To keep his fields healthy, Dave mainly fertilizes with his own mixture of compost made from the farm animals' manure, dead leaves, and food scraps. He also uses cover crops (crops that will be tilled back into the ground to enrich the soil) and buys some soil amendments, such as rock dust. He focuses on nurturing the microorganisms in the soil because they are what make nutrients available to the plants. This makes the plants healthier and so more resistant to pests and disease. Occasionally, if pests like Colorado Potato Beetles are really bad, Dave will use organic-approved pesticides, but these are only a last resort and he hasn't used them in years. He finds that in general, with good management of his soil and crops, he doesn't have excessive trouble with pests. Dave has 6.5-7 acres in rotation with about 20% planted with a cover crop in a given year.



When asked about her opinion on the growing of monocultures, Carolyn described the practice as just "inviting pests, like a candy shop." She said that having so much of a single crop in one large planting tends to attract pests and disease to such an extent that it's very hard to manage them with organic methods, and that is why you don't usually find organic crops from the northeast. For example, apples, one of the northeast's big crops, are generally grown in large orchards and so apple pests are attracted in great numbers to these areas and it is easy for disease to spread between trees.

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For more information about Glynwood Farm, visit the website. 



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The information on this page is from interviews with both Carolyn and Dave Llewellyn.