What We Grow

Our Growing Philosophy

Healthy soil grows healthy plants — and healthy plants resist pests and disease far better than any chemical ever could. That's the foundation everything else is built on here at Four Oaks Farm. Our primary soil input is compost, a large portion of which we make right here on the farm. We're also working with a pre-biotic liquid soil amendment that supports microbial life in the soil, and we're in the early stages of developing a cover crop plan to further build organic matter and soil structure over time.

When it comes to pest management, we work with nature rather than against it. The farm is planted with a diverse mix of flowers and we're actively developing a hedgerow to provide habitat for beneficial insects — the predators that keep pest populations in check naturally. In the warm season we have a healthy population of those beneficials already at work, and when a specific pest shows up in numbers, we bring in targeted predators rather than reaching for a spray. We almost never spray — even organic-approved options — because we have honeybees on the farm and their health, along with the health of every other beneficial insect in the system, comes first.

The honeybees have been part of Four Oaks Farm since spring 2023, when a local beekeeper reached out looking for a home for his hives. It turned out to be a natural fit — the bees get a pesticide-free farm full of flowering crops and habitat, and we get pollination and the kind of ecosystem balance that makes the whole operation work better. The apiary is growing, with more hives expected to arrive this spring.

Our high tunnels extend the growing season well beyond what's possible outdoors. The large double-layer tunnel — with an air bladder between the two layers of plastic for added insulation — is where we grow tomatoes and sweet peppers in summer and shelter our winter greens through the cold months. The smaller single-layer tunnel with roll-up sides houses our hot peppers in summer and gets an early start on cold-hardy crops like cabbage, carrots, and onions in late winter and early spring. Together they give us a nearly year-round growing season in a climate that would otherwise shut things down for months at a time.