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 we want 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. If you are too conventional, you risk destroying the life of the soil; if you are too organic, you 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 wicking beds, hydroponics, composting, and dew harvesting.  With these growing methods, we use less water than with traditional farming techniques.

HOW WE FERTILIZE OUR PLANTS:

  1. We fertilize our veggies primarily with a salt based fertilizer (containing 12 essential minerals for plant growth), solar dehydrated ocean water (containing 90 trace minerals), copious amounts of straw, alfalfa, and worm castings.  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. In addition, our veggies and fruit trees/vines are given generous amounts of vermicompost that we make on-site through crop residues. 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.

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. Rarely, we may use an OMRI certified insecticide called Pyganic (derived from chrysanthemum flowers). To reduce fungal pathogens we’ll use ground cinnamon and biofumigants like chopped watercress stems. To prevent slugs and soil-borne pests we’ll use freshly brewed coffee.

  3. We have learned that the main reason plants typically get diseases is because of too much/too little sunlight, water, and nutrition, which is why we focus on growing healthy plants to prevent disease. 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 lower 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 important (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 this, but it 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 reccomend using, as they can have long term, negative effects on soil health. In some cases, horse manure may contain high levels of certain herbicides which were used to grow hay which is then fed to horses. We are careful to make sure the straw we use does not cause herbicidal effects when used as a mulch.