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Market Garden

Market Garden Systems Illustration

Grow Space

Our growing space for annuals is a modest 6,000 sq ft of 30" wide veggie beds. We adhere to no-till practices along with JADAM Natural Farming (JNF) and Korean Natural Farming (KNF) techniques.

We consider ourselves 'beyond organic', making nearly all of our own inputs. No synthetic chemicals are used. In addition to purchasing heirloom seed, we do bring in kelp meal to ensure our soil has all the minerals of the sea.

Plant Nursery

Key to the success of our Market Garden is a 14' x 32' propagation high tunnel. Here we make veggie starts and propagate plants. In the summer it doubles as a hot house. In the spring and autumn, it offers opportunity for season extension.

Harvest Station

Our 12' x 16' harvest station makes our market garden harvesting efficient. Our harvest station, provides a suitable area for processing vegetables, washing greens, and drying herbs. Wash water is directed to a mulch pit system in the kitchen garden, so no amount of soil is wasted. There is also room for a future 8' x 8' coolbot powered cooler expansion.

Sheep System

Sheep Systems Illustration

Intensive Grazing

Between May and November, the ewes along with their lambs are raised on grass. Our ewe/lamb flock ranges between 22-30 head. They are rotated through pasture with electric fencing and mobile shelter. We move them every one to two days depending on the available food in each paddock. Intensive grazing maximizes food conversion and improves the soil.

In November, the ewes are separated from the lambs and united with the ram in the silvopasture for tupping. They remain in the silvopasture until March when they are moved to the lambing pen.

Silvopasture

We keep our ram / wether flock busy rotating them through our silvopasture. Silvopasture is an agro-foresty system which allows for enough light to permeate the canopy to grow pasture grass. A pasture with trees offers shade, water storage, and a tree yield in addition to grass and forbes for the sheep to eat. Tree yields can vary between lumber, nuts, mushroom logs, biochar stock, and tree fodder.

Lambing pen

In late winter, Ewes are taken to the lambing pen for lambing. Lambing is one of the most exciting times on the farm. Each ewe gets their own jug where they bond with their lambs. Once the lambs are old enough, they are socialized with the main flock before moving out to pasture around Memorial Day.

The lambing pen doubles as a nursery ward when we need to attend to sick or injured sheep. It also allows us to quarantine new sheep arrivals if needed. In late April or early May, we shear in the lambing pen as well.

Biochar System

Biochar Process Illustration

Stock Material

We use a mixture of soft and hardwood stock for making biochar. The stock is generated from our farm. We use every bit of slash wood we can find from forest thinning or storm damage. We also offer a service for our neighbors to drop-off slash waste.

The Kiln

We use a Kon Tiki kiln to produce biochar. This is an open-top kiln with a unique shape that allows us to efficiently pyrolize wood stock. It's a great option for material up to 2" in diameter. Larger material can be used with proper technique. The kiln gets up to 1250ºF, which results in a high quality charcoal.

Biochar

We run our charcoal through a hammer mill to crush it into bits in order to maximize surface area. This finely crushed charcoal is ready for use in the soil where it will become biochar once it is populated by microorganisms.

You can speed up the process by inoculating the biochar before you add it to the soil. If your soil is light on microbial life, it is recommended to do this before adding biochar to your soil. We use vermicompost tea to inoculate our biochar.

The A&A MFG. Factory

Factory Systems Illustration

Again & Again MFG.

The resources our farm produces go to our factory to be made into useful products. In our factory space, we process wool, operate a large compost worm system, and ferment our own plant foods. The factory space allows us to remain productive through the winter.

Wool

Textiles are a human necessity. We believe textiles are as important as food when considering the environmental impacts of each industry. Incorporating local fiber into your wardrobe is an easy way to have a large impact on reducing your carbon footprint.

We raise sheep for fiber, but also all wool unsuitable for textiles is made into fertilizer. In addition to our own wool supply we offer shepherds across New England an opportunity to utilize their excess wool as well. In 2024, we removed 4,000 lb of wool from the waste stream!

Vermicompost

Compost worms offer a unique way to increase soil fertility with harvest residue. Composting with worms adds additional benefits beyond traditional composting. Enzymes and bacteria found in the gut of a worm work together to create hormonal growth response in plants.

We offer brewed vermicompost tea as a plant food throughout the growing season. We also use this worm tea for inoculating biochar. In 2025 we will be offer worm castings as well, stay tuned!

Again & Again MFG.

Key to our sustainability is our 20' x 40' factory space. This space enables us to make products from resources generated on the farm. We use the space to process wool, make growing supplies, and process our farm's waste streams. Here we ferment soil building recipes found in Korean Natural Farming and JADAM Natural Farming and manage a large vermicompost operation. 

In 2024, our factory systems expanded to be able to process waste wool from other shepherds throughout New England. So far Again & Again has removed 4,000 lb of wool from New England landfills for conversion into a high quality wool pellet fertilizer. 

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