The Ecological Farm: A Minimalist No-Till, No-Spray, Selective-Weeding, Grow-Your-Own-Fertilizer System for Organic Agriculture by Helen Atthowe
When most people first learn about industrial methods of farming, they’re inherently disturbed by the reliance on synthetic chemistry and how divorced such farming has become from nature. It’s unsurprising that many feel like the only way to fix the problem is via an extreme reaction, such as veganism, or rewilding, or eating bugs.
Helen Atthowe, in her new book The Ecological Farm, shows that it’s not necessary to give up on agriculture — that natural systems for production-scale farming are possible. Atthowe and her late husband, Carl Rosato, developed and maintained a method of vegetable and orchard production that promotes and relies on a healthy, diverse, multispecies ecosystem. This is an excellent book that will surely inspire ecologically minded growers to adapt Atthowe’s systems in their own contexts.
I do have to warn readers — and confess myself — to feeling perplexed and confused at first by Atthowe’s system. It’s quite a bit out of the ordinary, even for those of us who operate other-than-mainstream, beyond-organic methods. And while confusion is often the beginning of learning, it’s uncomfortable. The confusion lies in having such a strong desire to develop the type of system described by the book’s subtitle — no-till, no-spray, minimal-weeding, self-produced-fertilizers — but then seeing my own mediocre garden and orchard and thinking, “Wait, how is that even possible?” Because I’m certainly not getting the results Atthowe describes — yet.
But her model does make sense. It just requires focusing more on managing ecological relationships than on cash crops.
Atthowe started farming in western Montana. She studied with Masanobu Fukuoka (The One Straw Revolution), spent a year with Wes Jackson (Becoming Native to This Place) at the Land Institute, and then met her husband, Carl, at an Acres U.S.A. Eco-Ag conference. She moved to his farm in California, and after successfully farming for several years there, they were able to “retire” to a 200-acre farm in Oregon.
The basic principle of Atthowe’s method, as mentioned above, is focusing on ecological monitoring and letting that determine management decisions. In the absence of most spraying, tillage, and bare-earth cultivation, the system relies primarily on establishing living mulches and then executing carefully timed mowing (along with pruning and thinning in the orchard). Mowing cover crops — living mulches — influences the microbial system underground and also provides vital habitat for predators of pest insects. Atthowe’s wildlife habitats aren’t just on the corners and edges of fields, though — they’re incorporated into every alleyway in the orchard and between every row in the vegetable fields. Mowing these strips during bloom, for example, would send thrips, which attack peaches, into the trees; mowing selectively, though — every other row, in order to maintain habitat for thrips, and their predators, in the ground cover — eventually eliminates the need for spraying.
Atthowe also manages the C:N ratios of living mulches and continually feeds the microbiology via residue application (mowing) three to five times a year. Each mowing is of cover crops, leaves or prunings that have different C:N ratios, providing the soil different diets at different times. The diversity of living mulches Atthowe uses also provides different rhizosphere relationships and differing habitats for various insects.
In early spring in the orchard, for example, she mows only underneath the trees in order to diminish competition for tree roots; mowing young grasses, when the C:N ratio is low, feeds the trees. Mowing and blowing toward the tree also helps suppress weeds. Early in the season, she leaves alleyways to grow to provide habitat, always monitoring what insects are present. She begins to mow into the alleyways as the season progresses, and she mows it all the way down to a golf course by the end of the season. This aids with nutrient cycling by re-incorporating the fallen leaves and the prunings, prevents the spread of disease, and discourage voles.
Atthowe wisely accepts a 10 percent “tithe” to ecology — she doesn’t expect to get 100 percent of the fruit. This orchard system operates with greatly reduced disease pressure; while continuing to have some continuing challenges with spotted-wing drosophila on cherries and coddling moth on apple, Atthowe mostly grows peaches and nectarines, and she gets comparable yields to other organic growers in the region.
The vegetable system Atthowe uses admittedly has somewhat lower yields compared to regular organic systems, and compared to her own when she used to apply large amounts of compost. The system again relies on living mulches, but with selective strip-tillage instead of permanent beds. The principle is to only disturb the soil when doing so feeds the soil microbes. How this works differs slightly depending on the crop — how tolerant of weed pressure it is — but her basic method is to strip-till a four-foot row when grasses have begun to grow just a few inches in the spring, wait for the living mulch between the strips to get a bit larger, mow and blow that onto the strips, and then till again. This provides a fertile bed to plant into. She uses a wheel hoe at the beginning of the season and mows and blows the pathways into the beds, but once plants are well established, she allows the living mulch — grasses, legumes and, yes, weeds — to encroach. As mentioned, yields aren’t quite as good as more intensely managed organic systems, but Atthowe uses no sprays, does minimal weeding, applies no fertilizers and has almost no disease or insect pressure. All in all, it sounds like a good tradeoff.
As one can imagine, Atthowe’s system does not produce the neat and tidy look of either an Amish vegetable garden or Pinterest. But it’s a beautiful sort of messy. The book is worth it for the photos alone — to see that this kind of farming is possible and also that it does have its own type of charm.
And Helen Atthowe is contagiously optimistic. Take a listen to her interviews with Jesse Frost on the No-Till Growers podcast or with John Kempf on the Regenerative Agriculture podcast and you’ll find yourself both puzzled by how such a system can be managed (it can) and excited to incorporate Atthowe’s methods on your own farm. Anyone who spent her life farming, married a farmer, and then retired to a larger farm obviously has an infectious love for the craft.
Regenerative growers understand the importance of soil health management. They balance their soils, they think about soil biology, and in the past decade or so they’ve even begun focusing on precision plant/tree nutrition management via sap analysis and other techniques. Atthowe provides another perspective — not a new one, to be sure — of ecological management. More intensely focusing on managing the nearby ecology in living mulches — for its benefits to the rhizosphere and as habitat for beneficial predators — could be the next frontier in regenerative growing.
