Liberty Oak Farms

Luscious tomatoes, growing vigorously with our 'black gold' compost

Organic Philosophy

Healthy Soil = Healthy Plants = Healthy People

Healthy Soil is fed with compost, green manures and natural fertilizers.

Healthy soil is alive! It is teeming with bacteria, fungi, and other microbes which break minerals and nutrients down into plant-digestible pieces. Our job as vegetable growers is to nurture these soil microbes and improve the soil, which will in turn provide for our crops.  Healthy plants come from living soils.  Healthy plants are naturally resistant to disease, pests, weeds, and drought, and they are much more nutritious!

Healthy people eat nutritious foods.  Healthy people are naturally resistant to disease too, and are much happier!

So, we feed the soil and its inhabitants with compost, green manures, and natural fertilizers.  We rotate crops, which minimizes nutrient depletion.  We don’t use pesticides or herbicides, which are detrimental to soil (and human) health. And we select varieties for taste and nutrition (not storage and shipping), choosing heirloom varieties over hybrids in order to diversify plant genetics and pass our seed heritage to the next generation.

Garden beds are made ready with organic compost and tilling.  Each year as we continue to add nutrients to the soil, rotate our crops, and minimize impaction and chemicals, the soil becomes more tillable with less effort.

Compost improves soil health

Our all natural compost piles are a mix of horse manure, bedding materials, hay and alfalfa, unused plant bedding soils, and last years left over plants and vines.  We add to the piles everyday, turning it over weekly to gain from the heat produced as the material and breaks down.  We let the piles “cook” for 9-12 months before using on the land.

Tomatoes, grown with organic methods, nearly ready for harvesting

Techniques/ Practices

We never use synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides in our production.  These toxic and unsustainable practices contribute to soil and ground water pollution as well as the degradation of life from microbes to insects to birds to humans.

We start all crops from certified organic seed on our farm.  Starting our own plants gives us several advantages: it gives us more diverse varietal selection; we can ensure a healthy start to our plants; and, we can ensure that no synthetic chemicals are sprayed on our plants or seeds.

Special soil mixture with soil blocks for optimum seedlings

Seeds are either sown directly in the field (as with carrots, beets, and beans) or are started in “soil blocks” in our greenhouse (as with lettuce, broccoli, and tomatoes).  Soil blocks are basically a special mixture of soil, compost, peat, and fertilizers that are molded into blocks using a tool called a soil blocker.  This technique grows superior seedlings compared to container grown plants.

Container-grown plants are prone to root circling, which causes stress and transplant shock.  Roots in soil blocks, however, are naturally “air pruned” by the lack of container, and are much healthier and less stressed when transplanted.  Not to mention, soil blocks do not depend on the annual purchase of plastic containers!

Baby plants in greenhouse

Soil health is of utmost importance in our system.  We feed the soil which feeds our plants.  Therefore, we use only natural fertilizers for our soils, which are long-lasting, simple, and effective.  Compost is the main source of nutrients for our crops.  Compost, or “black gold”, sustains the life in the soil, which in turn feeds our crops.  We also use natural rock powders such as greensand and colloidal phosphate for supplementary minerals.  We foliar feed our plants when needed with seaweed, fish emulsion, and compost tea.

Green manures, or cover crops, are an important part of our soil building process as well.  Green manures, when turned under, reinvigorate the soil with organic matter, nutrients, and sometimes nitrogen (in the case of legumes).  Our favorite cover crops include buckwheat, winter rye, and hairy vetch.

We minimize tillage whenever possible. Habitual tilling can create a hardpan below the soil surface and can disrupt the aggregation of a healthy soil.  To combat this, we employ the use of a chisel plow, which deeply loosens the soil without disturbing the soil’s structure.  We’ve even modified our chisel plow with additional hilling disks.  Combining chiseling with hilling cuts our tractor usage in half, and allows us to grow on raised beds while minimizing soil compaction.

Drip irrigation ensures adequate watering with no waste

As we all know, Central Texas rains can be hard to depend on.  So irrigation on a vegetable farm is a necessity to ensure a healthy harvest.  We utilize a drip irrigation system for our watering needs.  Drip systems waste no water to ground runoff or to the wind; the water is slowly dripped directly at the roots of our crops.  Not only is it economical, but it is also environmentally responsible.  We irrigate only when necessary to preserve this most precious resource.  We also strive to build healthy soils that are more immune to the effects of the weather (or lack thereof).

We harvest our crops at the peak of flavor and nutrition, and bring them to market within 12 hours of harvest (sometimes much less).  We emphasize quality over quantity, and we strive for produce that is fresh, delicious, and nutrient-dense.

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Liberty Oak Farms   *  311 Oak Lane  *  Liberty Hill, Texas    *    512-294-0588