Mulberry Gardens is a vegetable farm using natural growing methods which parallel organic in many ways. Many small growers have adopted naturaly grown as the model of operation for their production methods due to the fact that Organic, being owned by the USDA, is very expensive of time and money due to the stringent inspection, paperwork, and research required in an ongoing basis. This fact is recognized by the USDA, who's rules for Organic Certification exempt the small organic grower from certification as long as all 16 pages of the rules are followed to the letter. The only thing this prevents, however, is the exorbitant cost for certification, everything else remains in place.

I don't use poison sprays, only natural organically approved sprays are used, and then very rarely. I rely more on natural methods extoled by sustainable agricultural methods such as planting crops to attract beneficial insects to control the ones who predate our desired vegetables, and the plants upon which they grow. Without using poison sprays the birds come in and eat many bugs, and the bees are free to come and polinate the flowers that produce our vegetables without succuming to toxic chemicals.

Soils are maintained by turning all the plant wastes back into the soil (except, of course those with an infestation of disease, or insects which munch on the plants to an extent that they decrease our crops). We even grow green manure crops, which are turned back into the soil to enrich it. These were called vegetable manure by the old fashioned farmers, like my unkles and grandfathers, as well as bringing in animal manures (mostly horse manure) and other substances, like tree chips or leaves to enrich the soil directly, or first turn them into compost which then enriches the soil.

We use a crop rotation plan to break the cycle of disease and pest growth and multiplication. When we do bring in specific substances to replace substances the soil here lacks, or is depleted of we use very little. My unkle Will used these same practices of which I speak. He turned everything back into the soil he personally did not eat. He used so very little of the new manufactured fertilizers that the advisers would scoff. He also used crop rotation and green manures in the rotation. He got greater yeild of his wheat and corn than any of his neighbors. He must have been doing something right, Gurney's seeds would send him seed to grow. They figured that the yeild he attained could be honestly advertised as the maximum sustainable yeild for that crop. For more information about the farm click on this link.