Our Mission Statement
Soil Friends seeks to provide access to nutrient dense food, and through a regenerative agricultural system, maintains a commitment of giving back to both our land and community.
Vision Statement
To be a company regenerating acres of land for the production of nutrient dense foods to improve the health and happiness of people
We know soil is alive! We are always striving to make management decisions to increase soil biological activity rather than using harmful inputs that destroy soil life. We are committed to non GMO seeds, no herbicides or synthetic chemicals used at Soil Friends Farm . Our soil is alive, nutrients can be released and available to our crops as they require them resulting in healthier plants and animals that produce healthier food. We have an minimum tillage approach to reduce disturbance of our soil organisms with balance of tillage practices to incorporate organic matter into our soils from growing cover crops. In areas of the farm chickens are integrated into our field rotation program to add nitrogen to the soil and to serve as a natural pest management control.
Access to Nutrient Dense Foods
At Soil Friends our focus is to make management decisions according to crop requirements by tending to the garden to create an optimum growing environment. Each season our soil is analyzed to make sure our minerals and nutrients are replaced in the soil according to specific crops that will be produced on each plot of land. Nutrients are supplied to the plants accordingly from our knowledge of being able to observe signs from the plants to provide the nourishment they require immediately. With our importance placed on crop management our goal is to reduce the stress of the plants to increase our quality.
During Harvest since all of our produce is sold within 100 miles of the farm, we harvest the crops at peak maturity to increase the flavor of our food. Throughout our production by supplying the proper amounts of nutrients to the plants the cell wall strength of the food is increased, leading to a firm produce with a longer shelf life. At Soil Friends Farm to continue increasing soil fertility is our focus, management decisions towards increasing crop quality can be accomplished only if soil is biologically active. Not all produce is created equal and we can measure our results by using a brixs test. “Brix varies directly with plant quality poor, sour tasting produce from non fertile land can test 7 or less brix. On the other hand, full flavored, delicious produce, grown on rich, fertile soil can test 23 or better brix”.
“brix is actually a sum of the pounds of sucrose, fructose, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, proteins, hormones, and other solids in one hundred pounds of plant juice”