In the past five, soon to be six years, Michael Moss has turned a wedge-shaped piece of land nestled between Colo. 119 and Oxford Road from “the triangle of death” into a thriving farm.
Now, with funding from Boulder County, he has his sights set on doing the same at another seemingly infertile piece of land in Gunbarrel.
Moss’ Kilt Farm is one of 11 recipients of 2021 Boulder County Sustainable Food and Agriculture Funds. The grants, which total $305,000, are supported by the county sustainability tax approved by voters in 2016. Of this year’s $305,000 budget, $290,000 was set aside for large projects of more than $40,000, and $15,000 was allocated for smaller budget requests of $5,000 or less, according to a news release.
“This year’s fund recipients will use their grants to develop educational programs, support local food production and consumption, and implement regenerative agriculture practices such as perennial planting, cover cropping, regenerative grazing, no-till drilling, and smart irrigation,” the release states. “These practices increase soil nutrient levels, foster healthy ecosystems, sequester carbon, and help crops become more resistant in the face of climate change.”
This year, which is the second the funds have been awarded, the county received 58 applications totaling more than $2.4 million, up from 42 applications in 2020, according to the release.
“It is compelling to see the interest and initiative Boulder County food producers are taking in soil health and regenerative agriculture. Through these grants, we hope to make local ag more inclusive to all who have interest and we continue to welcome input in this process,” Commissioner Marta Loachamin stated in the release. “From funding grants to buying local food, it will take all of us to make these healthy agricultural practices sustainable on Boulder County lands."
Tim Broderick, county zero waste, food and ag sustainability specialist, attributed the rise in applications this year to increased awareness and the addition of the small grant category, which was created based on feedback received last year.
“The new small budget funds allowed for an increased opportunity for those who did not want to pursue the higher financial threshold needed in 2020,” Broderick said via email.
Applications were reviewed by a committee made up of county sustainability staff, a representative from Boulder County Parks and Open Space and food and agriculture experts, Broderick said. Criteria for evaluation include impact, outputs, organizational capacity, financial viability and other factors such as degree of collaborative effort, community support, public education potential and in-kind or matching funds, he said.
Kilt Farm received $75,000 to duplicate its “mineral balancing, biological inoculations and cover cropping” that turned poor soil into productive agricultural land on 30-plus acres leased from Boulder County Open Space that once served as an unproductive growers’ co-op. Moss will bring Kilt’s practices to the worst 13 of 18 acres at another unsuccessful co-op site in Gunbarrel. He will document his efforts in hopes of helping other farmers get more from their lands.
The Gunbarrel site has two states — concrete and bog, Moss said. Kilt Farm’s land at 8140 Oxford Road had similar extremes when he started leasing it, he said. But since he began farming the patch in 2015, it has become fertile, feeding 300 families a week through its community supported agriculture, or CSA, program and filling the produce aisles at Lucky’s and Alfalfa's markets and a number of boutique grocers, such as Niwot Market, he said.
[ Related: Growing food and protecting nature don’t have to conflict – here’s how they can work together from The Conversation ]
“Mineral balancing and biological inoculations” might sound scientifically complex, but in practice are the simple act of restoring nutrients to the soil that crop harvesting removes.
“If you don’t have good soil, you can’t have good food,” said Moss, whose pre-farming background was hotel and restaurant management.
The tools he used to make Kilt Farm’s soil good again include organic fertilizer (dried chicken waste) and compost tea brewed from compost, sea salt, kelp and molasses. Other ingredients are added to the brew based on soil needs. Moss brews 200 gallons of compost tea a week at Kilt and, with the help of the county funds, said he will be able to brew 2,000 gallons a week for the Gunbarrel land.
Cover crops, which Moss said can be nearly anything from root vegetables, such as turnips and radishes, to grasses to peas also are key to soil health.
