Riding out to the field. Photo by Scott David Gordon

I’m inspired! Things are going so well right now, I feel like I am on fire!  Really, I have never been so excited and full of ideas in my life - and for me, that's saying a lot.  I have been wondering about what has been making me feel especially passionate about farming these days.  Believe it or not, I think the answer is team-work.

I say believe it or not because I am not one who naturally gravitates towards working in a group.  I tend to like to do things myself.  It's funny, but when I was back at Auburn in college studying agricultural engineering, I remember being given a group assignment to design a 3-point hitch log-grapple - a tool that rural landowners could use to pick up fallen trees with a tractor and haul them away.  I really got into the assignment…so much so that I went home that night and sketched out the design.  But I didn't stop there.  I went to the back dock of a local Sears department store and found some old refrigerator boxes and drew out the design, cut it out and made a working model that night.  The next day, I biked over to school while carrying my proto-type log-grapple.  I was so proud, I announced to my group, "Here it is!"  The thing is, though, I had missed the whole point of the assignment.  I didn't get the chance to work with my group or to see what creative ideas they might come up with.

It is now 20+ years later, and I am just now beginning to understand the true value of team-work.  I have always known the importance of our amazing staff at JBG - clearly, without their hard work and dedication, the farm wouldn't be where it is today.  I think what I have failed to fully appreciate is the wealth of ideas and knowledge our employees bring to their jobs every day.  I like to think of myself as the primary idea man, and when I do this to the exclusion of others, I am just like that kid back in college rushing home to do the assignment all by himself.  Over the past several weeks, though, I have noticed a real shift in myself.  It was not a conscious decision – it something that I stumbled upon by accident really - but since I seriously want to our farm to be the best organic farm in the World, I decided to have a contest. I love competition, and I think that sometimes I may be a little too competitive - I have to watch it. But that day, I came into the office full of energy and announced to our farm office staff that I needed 5 minutes of their time.  Then, I got on the CB Radio and called in all the crew leaders.

All of us were sitting around the front office together in our old intern trailer now converted to our farm office. I gave everyone 5 sheets of paper and announced the rules of the game with enthusiasm, “I want everyone to take a minute and see what ideas you all have to make the farm better.”  What better way to spur a little competition, I thought, then to offer a little incentive?  So, I also offered cash!  After the 5 minutes were almost up, the creative juices were still flowing with everyone, so I could see that we couldn’t stop now.  They agreed to extend the game for another 5 minutes.  Then, everyone presented their ideas to the group. We made several changes right then and there to address the easy fixes. For the bigger ideas and longer term improvements, the managers agreed to split up the workload and each take some of the sheets of ideas and develop a plan to prioritize and rank the suggestions to make a farm improvement plan. What I discovered in this quick little meeting was that teamwork and empowerment have tremendous potential.

Those pesky worms.

In addition to my own high energy, I have noticed our crew has been really engaged in this process, too.  For example, Temo, Head Grower, has started to call me after work hours with new ideas.  Since I love talking about farming, I can think of nothing better.  His initiative really helped out a lot this week with a problem we have been having with the squash and cucumbers we are growing.  The problem has to do with cucumber beetle larvae, and I mean a lot of them!  We looked closely at one square foot of planting and found we had nearly 15 worms in that square foot alone!  This year our planting of squash and cucumber have really been attacked by cucumber beetles as soon as they sprout from the ground. We have been trying everything to address the problem. In talking with other Texas growers recently, I have found that we are not alone. This made me feel better. Much of this increased bug problem is tied to the cool weather and all of the rain we had this Spring.  Temo, however, has been repeatedly telling me that he thought it was due to our decision not to use plastic mulch on these crops.

I was resolute, though, that we not go back to using plastic; instead, I told Temo that we needed to find another solution. So Temo and I called our friend Dr. Kevin Crosby at Texas A&M. He teaches commercial vegetable production at the College Station campus. Kevin said he, too, was having problems with his research plot in Uvalde this year which was utilizing plastic mulch, so this helped us ruled out the plastic as the culprit to the problem.

Kevin said that he would try to get us some help from his entomology colleges, but he warned me that most of their approach and proposed solutions would most likely be conventional, non-organic solutions that we as organic farmers couldn't use. While Kevin at Texas A&M continued to work on finding us an organic solution, Temo came up with one all on his own. He went home that night and did his research. The next day, he used a mixture of rosemary and herbal oils in the drip irrigation water that succeeded in killing the cucumber beetle larvae! I was amazed and thanked him for his dogged work on the problem. I thought for sure we would have a total crop loss. His dedication to the farm both during and after work hours is really appreciated - he truly deserves the title of Head Grower.

Back in colder days...working with Temo on irrigation design. Photo by Carrie Kenny

It is true that our decision to not use plastic mulch anymore has caused some difficulties. I believe in the long run, though, it will prove to have been worth the effort. I say this because I have been thinking a lot about the goals and mission of the farm. As a team, we have been hard at work at updating our mission and vision for the farm– and as soon as we perfect it, I will post it here. What I do know is that I want the farm to be a great place for our employees to work, I want it to provide our community with the highest quality certified organic vegetables possible, and I want our organic growing practices to be as sustainable as possible and a model for organic farms. Basically, I want our farm to be a force of good in our community. In this way, I find myself connecting back to that idealistic college student I was decades ago. Now, if I could just get that concept of teamwork down....