“ What’ s at stage one, what’ s at stage two and what’ s completely finished,” he said.“ That’ s really the life-source of organic farming, in our eyes.”
The compost piles consist of coffee grounds, weeds and other vegetation and fruit scraps from their kitchen. They are able to source coffee grounds from local coffee shops that would otherwise throw them away.
When I asked what was in the“ compost tea,” Archie said it was a specific ratio of compost, worm castings, a little bit of molasses, coffee grounds and rock dust and sea kelp, both for minerals. He brews it for 24 to 36 hours, using the air stones that are used for an aquarium, and then he runs it through the system.
“ The science behind it is when you add sugar to the water with the microbes that are in the compost and in the worm castings …. when you add air and sugar, they basically duplicate over and over and over,” he said and added that it turned a million microbes in the compost into a billion of them. He said if they just used the compost, they would have to use four times the amount to get the same effect on the fruit trees as the“ compost tea.”
He’ s never had a plant that the“ compost tea” did not help, he said. He said if there was a nitrogen issue or a nutrient deficiency or whatever it was, the“ compost tea” seemed to be a heal all in every way possible.
He said it gives the sugars to the carbohydrates, it gives the nitrogen, it gives microbes and it gives things that he doesn’ t think people have knowledge of yet.
“ Scientists have done a lot of work on soil but when you’ re making something from worm castings or‘ compost tea,’ there’ s so many millions of microbes … you know, it’ s a living organism,” he said.“ We’ re really still in the infancy of understanding, I think, how powerful it is to actually do this organic farming style.”
Next, the couple showed me their irrigation system, which is a network of poly tubing under the entire orchard. There’ s a 3 / 4-inch main line from the pump and it goes down to a 1 / 4-inch line for each tree where it ends in a one gallon per hour dripper.
They use a Venturi pump, which is a water powered pump, for their irrigation and the entire system is called a“ fertigation” system, he said.
At Hendricks Produce Patch, they separate their compost into stations so that they can monitor the process. Here, Archie shows compost in one of its stages of break-down.
“ So, it’ s basically a fertilization through our irrigation. So, they call it a‘ fertigation system’ where, basically, I can water the trees with our nutrients, which is our‘ compost tea,’ directly through the irrigation line,” he explained.
Also on the farm were huge piles of wood chips in different stages of decay. Archie said they do heavy mulching around their trees.
“ I would say, that every tree gets approximately 30 to 50 gallons of wood mulch as a weed suppressant …. because fruit trees don’ t want to have to fight for nutrients,” he said.
The couple also uses Korean Natural Farming methods, which, Archie said, is to use everything that grows well on the land, like weeds, as a means to feed the soil. He said, they pull the weeds and, while they’ re still green, put them in a barrel and cover them with water. The nutrients in the weeds, as they ferment, are leeched into the water.“ And you can use that as fertilizer,” he said. Kim added that the weeds grew so well on their property that they have plenty to turn into fertilizer.
16 MoultrieScene JUNE 2025