“You always want to make sure there’s a living root in the soil, it holds the soil in place,” Moss said, adding that is particularly important in Colorado’s arid, windy climate
Living roots also keep soil biology alive, he said
Moss — whose Kilt Farm takes its name from the kilts he started wearing on yearly trips to the Burning Man festival in Black Rock Nevada for their cool comfort in the desert heat and still wears today — said the Sustainable Food and Agriculture Funds are key to ensuring the county’s agricultural future.
“I think this program is vital to help support healthy, thriving local farms … to really build better open space and agricultural lands,” he said.
And the winners are …
Recipients of 2021 Sustainable Food and Agriculture Funds and their project descriptions as provided by the county are:
- Boulder Valley School District — $39,750 for farm to institution processing innovation planning and pilot. The project will explore creating additional revenue sources for farmers by sourcing, processing, and selling value-added products to institutional buyers, such as schools, universities, and hospitals, who would like to increase local purchases but need large quantities of uniform products.
- Flatirons Young Farmers Coalition — $25,000 for the educational curriculum for Resilient and Sustainable Young Farmers. The coalition will provide a two-year curriculum that focuses on animal husbandry, soil restoration, business fundamentals for farming and ranching, and the production and distribution of small-scale grains.
- Garden to Table — $25,000 for outreach and training for sustainable growing practices in school gardens. Garden to Table, a school garden support organization serving 18 schools in Boulder County, will create a Teacher and Parent Corps that will help integrate garden-based learning into school curriculum and activities.
- Growing Gardens — $35,250 for Long’s Gardens Conservation and Agricultural Plan implementation. Growing Gardens will implement a comprehensive 10-year agricultural management plan on Long’s Gardens, a 25-acre urban educational farm. The initiative will improve soil health and farm ecology to support food production while involving and educating the public about the benefits of regenerative agriculture.
- Isabelle Farm — $50,000 for the Regenerative Grazing on Forage & Cover Crops Project: Isabelle Farm will convert 300 acres of cropland from a traditional hay, grain and silage rotation to a cover crop-grazing system. The project will increase the crop residue grazing program Isabelle Farm started in 2019 in collaboration with Van Thuyne Farms.
- Kilt Farm — $75,000 for a land regeneration pilot project for public and private lands. “Kilt Farm will use mineral balancing, biological inoculations, and cover cropping to turn poor soil into productive agricultural land while cataloging costs, benefits, and improvements so that this technique can be utilized and replicated by other Front Range farmers.” The equipment and techniques supported by the grant will be used by multiple farms on both public and private lands.
- Red Wagon Farm — $40,000 for increasing the local winter food supply for Boulder County. Red Wagon Farm will increase the production of winter root crops for CSA members and local restaurant and wholesale customers. The project “will improve soil health and optimize seasonal produce distribution.”
- Boulder Mushroom — $4,107 for fungal inoculation of on-farm biomass for carbon-negative farming best practices. “This is a scalable pilot project in which fungal inoculation of on-farm woody biomass will be tested as a method for building biologically active soil and transforming waste carbon material.” Test beds will be built at Ollin Farms and inoculated with edible strains of fungi produced by Boulder Mushroom. The beds will be monitored for a year and analyzed for the nutrient availability and biological makeup.
- Dharma’s Garden — $5,000 for purchase of an outdoor education shelter. The shelter will allow for socially distanced outdoor education including farm demonstrations and best practice workshops about regenerative agriculture and soil health.
- Earth’s Table — $4,000 for demonstrating regenerative agriculture techniques for six vegetable gardens. The program “will improve soil health in six vegetable gardens by minimizing soil disturbance, utilizing cover crops, and implementing living roots to grow garden vegetables for local food banks. Earth’s Table will partner with Edaphic Solutions to brew compost tea to be used in the gardens.”
- Community Table Farm — $1,893 for mushrooms and composting on small farms. Community Table Farm will build a fruiting chamber to produce mushrooms as a value-added product for its CSA and use the mushroom compost as an amendment for garden beds. It plans to build a cost-effective model of on-farm production of mushrooms and soil amendments that can be replicated on small farms.
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