Blight, so we focus on tomato varieties that are resistant and add biofumigants to the soil like radishes, onions, and watercress.
   

WHERE WE GET OUR SEEDS FROM:

1. We order most of our seeds from Johnnyseeds and Trueleafmarket, which are seed companies that sell in bulk and provide seeds specifically for growers.  We have never used and do not plan to use GMO (genetically-modified organisms) seeds, and to our knowledge these companies do not sell them.  Whenever possible, we order OG (organic) seeds from Johnny’s seeds. We also save our own seeds from year-to-year, such as pole beans and watercress, making these more specific to our region.

Common Questions about Gardening:

Q: Don’t salt based fertilizers kill off beneficial bacteria and fungi?

A: It depends on the circumstance. If the concentration of salt is too high, it can be detrimental not only to microorganisms but also to the plants we’re trying to grow. At low concentrations, salt nutrients will allow bacteria, fungi, and millions of other microscopic species to grow faster, i.e. nitrogen is the quality of all life. If too much nitrogen is added to an ecosystem, the rapid growth of microbes will eventually use up the carbon in the soil, which can lead to a decline in beneficial microorganisms, especially fungi, b/c they utilize carbon residues as their primary source of energy. This is why continuous additions of carbon-rich amendments are essential (compost, mulch, crop residues). As long as farmers continue to see carbon sources as a vital resource, then conservative additions of salt can help to gradually build soils, rather than denude them.

Q. Is salt fertilizer the same as weed killer?

A: No, fertilizers are derived from mined rocks which contain phosphorus, potassium, and other trace elements like iron, sulfur, calcium, magnesium, zinc, copper, molybdenum, manganese, and chloride. When rocks are broken down to their simplest form (salt-ions) they can be dissolved in water. Nitrogen is derived from the air. The atmosphere is ~78% nitrogen, but this form of nitrogen is unavailable to plants b/c it is gaseous. With heat and pressure (requiring an energy source), nitrogen can be condensed into a liquid, such as ammonium. If too many fertilizers are used, plants can die from water loss b/c of osmotic pressure, but this is usually accidental.

Weed killer can be any chemical that is toxic or harmful to plants, which is intentionally applied to kill unwanted plants. Examples include vinegar, sodium chloride (table salt), dish soap or detergents, cooking oil, and boiling water.

Chemical herbicides are materials that we never use and do not recommend using on food crops or in vegetable gardens, as they can have long term, negative effects on soil health.

Q. What is OMRI?

A. OMRI stands for Organic Materials Research Institute. This is a label that is often found on products that are approved for farms that are certified organic.

Q. Do Certified Organic Farms use pesticides?

A. Yes they do. The difference is that organic farms are only allowed to use OMRI certified pesticides, which are typically made from plants (Pyganic is made from chrysanthemum flower oil). OMRI pesticides are not persistent in the environment and therefore are safe for people, pets, and wildlife. According to my professors are Cal Poly Pomona, OMRI pesticides do not work as well as conventional pesticides, which is why early identification of pests is important to ensure that they can be suppressed quickly. When insect infestations occur (and this is rare) often there is no pesticide that will remedy the damage to the crops, and we usually just start over and grow new veggies again from seed. One example of this is in years with extreme heat, we’ve had the bagrada beetle explode in numbers throughout the garden with very little time to anticipate them. They suck the sap from the tips of leaves and in a few days there can be significant damage to the marketability of different veggies.

Anyone who is farming for a market has to be able to grow a consistent amount of one or several types of vegetables, which requires months worth of rotations of the same vegetable to be able to regularly harvest it. Although small farms and backyard gardens tend to have a diversity of vegetables and fruit (which helps to minimize pests), there still needs to be enough of each kind of vegetable to consistently bring them to market. Growing as little as 100 sq ft of lettuce will attract many different insects throughout the year, such as aphids and moths/caterpillars. Growing 10,000 sq ft of lettuce will attract a much higher volume of those insects simply b/c of the greater density. This is why as farms become larger, it becomes increasingly difficult to control pests. This is also why larger farms are much bigger users of pesticides.

We share planet Earth with so many organisms, most of which we can’t even see. As humans, we are capable of creating dense pockets of food, which will absolutely attract many species of insects, animals, bacteria, and fungi. There should be no shame in the need to defend the food we grow, considering all the effort and time that goes into growing it. Of course we need to be mindful about it and not poison ourselves, the soil, and the natural world in the process.

Anyone who is growing and selling vegetables for a market, whether they admit it or not, is using some kind of pesticide to protect their crops. We typically will use Pyganic to control caterpillars or aphids a handful of times per year, and usually it’s in the summer when pest pressure is at its highest, and it will be in small sections of the garden, such as aphids on the chives.

Growing sprouts and microgreens does not require any pesticides b/c they are grown so quickly that pests don’t have time to lay eggs or spread.