Our farm is an Intergraded Pest Management Farm. We are very proud to have been striving for excellence in the environmentally friendly farming practice for over twenty years.

       Intergraded Pest Management, or IPM, is a method of farming that brings the best of advances science skills in farming to use the least among of chemicals on the land. Some of the things we do are simple and obvious. Examples include not growing the same plants in the same place year after year or planting soil enriching winter cover crops. However, these no brainier must be followed with frequent and extensive detailed soil analyzes specific to each field or area of the one hundred plus acres. These tests analyzed at the soil and tissue lab located at the University of Massachusetts tell us with precision, what micro and macro nutrients are in our fields. With this information we can make good decisions as to when and how much fertilizer and lime is added to our soil.  These simple good farming practices have naturally improved the soil on our farm to such a degree that very little chemical fertilizer is needed. The high organic content also absorbs the nitrates quickly, preventing run off into the rivers that flow through the farm and further protect our natural resources.

IPM approach is also used for plant disease problems. The tomato plant for example protects itself from most insects. It is however, susceptible to several forms of plant fungal diseases. Traditional farming would spray tomato plants with fungicides frequently. Our farm has a different approach. We grow a type of tomato called a determent variety. This type of tomato vine produces all of its fruit inside of a three-week span. We plant multiple batches of tomatoes to harvest over the summer. As the plants are old enough for the possibility of disease we move into the next patch thus elevating the necessity to use sprays.

           
           Insect damage often needs individually unique approaches. We do not like to use insecticides but we don't appreciate an ear of corn when an earworm has dined first. We have a threshold of acceptance for insect damage before we take action. The acceptance is assed by our field inspector that periodically walks all of our fields. The action takes might be something as simple as hanging large balloons with evil eyes in to corn fields to keep the birds away or the use of pheromone traps. Traps to lure Japanese beetles out of the blueberries are also very effective.  

 
          Honeybees are so important to our healthy diverse environment but have been frequently adversely impacted by traditional farming.  In fact, honeybees have been used to indicate environmental health. The beekeeper that takes car of the hives at Breezy Gardens declares that our bees are the healthiest thriving community of any of the locations he goes to. The honeys collected from these hives have won frequent awards in many competitions over the years. Great care is taken to use as many organic insect control methods as possible and timing is very important.

           Weed control on out farm is a frequent and ongoing challenge. The problem is the soil is so rich and healthy that all plants those we prefer and those we don’t, thrive. We do a large amount of cultivation both by a machine and hand hoeing. Black plastic mulch is used on many of the crops. (See picture) This both controls weeds and warms the soil giving a bonus of early crop production to non-herbicide weed control.
These wonderful farming methods have been good to our family. We have been privileged to see a rich diversity of wildlife thrive in and around our fields. Years of environmentally friendly IPM farming have allowed us to bring wonderfully healthy food to our own community.