We've taken what was essentially an acre of grass or lawn that had to be mowed or cut and we've built a bio-intensive market garden on it. We don't till up the soil. We add high-quality compost. We grow cover crops in between annual crops. These cover crops help build up the soil while also providing nutrients and soil life that help grow our annual vegetable crops.
We really focus on harvesting and cycling nutrients on site. We catch and store all our own water in ponds and diversion systems and then use those inputs to irrigate our farm. We're integrating chickens and laying hens right now, using the outputs from them to generate and develop our own compost so that we don't have to be dependent on buying it from outside sources.