Our principles
Little Ark Farm is certified USDA Organic, but that’s just the beginning. Our goal is to produce the healthiest food possible using methods that make our little patch of land better than when we found it.
We have drawn the following principles from both the latest in modern soil and plant science and traditional knowledge from farmers around the globe.
👣 Tread lightly 🪱︎
Tilling the soil might make it easier to use a mechanical seeder or a hoe, but what are the side effects? The blades kill earthworms and beneficial insects. As more air is incorporated into the soil, the delicate balance of bacteria and fungi is disturbed, eventually leaving the soil biome lower in nutrients and less resilient.
Tillage typically breaks up the top 6” of soil. Instead, we use specialized, lightweight equipment to limit our impact to a single inch of depth. We also rotate our plantings so that beds have a six-year recovery period for the crops where we need to disturb the soil more deeply.
🌳 Maintain living roots 🌱
Roots make the glues that hold a healthy soil together and provide a home for all the tiny living things that make up the soil biome. For this reason, we prioritize trees, shrubs, and other perennials wherever we can.
Many important crops like tomatoes and cucumbers are planted and harvested every year and won’t survive the winter. After harvesting these, we immediately plant grasses and clovers that can survive well into or even through the winter, leaving our soil primed with life come spring.
🪿 Put livestock to work 🦆
We love our ducks and geese. We enjoy their company, and we also enjoy their meat and eggs. But their primary function on our farm is as lawn mowers, manure spreaders, and pest control.
The birds happily graze our cover crops and pasture, eat bugs, and clean up dropped fruit and spent veggies. And they poop all along the way, depositing rich nutrients right where they are needed.
🪺 Keep things a bit wild 🦋
As we farm, we routinely come across songbirds, hawks, praying mantises, butterflies, and other delightful and beneficial players in our farm ecosystem. They come because of the trees we’ve planted and the large patches of undisturbed grasses and wildflowers. While they are here, they provide important roles as pollinators and pest control.
To protect insect life on the farm, we use only 3 organic-approved pesticides: neem oil (made from a tree), spinosad (made with fermentation), and Dr. Bronner’s soap. We always spray at dusk so that pollinators have a chance to head home first.