According to the Mother Earth Gardener website,“ Korean Natural Farming is a set of agricultural methods originating in Asia that date back hundreds of years. Its practices are used to cultivate healthy plants without harmful pesticides or chemical inputs by creating a closed system that’ s balanced with natural inputs from local environments. This is accomplished through the creation of fermented fertilizers and techniques that introduce indigenous microorganisms from the wild into a garden’ s soil structure.”
“ So, we do a feeding schedule for the fruit trees. We do a‘ compost tea’ every two weeks for the first … maybe … three months of the season. And then, during the peak of summer, we do less feedings because they’ re not stretching as much,” Archie said.
He also said the fruit trees were getting so much sun, in the summer, that they were kind of still and towards later in the season, they do another two months of feeding.
“ So, it’ s a three month feeding, maybe, a month and a half to two months of a slower schedule and then back to, maybe, a month or two of a heavier feeding before they go dormant,” he said.
“ Yeah, and when they’ re dormant, you don’ t
A pear tree is already starting to bear fruit this season. really feed them a lot,” added Kim and Archie said they don’ t really give them nutrients, only water.
“ So, water, only, while they’ re dormant because they still grow roots but they don’ t necessarily need nutrients because you don’ t want them to come out of dormancy early,” he said.“ And if you give them nutrients too early, they can wake-up and drop their leaves again and it’ s just a kind of stress that the plant goes through.”
He said, here, the dormant months are usually December-January until late February but it depends on the weather each year.
“ Because we have so many varieties, some things will come out of dormancy a full month before others,” he said.“ So our feeding schedule usually starts around late March with‘ compost teas.’ You know, we give them a week or two to kind of wake-up, get some leaves out before we start feeding,” Archie said.
He said each of the plants have different needs whether they need more or less water and Kim said, for example, kiwis like to be watered but they don’ t like to stay wet.
“ And avocados that want to be grown on a mound because they want the bottoms of their roots to be wet but not the top. They’ ll drown if the top of their roots are wet,” he said.“ It’ s very, very specific things that you learn.”
He said he and Kim were still learning a lot and he still watches a lot of videos on research or reads a lot of books on topics that apply to their farm.
“ So, there is never really like an end goal or completion. It’ s just understanding a little bit better how to cater to whatever that thing is or that tree or that berry or that soil,” Archie said.
He said he thought, the whole system was about not being wasteful and understanding things that people think are waste or trash are actually a very valuable resource.
“ Like grass clippings or wood chips or mulch or leaves that everyone collects in bags and then gives to the trash company. When those leaves are incredible at feeding fungi and microbes and they basically have an entire network of bacteria that the trees don’ t have because they’ re external to the trees,” he said.
They couple also said they were more than wiling to show anyone their organic farming system if they were interested in seeing how it worked and what they were doing. They can be contacted on their Facebook page- Hendricks Produce Patch.
JUNE 2025 MoultrieScene 17