Regenerative Farming

At The Chef’s Garden, we are committed to practicing sustainable farming techniques. The foundation of this philosophy is our soil, which we are continually replenishing with nutrients that are depleted over time in order to produce the most nutritionally dense fresh vegetables possible. By replenishing our soil naturally and giving it the time it needs to do so, it delivers to us products of unrivaled quality and flavor.

Principles Of Regenerative Farming

The Six Principles of Soil Health form the foundation of regenerative agriculture, emphasizing the significance of context-aware farming practices, avoiding disruptive disturbances, promoting biodiversity in plant and organism species, implementing soil armor through organic cover, sustaining living roots for continuous nutrient cycling, and adopting approaches that prioritize ecosystem health.

Context: Adopting to Unique Environments

Context is essential in understanding how the other 4 principles of Regenerative Agriculture are applied. Agriculture in and of itself can be contrary to the complete application of the regenerative tenets. Having an understanding of how the process of cultivating crops can impact these principles allows for a better understanding of how we apply regenerative agriculture.

For example, while reducing soil disturbance is vital, planting and harvesting alone can cause disturbance. Root crops and tubers, for example, when planted and harvested, create a disturbance resembling tillage. It’s not possible to cultivate these products without this disturbance.

Disturbance: Preserving Soil Integrity

We are not an organic farm – meaning that we utilize chemical applications as a tool when it’s imperative. However, we work hard to reduce disturbance by eliminating any chemistry and tillage that’s unnecessary and by employing the following practices:

Strip-tilling: this process only plows a very small section of the row that will contain the seed
No-till planting: direct seeding or transplanting a crop into the soil without a tillage pass
Using a natural overlay (like aged hay mulch or terminated cover crop) to suppress weed pressure

As we grow in our regenerative practices, we are working towards a growing system that would no longer need any chemical application and get closer to that goal every year.

Armor: Protecting the Soil Surface

We use only one-third or less of our acreage at any given time for active production. The rest of our ground rests under the protection of our multi-species cover crop.

In a reduced and no-till system, we can leave behind crop residues usually removed from the farm and sold or tilled into the soil. This allows us to protect the soil surface from wind and rain erosion, reduce soil surface temperature – which protects the valuable microbial life – and provide a source of organic carbon to enhance carbon cycling.

Living Root: Continuous Nutrient Cycling

We are testing and experimenting with growing diverse selections of non-harvested crops between our planted rows. This increases the percentage of land with living roots in the soil even further and, of course, adds to the nutrient-cycling ability of the soil as well.

We let our land rest and regenerate between crop cycles by keeping it covered with our blends of multi-species cover crops, which ensure there are living roots in the soil at all times.

Enhanced Diversity: Fostering Ecosystem Resilience

We have a robust research and development process that guides us in applying fertility treatments, finely tuned to the specific needs of each crop.

We tailor multi-species cover crop blends to achieve weed suppression or fertility goals specific to each field.
We replicate the thriving microbiology of our natural ecosystem by growing diverse bacterial fertility cultivated from thriving areas of the farm and transplanting them into microbially depleted areas.

By keeping a close eye on nutrient deficiencies and pH levels, we can increase bioavailability – meaning that our crops can absorb the nutrients and minerals in the soil and even change the chemical structure of existing soil fertility into forms that the plant can take up.

Livestock Integration

Livestock plays a critical role in regenerative farming. At The Chef’s Garden, we’ve dedicated a 60-acre section to our permaculture operations, with a portion of it being used to integrate pasture-raised cattle, poultry, and pigs into our regenerative farm. Through grazing patterns, these animals naturally fertilize the land and stimulate plant growth.

A Legacy In The Soil: The Future Of Agriculture

Because of the immense variety of crops in production at The Chef’s Garden, we are working to pioneer new methods of Regenerative Agriculture that make it possible to grow any field crop regeneratively and without tillage. It’s a labor of love and a path we feel proud to forge. We are committed to getting better and better at these practices every year.

We want to shape and redefine regenerative agriculture in our country by creating a model to attract, inspire, and retain young farmers. One that can be replicated. We hope to encourage the next generation of farmers to value, protect, and restore America’s farmland. We hope our legacy will establish a replicable farming model that ensures safe and sustainable growing practices that protect and enrich our food and people for generations to come.