We have enrolled in a 6-part training led by Real Food Campaign Director Dan Kittredge, on Nutrient Dense Crop Production. Dan is an organic farmer closely tied to NOFA Mass; he is former executive director of Remineralize the Earth. We’re going to learn how to test our crops for their BRIX reading, which is an indicator of nutritional content. Dan’s belief is that our food today is at least 40% less nutritious than it was in our grandparents’ time, due to the depletion of minerals in the soil.
Our primary goal for the farm is to build soil, so it feels right to learn the science behind the role that minerals play in the energy capacity of the soil, and therefore the crops. There’s lots of biology, chemistry, and physics to learn!
We’re sending soil samples out to Logan Labs in Ohio this week, from: 1. our current garlic beds (which we’ve been amending for 3 seasons now); 2. greenhouses 1 & 2 (which have had some amendment, and also some harvested crops); 3. greenhouse 3 (brand new, cover crops only). We’re interested to see if these samples are different from each other!