“I was in a 32-year organic rut,” says David DeWitt, owner of Dave’s Greens, in Truro. For all of those years, DeWitt was practicing organic farming the way he was taught as a student at College of the Redwoods in Eureka, California. Then a few years ago at a conference on growing cannabis in California, he was exposed to Korean Natural Farming (KNF), a way of farming that looks at the entire farm holistically. Now, the former site of Rock Spray Nursery, which DeWitt transitioned into vegetable farming in 2012, is undergoing a transformation, literally from the ground up.
“Regenerative farming is where we’re heading,” DeWitt explains. “It’s about the soil/food web, and KNF incorporates all of the indigenous microorganisms to foster a healthy food web.”
It all starts with a box of rice planted in the soil. Dewitt grows his own mycelium—the part of a colony of bacteria that searches for nutrients. Think of it as the way a baker uses starter to make sourdough bread. He cooks some rice al dente, and puts it in a box or a basket, though any container that allows organisms in the soil to enter the rice will work. He then makes a small excavation in the soil by scraping the duff away, and plants the box in the depression and covers it with a paper towel. In a week or so, microorganisms will have colonized in the box, and fine, white, threadlike mycelium should be growing on top and throughout the rice. “You want to have a nice blanket of white on top,” DeWitt says.
Through a very simple process of doubling and tripling ingredients, DeWitt adds equal parts of brown sugar to the mixture, then later adding up to 40 to 60 pounds of compost. “Over time, I start with a few billion organisms from under a tree, and grow it to trillions and trillions of organisms,” he says. He can use the mixture to either make a fertile tea to spray on his plants, or spread it at their roots.
DeWitt believes that farming is a form of service. “Getting healthy food that’s been picked at its ripest with the most dense flavor and nutrition into people’s homes and into their bodies is a service,” he says. “To that end, Dave’s Greens is all about diversity. “We grow 26 varieties of tomatoes because nature doesn’t want mono-cropping,” DeWitt says. He grows primarily heirloom tomatoes including Striped German, Carbon, Evergreen, Paul Robeson, Green Zebra, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, and Cherokee Greens, as well as farm stand standards like eggplant, cucumber, peppers, garlic, Swiss chard, and kale, again, all leaning toward heirlooms.
“Heirlooms have been passed on for flavor and color, not shipping,” DeWitt says. “They’re grown to deliver to the customer that day. And with heirlooms you can save the seeds to plant because they haven’t been hybridized.” His green mix contains 20 to 30 varieties of greens, including five or six kinds of lettuce, two or three varieties of arugula, and two to five varieties of sorrel, bok choy, and mustard greens. The farm’s manager, Uli Winslow, grows a variety of mushrooms for which he, too, makes his own growing medium.
You can find Dave’s Greens at the weekly farmer’s markets in Truro, Wellfleet, and Provincetown, where they also sell CSAs, and at some of the finest restaurants on the Outer Cape including Blackfish and its Crush Pad food truck, Terra Luna, High Tide Kitchen food truck, all in Truro, Spindler’s in Provincetown, Ceraldi in Wellfleet, and Mac’s Seafood across the Cape.
“Regenerative farming is where we’re heading,” DeWitt explains. “It’s about the soil/food web, and KNF incorporates all of the indigenous microorganisms to foster a healthy food web.”
It all starts with a box of rice planted in the soil. Dewitt grows his own mycelium—the part of a colony of bacteria that searches for nutrients. Think of it as the way a baker uses starter to make sourdough bread. He cooks some rice al dente, and puts it in a box or a basket, though any container that allows organisms in the soil to enter the rice will work. He then makes a small excavation in the soil by scraping the duff away, and plants the box in the depression and covers it with a paper towel. In a week or so, microorganisms will have colonized in the box, and fine, white, threadlike mycelium should be growing on top and throughout the rice. “You want to have a nice blanket of white on top,” DeWitt says.
Through a very simple process of doubling and tripling ingredients, DeWitt adds equal parts of brown sugar to the mixture, then later adding up to 40 to 60 pounds of compost. “Over time, I start with a few billion organisms from under a tree, and grow it to trillions and trillions of organisms,” he says. He can use the mixture to either make a fertile tea to spray on his plants, or spread it at their roots.
DeWitt believes that farming is a form of service. “Getting healthy food that’s been picked at its ripest with the most dense flavor and nutrition into people’s homes and into their bodies is a service,” he says. “To that end, Dave’s Greens is all about diversity. “We grow 26 varieties of tomatoes because nature doesn’t want mono-cropping,” DeWitt says. He grows primarily heirloom tomatoes including Striped German, Carbon, Evergreen, Paul Robeson, Green Zebra, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, and Cherokee Greens, as well as farm stand standards like eggplant, cucumber, peppers, garlic, Swiss chard, and kale, again, all leaning toward heirlooms.
“Heirlooms have been passed on for flavor and color, not shipping,” DeWitt says. “They’re grown to deliver to the customer that day. And with heirlooms you can save the seeds to plant because they haven’t been hybridized.” His green mix contains 20 to 30 varieties of greens, including five or six kinds of lettuce, two or three varieties of arugula, and two to five varieties of sorrel, bok choy, and mustard greens. The farm’s manager, Uli Winslow, grows a variety of mushrooms for which he, too, makes his own growing medium.
You can find Dave’s Greens at the weekly farmer’s markets in Truro, Wellfleet, and Provincetown, where they also sell CSAs, and at some of the finest restaurants on the Outer Cape including Blackfish and its Crush Pad food truck, Terra Luna, High Tide Kitchen food truck, all in Truro, Spindler’s in Provincetown, Ceraldi in Wellfleet, and Mac’s Seafood across the Cape.
